Sonic ‘Detheatricalization’: Jean Cocteau, Film Music, and ‘Les Parents Terribles’

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-684
Author(s):  
Laura Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Original Form ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Jean Cocteau ◽  
Wave Treatment ◽  
French Film ◽  
Compositional Technique ◽  
History Of ◽  
Working Method

Abstract Jean Cocteau’s adaptation of his controversial play Les Parents terribles for the screen stands out in his oeuvre as an attempt to reconcile theatre and cinema. It also presented a challenge in preparing a soundscape for a work that did not have any music in its original form. Parents occupies a unique, Janus-like position in the history of French film music, as forward-looking in its anticipation of New Wave treatment of music as material as it is representative of the turn to adapting stage plays for the screen that started in the 1930s. Drawing on production sketchbooks and testimonies, this article considers the development of Cocteau’s working method and his collaboration with Georges Auric, fuelled by the director’s desire to take control of sonic matters. The resulting employment of a monothematic score was not only a new solution to the famous problem of filmed theatre, ‘detheatricalizing’ Parents sonically and visually, it contributed considerably to the development of Cocteau’s status as film auteur—one whose role now extended to adapting musical material. Furthermore, the effect of this compositional technique in Parents suggests that it can be fruitfully situated in relation to recent work in film music studies on issues of anempathetic scoring practices.

scholarly journals Musique concrète, French New Wave cinema, and Jean Cocteau'sLe Testament d'Orphée(1960)

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURA ANDERSON
Keyword(s):  
Art Music ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Jean Cocteau ◽  
French Film ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Film Directors ◽  
French New Wave ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Musique Concrete

AbstractJean Cocteau (1889–1963) is recognized as one of France's most well-known film directors, directing six films over a thirty-year period. This article argues that his film soundscapes occupy a unique position in the history of French film sound, providing a key link between contemporary experimentation in art music and the sonic experimentation of the New Wave filmmakers. This argument is best exemplified byLe Testament d'Orphée(1960), which represents the apotheosis of Cocteau's artistic output as well as the stage at which he was most confident in handling the design of a film soundscape. Indeed, Cocteau was comfortable with the selection and arrangement of sonic elements to the extent that his regular collaborator Georges Auric became almost dispensable. Nevertheless, Auric's willing support enriched the final film and Cocteau created a highly self-reflexive work through his arrangement of the composer's music with pre-existing musical borrowings. Cocteau's engagement with contemporary developments in film and art music can be heard throughout this film, highlighting his position as a poet simultaneously establishing himself in the canon of art and looking to the future.

scholarly journals The Phenomenon of the French NewWave. Technology or Ideology?

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Vinogradov ◽  
Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Vinogradov
Keyword(s):  
New Wave ◽  
French Film ◽  
French New Wave ◽  
History Of

The article is devoted to the history of the French New Wave. The author tries to find out its sources and comes to the conclusion that it is impossible explain this phenomenon of French film art of the late 1950s-early 1960s by either technological or ideological revolution alone.

British Television's Lost New Wave Moment: Single Drama and Race

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Liarou
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Black Population ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Audiovisual Material ◽  
British Drama ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Written Sources

The article argues that the working-class realism of post-WWII British television single drama is neither as English nor as white as is often implied. The surviving audiovisual material and written sources (reviews, publicity material, biographies of television writers and directors) reveal ITV's dynamic role in offering a range of views and representations of Britain's black population and their multi-layered relationship with white working-class cultures. By examining this neglected history of postwar British drama, this article argues for more inclusive historiographies of British television and sheds light on the dynamism and diversity of British television culture.

Deuteronomy, Hosea, and the Theory of Northern Origins

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill T. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of

Deuteronomy appears to share numerous thematic and phraseological connections with the book of Hosea from the eighth century bce. Investigation of these connections during the early twentieth century settled upon a scholarly consensus, which has broken down in more recent work. Related to this question is the possibility of northern origins of Deuteronomy—as a whole, or more likely, in an early proto-Deuteronomy legal core. This chapter surveys the history of the investigation leading up to the current impasse and offers a reexamination of the problem from the standpoint of one passage in Hosea.

Overview

2013 ◽  
pp. xii-14
Author(s):  
David Neumeyer
Keyword(s):  
Motion Pictures ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Silent Films ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
History Of ◽  
Commodity History

This chapterpresents an overview of the coverage of this volume, which is about film music studies. It chronicles the development of film music studies as a discipline and suggests that its rise is associated with the commodity history of feature films. It describes the evolution of the application of music in motion pictures, from the silent films era to the present time. This chapteralso provides an outline of the chapters in the volume.

scholarly journals On the supposed first stage larva of Leptohylemyia coarctata, Fall.

1917 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Keilin
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Stage Larva ◽  
History Of ◽  
Almost All

It has been well known since the studies of Taschenberg (1864–1872) that the larvae of Leptohylemyia coarctata, Fall., attack wheat and rye. The damage due to this fly has been observed many times in almost all European countries, and many papers have been devoted to its life-history. Of these papers the most important are those of E. Ormerod (1882–1895), S. Rostrup (1905–1911), T. Hedlund (1906- 1907), P. Marchal (1909) and finally the recent work of Kurdjumov (1914).

Positive and negative face as descriptive categories in the history of English

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 178-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas H. Jucker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Face

Studies in the history of politeness in English have generally relied on the notions of positive and negative face. While earlier work argued that a general trend from positive politeness to negative politeness can be observed, more recent work has shown that in Old English and in Middle English face concerns were not as important as in Modern English and that, in certain contexts, there are also opposing tendencies from negative to positive politeness. In this paper, I focus in more detail on the notions of positive and negative face and follow up earlier suggestions that for negative face a clear distinction must be made between deference politeness and non-imposition politeness. On this basis, I assess the usefulness of the notions of positive and negative face for the development of politeness in the history of English.

The Royal African Company of England's West African Correspondence, 1681-1699

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Law
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
General Terms ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
History Of

This paper draws attention to an ambitious project in the publication of source material for the precolonial history of West Africa, which has recently been approved for inclusion in the Fontes Historiae Africanae series of the British Academy. In addition to self-promotion, however, I wish also to take the opportunity to air some of the problems of editorial strategy and choice which arise with regard to the editing and presentation of this material, in the hope of provoking some helpful feedback on these issues.The material to be published consists of correspondence of the Royal African Company of England relating to the West African coast in the late seventeenth century. The history of the Royal African Company (hereafter RAC) is in general terms well known, especially through the pioneering (and still not superseded) study by K.G. Davies (1957). The Company was chartered in 1672 with a legal monopoly of English trade with Africa. Its headquarters in West Africa was at Cape Coast (or, in the original form of the name, Cabo Corso) Castle on the Gold Coast, and it maintained forts or factories not only on the Gold Coast itself, but also at the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast. It lost its monopoly of the African trade in 1698, and thereafter went into decline, effectively ceasing to operate as a trading concern in the 1720s, although it continued to manage the English possessions on the coast of West Africa until it was replaced by a regulated company (i.e., one open to all traders), the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, in 1750.

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