With rare and notable exceptions, film music is an essential and indispensable part of the movie watching experience. Film music serves many purposes, and comes in various shapes and forms. Movie soundtracks are frequently among the most popular audio albums, and in some instances even overshadow the movies for which they were made.



This very short introduction explores many facets of film music. For the most part it has a concrete focus, and draws examples from many films and scenes to substantiate its main points. The book does not assume any prior knowledge of music, and where necessary, makes only a cursory mention of prominent aspects of music to enhance the reader's understanding of the main ideas presented. The book is particularly noteworthy for all the attention that it pays to non-Western films and cinemas. The author comes across as extremely knowledgable and passionate about her subject, and any true movie lover would really enjoy reading this book.



The only weak point of this book is the chapter on "theory" behind film music. Replete with the kind of obsessive musings one might expect of graduate seminars in the humanities, this chapter has little relevance, if any, to the everyday world of film music. In fact, I would be highly surprised if many renowned film music composers have even heard of any of these "theories." Thankfully, this is a very short chapter that can easily be skipped without compromising content or enjoyment from the rest of the book. Overall, this is one of the more readable and enjoyable books in this series.

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