Music and Sound in Documentary Film

This collection of fourteen essays provides a rich and detailed history of the relationship between and music and image in documentary films, exploring the often overlooked role of music in the genre and its subsequent impact on an audience's perception of reality and fiction. Exploring examples of documentary films which make use of soundtrack music, from an interdisciplinary perspective, Music and Sound in Documentary Film is the first in-depth treatment on the use of music in the nonfiction film and will appeal to scholars and students working in the intersection of music and film and media studies.

Holly Rogers is Senior Lecturer in Music and Director of the Research Centre for Audio-Visual Media at the University of Liverpool. She is the author of Visualising Music: Audiovisual Relationships in Avant-Garde Film and Video Art (2010) and Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music (2013).

Preface Bill Nichols 1. Introduction: Music, Sound, and the Nonfiction Aesthetic Holly Rogers 2. Resounding City Films: Vertov, Ruttmann and Early Experiments with Documentary Sound Aesthetics Carolyn Birdsall 3. Sounding the World: The Role of Music and Sound in Early "Talking" Newsreels James Deaville 4. Race, War, Music and The Problem of One Tenth of Our Nation (1940) Julie Hubbert 5. Music, Science, and Educational Film in Post-War Britain Thomas F. Cohen 6. Reinventing the Documentary: The Early Essay Film Soundtracks of Chris Marker Orlene Denice McMahon 7. Water Music: Scoring the Silent World Mervyn Cooke 8. Music and the Aesthetics of the Recorded World: Time, Event and Meaning in Feature Documentary John Corner 9. Irish Sea Power: A New Version of Man of Aran (2009/1934) K.J.Donnelly 10. Excavating Authenticity: Surveying the Indie Rock-Doc Jamie Sexton 11. More Than Background: Ambience and Sound-Design in Contemporary Art Documentary Film Marion Leonard and Robert Strachan 12. Sonic Ethnographies: Leviathan and New Materialisms in Documentary Selmin Kara and Alanna Thain Afterword Anahid Kassabian