Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series Foreword (p. vii)
• Preface (p. ix)
• Introduction: Music, Sound and the Nonfiction Aesthetic (p. 1)
• 1 Resounding City Films: Vertov, Ruttmann and Early Experiments with Documentary Sound Aesthetics (p. 20)
• 2 Sounding the World: The Role of Music and Sound in Early 'Talking' Newsreels (p. 41)
• 3 Race, War, Music and The Problem of One Tenth of Our Nation (1940) (p. 56)
• 4 Music, Science and Educational Film in Post-War Britain (p. 74)
• 5 Reinventing the Documentary: The Early Essay Film Soundtracks of Chris Marker (p. 86)
• 6 Water Music: Scoring the Silent World (p. 104)
• 7 Music and the Aesthetics of the Recorded World: Time, Event and Meaning in Feature Documentary (p. 123)
• 8 Irish Sea Power: A New Version of Man of Aran (2009/1934) (p. 137)
• 9 Excavating Authenticity: Surveying the Indie-Rock Doc (p. 151)
• 10 More Than Background: Ambience and Sound-Design in Contemporary Art Documentary Film (p. 166)
• 11 Sonic Ethnographies: Leviathan and New Materialisms in Documentary (p. 180)
• Afterword (p. 193)
• Contributors (p. 201)
• Index (p. 205)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Despite the appearance, in the past decade, of a large number of scholarly works that focus on film music and sound, surprisingly few deal with these aspects in documentary film. This book should therefore be welcome. That said, considering the subject matter the number of accessible documentary films, the availability of information on film composers and sound editors, the goals of the series, and the book's title, the collection of essays is suspiciously thin. The 12 essays cover music and sound in early European documentary films, "talking" newsreels," educational documentaries, race and war films, aquatic films, filmic ethnographies, and indie/rock documentaries, among others. Three essays stand out: Orlene Denice McMahon's essay on Chris Marker because it brings together film score excerpts and an analysis with scene shots; James Deaville's on early "talking" newsreels, for its carefully researched discussion of both American and "foreign" films; and Selmin Kara and Alanna Thain's on ethnographic filmmaking and recent technologies for its detailed descriptions of sound representations (the last should be of great interest to ethnomusicologists). Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. --Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith, Elms College