Towards an Aesthetic of Visualisation: Multi-Media Analysis, Comparative Audio- Narrative-Visual Analysis, and Representations of Music in Film

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to offer an extension to the field of film musicology and film music analysis through the development of pictorial graphic representations of close film music analytical readings.

Previously, pictorial charts in multimedia analysis have been developed to represent sound and image. These pictorial representational charts have aided musicologists pedagogically and interpretively in the discussions of the place of music against image but have infrequently served as an analytical tool.

This thesis performs a dual function: the study focuses on pictorial representations of music and image as a multimedia analytical tool and extends the function of the pictorial visualisations to add a further dimension of comparative analysis. This extension to the study offers a unique approach and lens, creating a platform where multiple examples of material from films, comprising image and music, can be cross-examined, and compared. I argue that comparative multimedia analyses provide a new dimension for film analysis. This study grapples with disciplines including film music analysis and musicology to thoroughly display the effectiveness of pictorial analytical charts as a means of comparative, multimedia analysis.

To highlight how this pictorial graphic comparative setting works as a multimedia analysis, I have looked to the Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Prokofiev film collaborations; Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible I and II (1945 and 1958). The films and the music commissioned offer a rich study, allowing for the comparisons of the music written for specific narrative themes, common to all three films, to be carried out. This assessment brings to the forefront the composer’s and the director’s workings and influences across the three films. The study further highlights how the films are underscored by the influences of contemporary Soviet political life, and how these films, as products, relate aspects of Soviet socio-political ideological objectives.