This thesis explores the concept and expression of musicality in the absolute visual music film, in which visual presentations are given musical attributes such as rhythmical form, structure and harmony. The role of music has, in general, been neglected when analysing visual music textually and if discussed it has been examined predominantly from the academic vantage points of art and avant-garde film theory. To adequately scrutinise these texts I consider it essential to look at them not only in terms of their existence as moving pictures but also to give equal weight to their aural aspect and to consider them in terms of specifically musical parameters. This thesis therefore seeks to redress previous imbalances by undertaking a close analysis of the expressly musical qualities of these texts. Drawing on the seemingly disparate areas of film theory, art history, music theory and philosophy, it takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigating the measurable influence that wider contextual, philosophical and historical developments and debates in these areas bore on the aesthetics of specific visual music films. By drawing on the analogy of the absolute in music to demonstrate how musical concepts can function across the disciplinary boundaries of music and film, the first half of this thesis illustrates how musical ideas can be applied both formally and conceptually to the moving image in order to elucidate the musical characteristics of the text. Using the notion of the absolute as a conceptual framework allows for a thorough overview of changing trends and aesthetics in music, film and art and the visual music film. The centrality of notions of the absolute to visual music is demonstrated through close analysis of films by Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann, Norman McLaren, James Whitney and Jordan Belson. The second part of this thesis concentrates less on the philosophical vestiges carried over from musical thought to the visual music film, instead focusing on the variety of techniques and technological developments that evolved in tandem with the visual music film, each simultaneously exerting an influence on one another. It explores the effect that colour processing had on not only the visual but the overall audiovisual structure of the visual music film through a textual analysis of Kreise (1933) by Oskar Fischinger. It also investigates how particular styles of musical composition dictated the development of specific technical processes such as painting directly onto the celluloid strip, in order to capture the syncopated and frenetic musicality of jazz music. The case studies here are Begone Dull Care (1949) by Norman McLaren and A Colour Box (1935) by Len Lye. Further to this, it examines how the technical processes of animated sound emerged in the search for a greater correlation between the visual and sound tracks of the visual music film through close analysis of Synchromy (1971) by Norman McLaren and the optical sound films of Guy Sherwin. Finally, this thesis marries the inquiry into technological innovation of its second half with the historical, aesthetic and philosophical concerns of earlier chapters by considering the work of visual music pioneer John Whitney. Focusing on his digitally produced visual music films, the thesis explores Whitney’s enduring concern with the unification of sound and image through the shared foundation of mathematical harmony.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-280).

This essay aims to explore acoustiographies of the interior and interpret the cultural impressions that they perpetuate. While I do consider the conventional iconographies of headphones and full-body suits (e.g., spacesuits) that filmmakers employ as tools to focalize a character’s internal subjectivity, acoustiographies often supersede or occur in lieu of such visual symbols. While the acoustiography of “leakage” symbolizes the disparity between the self-perception of the self and the social perception of the self, that of “head sound” aims at placing the audience inside the head of a given character by positioning the point of audition as if it were emanating from the character’s head. Leakage is a diegetic sound that is somewhat obscured or filtered by some barrier blocking the sound’s full frequency emission, whereas sound effects or music seemingly sounding from inside a character’s head, as for example through headphones, represent head sound. These acoustiographies of leakage and head sound play a crucial role in the filmic expression of a character’s interiority, which they accomplish through their ability to physically represent interior space, but also figuratively represent a character’s subjectivity. / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 348-412.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The films of David Lynch are full of ambiguities that derive from his habitual distortion of time, inversion of characters, and creation of ironic, dreamlike worlds that are mired in crisis. While these ambiguities have been explored from numerous angles, scholars have only recently begun to closely examine music's role in Lynch's cinematic imagination. This dissertation explores the relationship between music and fantasy through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis where fantasy plays a crucial role in helping psychoanalytical subjects work through their psychical crises. In particular, I look at Blue Velvet (1986), Lost Highway (1996), and Mulholland Drive (2001), showing how Lynch employs music to manage and, in the case of Mulholland Drive, move beyond the particular crises of jouissance experienced by the Characters--and also the viewers. Before engaging in my analysis of Lynch's film music, however, I begin with an extended discussion of what Kevin Korsyn describes as the current crisis of music scholarship, examining how this crisis manifests itself in recent "postmodern" interpretations of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Few works are invested with as much cultural capital as this one and arguably the discourse around it exhibits the crisis more acutely than any other. Korsyn restricts his analysis to the fields of musicology and music theory, but I approach the crisis of music scholarship obliquely, through my Lacanian reading of Lynch's film music. This dissertation, then, has two goals. On one hand it attempts to examine music's role in Lynch's films, and on the other, it explores how Lynch's use of music might aid us in navigating and moving beyond the institutional crises of music scholarship. This Lynchian solution to our crisis provides a glimpse of what might lie beyond postmodernism, a new philosophical movement some are calling the "New Sincerity." This term covers several loosely related cultural or philosophical movements that have followed in the wake of postmodernism, the most notable being what Raoul Eshelman and Judith Butler refer to as "performatism." Finally, I return to Beethoven's Ninth to offer a second, performative reading, demonstrating how Lynch's use of music can be translated into current musical discourse. / text