Lowering the Boom

Jay Beck is an assistant professor of media and cinema studies in the College of Communication at DePaul University. Tony Grajeda is an associate professor of cultural studies in the English Department at the University of Central Florida.

• Acknowledgments   ixIntroduction: The Future of Film Sound Studies   1Jay Beck and Tony GrajedaPart 1: Theorizing Sound1. The Phenomenology of Film Sound: Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped   23John Belton2. The Proxemics of the Mediated Voice   36Arnt Maaso3. Almost Silent: The Interplay of Sound and Silence in Contemporary Cinema and Television   51Paul Theberge4. The Sounds of "Silence": Dolby Stereo, Sound Design, and The Silence of the Lambs   68Jay BeckPart II: Historicizing Sound5. Sonic Imagination; or, Film Sound as a Discursive Construct in Czech Culture of the Transitional Period   87Petr Szczepanik6. Sounds of the City: Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" and Urban Modernity   105Matthew Malsky7. Film and the Wagnerian Aspiration: Thoughts on Sound Design and the History of the Senses   123James LastraPart III: Sound and Genre8. Asynchronous Documentary: Bunuel's Land without Bread   141Barry Mauer9. "We'll Make a Paderewski of You Yet!": Acoustic Reflections in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T   152Nancy Newman10. Paul Sharits's Cinematics of Sound   171Melissa Ragona11. "Every Beautiful Sound Also Creates an Equally Beautiful Picture": Color Music and Walt Disney's Fantasia   183Clark FarmerPart IV: Film Sound and Cultural Studies12. "A Question of the Ear": Listening to Touch of Evil   201Tony Grajeda13. "Sound Sacrifices": The Postmodern Melodramas of World War II   218Debra White-Stanley14. Real Fantasies: Connie Stevens, Silencio, and Other Sonic Phenomena in Mulholland Drive   233Robert MiklitschPart V: Case Studies of Film Sound15. Selling Spectacular Sound: Dolby and the Unheard History of Technical Trademarks   251Paul Grainge16. (S)lip-Sync: Punk Rock Narrative Film and Postmodern Musical Performance   269David Laderman17. Critical Hearing and the Lessons of Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up   289David T. Johnson18. Rethinking Point of Audition in The Cell   299Anahid KassabianWorks Cited   307Contributors   327Index   331

“An excellent collection of essays which reveals much about the state of play of soundtrack studies and offers many fresh and original insights. It will certainly be of value to students and scholars of film sound.”--Music, Sound, and the Moving Image"A substantial and important book, Lowering the Boom includes work from both established scholars and emerging voices in the field and is a welcome addition to auditory culture and sound studies."--Steve J. Wurtzler, author of Electric Sounds: Technological Change and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media “[Lowering the Boom reclaims] cinema as an “audiovisual” object, demonstrating conclusively that whatever the relative importance of the “audio” and “visual” parts, neither can be ignored . . . . I hope Lowering the Boom is widely read.”--Jump Cut "A central text for the study of sound in media. Lowering the Boom's wide range of topics joins history and critical debates and will be useful and appealing to scholars and students of sound design, media studies, and film theory."--Donald Crafton, author of The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931