Critical theorists have noted a regressive discourse of gender running through much modernist cultural commentary; they have highlighted ways in which its value-laden language is often attached to discussion of entertainment film, as a powerful branch of mass culture. It has similarly attached itself to film music, as a supposedly overemotional and manipulative remnant of European late romanticism. The purpose of this book is to interrogate some of the implications of the opposition between film music and serious “classical music,” drawing the former into closer historical alignment with the l ... More

Critical theorists have noted a regressive discourse of gender running through much modernist cultural commentary; they have highlighted ways in which its value-laden language is often attached to discussion of entertainment film, as a powerful branch of mass culture. It has similarly attached itself to film music, as a supposedly overemotional and manipulative remnant of European late romanticism. The purpose of this book is to interrogate some of the implications of the opposition between film music and serious “classical music,” drawing the former into closer historical alignment with the latter. It therefore reflects as much upon ideas about music and musical values as about film, analyzing the implications of gender-related ideas about music alongside those about film. It consequently proposes a history of twentieth-century music that would include the scores of a number of the major Hollywood movies discussed here, like The Bride of Frankenstein, King Kong, Rebecca, Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane, or Psycho.