Goldclass: Hearing Film: Cinema Soundtracks and the Goldsmiths Aesthetic

When watching a major Hollywood blockbuster, we are often so engrossed in the action that we fail to hear the soundtrack that underpins it. And yet this “inaudible” music can fundamentally change how we read a film. These unheard soundtracks have prompted a debate that has raged for 30 years: is the music there simply to cover up awkward silences in the cinema? Or is it there to disguise editing and temporal jumps in the image? Some have even claimed that soundtrack appeals to our subconscious, causing us to “regress” into a state more susceptible to the onscreen fantasy. In this lecture, we will consider how the relationship between music and image can determine our reading of a film, and will see how and why the study of audiovisual media is at the heart of the Goldsmiths Music Degree.