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Michael Lee

Music in the Horror Films of Val Lewton

Music in the Horror Films of Val Lewton

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  • More about Music in the Horror Films of Val Lewton

Val Lewton's horror films revolutionized the genre by emphasizing shadows and absences, placing a fresh burden on the soundtrack. This book offers a fine-grained study of the Lewton unit's transformational sonic style, introducing the first jump scare, pre-musique concrete, and original orchestral scores.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press


Val Lewton's horror films revolutionized a popular genre through a much-studied and still widely emulated visual style emphasizing shadows and absences. By denying audiences visual confirmation of horror, his reforms placed a fresh burden on the soundtrack of his films. This book offers a fine-grained study of the Lewton unit's transformational sonic style, which introduced the first jump scare, liberal use of pre-musique concrete, and an original orchestral score for every film in the series, in violation of B-movie norms. Their orchestral scores often exceed the conventions of film music as we hear the RKO Music Department ignoring instructions, thus freeing their contributions to signpost the path toward each film's essential themes.

Val Lewton's horror films revolutionized a popular genre through a much-studied and still widely emulated visual style emphasizing shadows and absences. By denying audiences visual confirmation of horror, his reforms placed a fresh burden on the soundtrack of his films. This book offers a fine-grained study of the Lewton unit's transformational sonic style, which introduced the first jump scare, liberal use of pre-musique concrete, and an original orchestral score for every film in the series, in violation of B-movie norms. Their orchestral scores often exceed the conventions of film music as we hear the RKO Music Department ignoring instructions, thus freeing their contributions to signpost the path toward each film's essential themes.

Weight: 348g
Dimension: 155 x 233 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474497039

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