Full Description
Covering titles ranging from Rocketship X-M (1950) to Wall-E (2008), these insightful essays measure the relationship between music and science fiction film from a variety of academic perspectives. Thematic sections survey specific compositions utilized in science fiction movies; Broadway's relationship with the genre; science fiction elements in popular songs; the conveyance of subjectivity and identity through music; and such individual composers as Richard Strauss (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Bernard Herrmann (The Day the Earth Stood Still).
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
—Mathew J. Bartkowiak
PART I. "OPEN THE POD DOOR, HAL": A SURVEY OF MUSIC'S ROLE IN SCIENCE FICTION FILM
1. A Familiar Sound in a New Place: The Use of the Musical Score Within the Science Fiction Film
—Cara Marisa Deleon
2. A Popular Avant-Garde: The Paradoxical Tradition of Electronic and Atonal Sounds in Sci-Fi Music Scoring
—Lisa M. Schmidt
PART II. "GIVE MY REGARDS TO THE BARYCENTER": BROADWAY'S RELATION TO SCIENCE FICTION FILM
3. "Hello WALL-E!": Nostalgia, Utopia, and the Science Fiction Musical
—Kathryn A.T. Edney and Kit Hughes
4. Just Imagine: The Musical Effacement of Dystopia in an Early Sound Film
—Katherine Spring
PART III. BECOMING THE STAR-CHILD: MUSIC AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY
5. Ambient Reverberations: Diegetic Music, Science Fiction, and Otherness
—Seth Mulliken
6. Sci-Fi Film and Sounds of the Future
—Matthias Konzett
PART IV. MOON/SPOON/CROON: SCIENCE FICTION AND POPULAR MUSIC
7. "It's Hip to Be Square": Rock and Roll and the Future
—Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper
8. The Intergalactic Lounge: Barbarella and Hearing the Future
—Mathew J. Bartkowiak
9. Proposing an Alter-Destiny: Science Fiction in the Art and Music of Sun Ra
—Jerome J. Langguth
PART V. "ALL THOSE MOMENTS": INSTANCES THAT SHAPED OUR AUDITORY FUTURE
10. Suspended Motion in the Title Scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still
—Stephen Husarik
11. Strauss, Kubrick and Nietzsche: Recurrence and Reactivity in the Dance of Becoming That Is 2001: A Space Odyssey
—Gregg Redner
PART VI. "SETTING THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN": COMPOSERS AND COMPOSITIONS IN SCIENCE FICTION FILM
12. Rocketship X-M: The Sounds of a Martian Breeze
—John C. Tibbetts
13. Seeing Beyond His Own Time: The Sounds of Jerry Goldsmith
—Cynthia J. Miller
About the Contributors
Index
