Postgraduate Course: Music and Image (ELCC11023)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The purpose of this MSc course is to encourage in-depth understanding of the relationship between the imagery and cinematographic techniques in diverse film traditions (and some operas), and their accompanying musical scores. The transition from 'silent' cinema to quite a wide range of sound/talking film approaches to the cinematographic art will be studied. Traditionally most film score composers had background training in European classical music but as the years on influences on film music have been more diverse to include popular and electronic music. |
| Course description |
The course will familiarise students with the principles and debates of intermedial research, develop their analytical skills, and prepare them for the requirements of specific assignments, within respective intellectual frameworks. In particular it will help them develop their skills both in music analysis and cinematographic techniques and the points of intersection and areas of synergy between the two.
Set works will include:-
Weeks 1&2: Opera
Mozart The Magic Flute
Verdi La Traviata
Week 3: Silent cinema
Emile Raynaud's Pantomimes lumineuses (1892)
Eisenstein The Battleship Potemkin (1925) - extracts
Chaplin Modern Times (1936)
Week 4: First sound film
Crosland's The Jazz Singer (1927) with Al Jolson
Week 5: Hollywood golden age and film noir
Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929)
Lang's The Secret Beyond the Door (1948)
Week 6: French classic, 'new wave', and Italian
Vigo's Zéro de conduite (1933) (extracts)
Fellini's La Strada (1954)
Resnais Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
Godard's A Bout de souffle (1960) (extracts)
Week 7: British cinema
Schlesinger's Billy Liar (1963)
Cattaneo's The Full Monty (1997)
Loach's My Name is Joe (1998) (extracts)
Week 8: Students propose films/film extracts for analysis and discussion in class
Week 9: Indian cinema
Mehboob's Mother India (1957)
Ray's Jalsaghar (1958)
Week 10: Japanese cinema
Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953)
Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Student Learning Experience
Classes will begin with an introductory talk from the Course Organiser accompanied by a powerpoint presentation in which key issues will be set out in relation to the given topic of the week.
This will be followed by group work discussions oriented by supplied questions, with some group tasks to be accomplished. There will be short individual and group presentations. Ultimately students' achievement, i.e. evidence of the evolution in their learning in this area, will be demonstrated and measured in their end of semester assessed essay.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students on LLC MSc programmes get first priority to this programme. If you are not on an LLC programme, please let your administrator or the course administrator know you are interested in the course. Unauthorised enrolments will be removed. No auditors are permitted. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 16 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% Coursework
30% - Individual in-class presentation
70% - End of semester essay |
| Feedback |
Students will receive individual feedback for their coursework submission. Hence there will be written feedback to students' end of semester essays, but also formative assessment accompanied by verbal feedback in the course of the semester. Each student will prepare and deliver a presentation to the whole group in the course of semester, an exercise which will offer the opportunity to give him or her verbal feedback on progress made. Students are welcome to discuss their essay plans with the Course Organiser and will have the possibility of coming to their office hour to speak in private regarding their work. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Use a number of research technologies, including online resources and databases.
- Identify and formulate research problems in Intermediality, drawing upon peer-reviewed secondary resources.
- Develop skills in literary, film and visual analysis.
- Develop the ability to approach analysis of multimedia artforms.
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Reading List
Essential Reading
Abbate, Carolyn Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century Princeton University Press, 1991
Abel, Richard and Altman, Rick The Sounds of Early Cinema Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001
Booth, Wayne The Craft of Research Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016
Desjardins, Christian Inside Film Music Composers Speak Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 2006
Inglis, Ian, ed. Popular Music and Film London: Wallflower Press, 2003
Mera, Miguel and Burnand, David eds. European Film Music Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006
Swynnoe, Jan G. The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936-58 Woodbridge, the Boydell Press, 2002
Tambling, Jeremy Opera, Ideology and Film Manchester University Press: 1987
Recommended
Bordwell, David. Film Art: An Introduction, New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2020.
Cottrell, S. Critical thinking Skills: Developing Effective Analysis and Argument. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Davis, Darrell Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film New York: Columbia University Press, 1996
Gibbs, John. Mise-En-Scene: Film Style and Interpretation. New York: Wallflower Press, 2002.
Glyn Davis, Kay Dickinson, Lisa Patti, and Amy Villarejo, eds. Film Studies: A Global Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Godfrey, Jeanne. How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays, London: Macmillan Education, 2018.
Lampl, Kenneth Film Music the basics (Routledge, 2024)
Ryan Michael. A Complete Guide to Literary Analysis and Theory. Abindon Oxon: Routledge, 2023.
Silverman, Jonathan, and Dean Rader. The World Is a Text: Writing About Visual and Popular Culture, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2018.
Soles, Derek. 2003. Writing an Academic Essay: How to Plan, Draft, Revise and Write Essays. Taunton: Studymates.
Wennekes and Audissino (eds) Cinema Changes: Incorporations of Jazz in the Film Soundtrack Brepols, 2019
Further
Egorova, Tatiana Soviet Film Music: An Historical Survey Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997
Eyman, Scott The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-30 The John Hopkins University Press, 1997
Flinn, Caryl Strains of Utopia: Gender, Nostalgia and Hollywood Film Music Princeton University Press, 1992 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
research and enquiry
creative problem solving
critical and reflective thinking
articulate communication
personal and intellectual autonomy
self-organization and effectiveness |
| Keywords | Intermediality,Film techniques,Musical scoring,Narrative exposition |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Samuel Coombes
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | |
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