The Music-Image: Closing the Methodological Gap between Musicology and Film Studies

Abstract

What is film music and how should it be analysed? Film Music Studies has a problematic history that has separated the analysis of music from the image due to the opposing methodologies of Musicology and Film Studies. This thesis discovers a new way of thinking about film music called the music-image. The music-image is the semiotic ambiguity that interlocks 'music' and 'image' through time, analysing a whole image with no fixed meaning or communication, bridging the methodologies of Musicology and Film Studies to do so. The music-image is a philosophical and theoretical model that encourages new film music analysis, rather than an applied analytical model. Theorists who have attempted this ‘bridging’ have leaned towards creating unified theories of musical score and visual form, addressing mainly the mechanics of how music and images work. However, such models rarely consider the spectator’s experience as part of the puzzle. There needs to be a new way of thinking about film music to interlock music and image in one analysis to consider a whole audio-visual experience. I term this ontological interlocking of music and image, quite literally, the music-image. The music-image adopts Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the ‘spiritual automaton’ into the music-image automaton which interlocks the semiotic systems of music and visual image in a whole audio-visual system of meaning. This philosophical and theoretical model avoids any top-down ‘Grand Theory’ as the music-image needs the experience of the spectator and cinema to exist, as any film music needs cinema to exist. The methodologies of Musicology and Film Studies are bridged to explore the music-image as one ‘whole’ image.