Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemHushed Tones: Inaudible Music in Hollywood Docudramas 2005-2015( 2022)This study investigates the effacement of music within Hollywood-produced docudramas of the early twenty-first century. It argues that inaudible film scores (concealed by filmmakers and ‘unheard’ by audiences) contribute to a rhetoric of fidelity and sobriety in these films. The scores’ effacement may be observed as an intention of the filmmakers and as features within a soundtrack, as well as within the traces of audience reception. This thesis proposes a framework to discuss the audibility of music in film, which informs the investigation of a series of docudramas—films based on real events—that were nominated for the top accolade at the Academy Awards between 2005 and 2015. While the effacement of film music has been loosely associated with realism in past scholarship, what that term might exactly mean was not explored in detail. As Hollywood-produced docudramas combine documentary claims with classical narrative forms, they offer a potentially rich sphere to seek and examine inaudibility. It can be argued that the cultures within these productions treat music as problematic and that established composers must contend with this issue. Detailed analyses of the film scores for Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (2015), Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips (2013), and Ben Affleck’s Argo (2012) are presented. The examination of these scores’ cue placement, formal design, style, and functions reveals old and new practices intended to efface film music. Discussions dedicated to inaudibility are absent from recent literature. Musical effacement was initially theorised to dominate the scores of Hollywood’s golden age, however doubts about those theories and changes in academic focus have led to a period of neglect. Cognitive models of perception inform a revision of previous concepts, which also incorporates other critiques and takes recent film practices into account. The effect of attention upon film music functions suggests how traces of listening, such as reviews and fan texts about the films and their soundtracks, may also indicate a score’s relative audibility.