Categories of Films about Music

1. Film Musicals

2. “Power of Music”

3. Biopics about Musicians

4. Popular Music Films

5. Documentaries

6. Music and Images

Film MusicalsHistory – opera, Broadway theatre

1930s: 42nd Street (1933)

• Broadway adaptations, importance of choreographer

1960s: West Side Story (1961)

• 4 Best Picture Oscars to Musicals in 1960s

Late 1990s/early 2000s:

• Revival

Film Musicals (cont.)

• Moulin Rouge (2001) dir. Baz Luhrmann

• Lots of musical staff

• Sources

• Elephant Song medley:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxLaO8Xzjsk

• Postmodern

“Power of Music”• Music helping people overcome something – Mr.

Holland’s Opus (1996)

• About an instrument – The Red Violin (1998)

• Crossroads (1986) dir. Walter Hill

• Music by Ry Cooder and Stevie Vai

• Guitar duel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqL0kMdXbbU

Biopics About Musicians• Old genre

• Factual?

• La dixieme symphonie (1918) – Beethoven

• Waltzes From Vienna (1934) – Strauss (dir. Hitchcock)

• The Doors (1991) – (dir. Oliver Stone)

• Walk the Line (2005) – Johnny Cash

Biopics About Musicians (cont.)

• Amadeus (1984) – Mozart (dir. Milos Forman)

• Plot

• Example of meta-diegetic music• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5BpzmTIZMU

Popular Music Films1950s – lots of jazz, rock films1960s – rock films: Beatles, Elvis1990s – Spice World (1997)2000s – School of Rock (2003)

Lots of music

Plots, real life/fictional

Popular Music Films (cont.)

The Harder They Come (1972) dir. Perry Henzell

Plothttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imGkQdE7N2s

Documentaries

• 1970s – rock docs and concert films

• “life of” or concert footage

• Whose voice? Band, director?

• The Last Waltz (1978) dir. Scorsese on the Band

• No Direction Home (2005) dir. Scorsese on Bob Dylan

• Shine a Light (2008) dir. Scorsese on the Rolling Stones

Documentaries (cont.)

• Jimi Hendrix (1973) dir. Boyd, Head and Weis

• Plot?• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPtv14q9ZDg

Music and Images

• Mainly short films• Music drives the images• Dialogue• “pure”?• Music and meaning• Fantasia (1940) cond. Leopold Stokowski• 8 musical selectionshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4MQ7GzE6HY

Synesthesia – Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia (2007)

Other Categories?

• 8 Mile (2002) – biopic or popular music film?

• This is Spinal Tap (1984) – popular music film or parody as distinct genre?

• The Song Remains the Same (1976) – documentary, music and images or concert film as distinct category?

• TV series Flight of the Conchords (2007-2009) - ?