Identifying and Interpreting Incongruent Film Music

by David Ireland

Overview

This book explores the concept of incongruent film music, challenging the idea that this label only describes music that is inappropriate or misfitting for a film's images and narrative. Defining incongruence as a lack of shared properties in the audiovisual relationship, this study examines various types of incongruence between a film and its music and considers the active role that it can play in the construction of a film's meaning and influencing audience response. Synthesising findings from research in the psychology of music in multimedia, as well as from ideas sourced in semiotics, film music, and poststructuralist theory, this interdisciplinary book provides a holistic perspective that reflects the complexity of moments of film-music incongruence. With case studies including well-known films such as Gladiator and The Shawshank Redemption, this book combines scene analysis and empirical audience reception tests to emphasise the subjectivity, context-dependency, and multi-dimensionality inherent in identifying and interpreting incongruent film music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030405236
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/27/2019
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Ireland is Lecturer in music psychology at the University of Leeds, UK. He has previously published on incongruent film music in the interdisciplinary Constructing Crime collection (2012), as well as The Soundtrack and Music and the Moving Image journals.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- Part I: Identifying Incongruence.- 2. Interrogating (In)congruence: The Incongruent Perspective.- 3. Identifying (In)congruence.- Part II: Interpreting Incongruence.- 4. Introduction to Part II.- 5. Intradomain Incongruence in the Opening Battle Sequence From Gladiator.- 6. Mozart, Harmonicas, and Aesthetic Incongruence in The Shawshank Redemption.- 7. Jazz, Kazoos, and Conceptual Incongruence in The Informant!.- 8. Duran Duran and Semantic Incongruence in L4yer Cake.- 9. Conclusions.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“David Ireland’s book is ‘cutting edge’ scholarship in the best sense of the term. It takes a deceptively simple question—what is incongruent film music?—and examines it from varied disciplinary perspectives using an impressive range of analytical tools. With its ambitious synthesis of film theory, empirical research, and close reading, Ireland’s approach not only displays methodological sophistication, but also offers a pathbreaking model for future humanistic inquiry. I recommend it highly!” (Jeff Smith, Professor of Film, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)“David Ireland's book takes the reader on an engaging and enlightening exploration of the concept of congruence, a term that permeates theoretical and empirical discussions of film music, but has rarely been critically examined. Ireland approaches the topic with astonishing breadth—bridging film music studies and music psychology with the meticulous scholarship and clarity that will appeal to readers across multipledisciplines. This book should have a far-reaching influence on the study of film music.” (Siu-Lan Tan, James A. B. Stone Professor of Psychology, Kalamazoo College, USA)

“David Ireland has tackled a difficult problem in film-music studies by carefully collating and coordinating a variety of approaches that have often themselves been considered ‘incongruent’ in the past. The result is not only a great success but also has broader implications for film-music analysis and interpretation.” (David Neumeyer, Professor Emeritus of Music Theory, The University of Texas at Austin, USA)