Off Key

When Film and Music Won't Work Together

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by Kay Dickinson

Type

Studies

Subject

Technique > Music

Keywords

music, biopics

Publishing date

2008

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 264 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-19-532664-2

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Book Presentation:
• The first book to look at how film and music often don't work together
• A politically-conscious analysis of how the entertainment industry shapes film scores
• Looks at composer biopics and pop performers (Elvis, Ringo Starr, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and many others) crossing over into acting

In Off Key, Kay Dickinson offers a compelling study of how certain alliances of music and film are judged aesthetic failures. Based on a fascinating and wide-ranging body of film-music mismatches, and using contemporary reviews and histories of the turn to post-industrialization, the book expands the ways in which the union of the film and music businesses can be understood.

Moving beyond the typical understanding of film music that privileges the score, Off Key also incorporates analyses of rock 'n' roll movies, composer biopics, and pop singers crossing over into acting. By doing this, it provides a fuller picture of how two successful entertainment sectors have sought out synergistic strategies, ones whose alleged "failures" have much to tell about the labor practices of the creative industries, as well as our own relationship to them and to work itself. A provocative and politically-conscious look at music-image relations, Off Key will appeal to students and scholars of film music, cinema studies, media studies, cultural studies, and labor history.

About the Author:
Kay Dickinson, Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, University of London

Press Reviews:
"an inspiring contribution to the debate on the meaningful difference between film and music, infusing the discussion of film music with a rare sense of political urgency and great intellectual depth." - Carlo Cenciarelli, Music and Letters

"I admire enormously the ambition and originality of the study" - Bruce Johnson, Popular Music

See the publisher website: Oxford University Press