Silent Films/Loud Music: New Ways of Listening to and Thinking about Silent Film Music

Description

In 1997 the rap group Racionais MCs (the ‘Rational’ MCs) recorded the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno (Surviving in Hell), subsequently changing the hip hop scene in São Paulo and firmly establishing themselves as the point of reference for youth across Brazil. In an era when rappers needed to defend the very idea that their work was indeed music and a time when neighborhoods such as Capão Redondo, where Racionais’ frontman Mano Brown hailed, often topped homicide statistics, Sobrevivendo empowered as it provoked. As one journalist noted, “the underworld of the São Paulo’s working-class suburbs is dominated by cheap thrills and provides little space for representation.” Sobrevivendo changed all of that; a brutal but invigorating imagination was born. The lure of Sobrevivendo is the particular combination of word and sound that powerfully involves listeners, especially those millions of young Brazilians who live in the neighborhoods on the periphery of Brazil’s megacities. This book celebrates the twenty-year anniversary of Sobrevivendo by representing the album’s power not only within the hip hop community but also in other cultural domains such as cinema and literature. The authors also provide their own narrative spins on the sentiment of Sobrevivendo thus making the book a creative mix of cultural analysis and inspired testimony. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Prelude Chapter 1: Music for Silent Films: From Synchronicity to Polysynchronicity Chapter 2: Scores for Silent Film: Then and Now Chapter 3: Opportunities in Contemporary Scores for Silent Film Chapter 4: Contemporary Scores for Silent Film : Four Case Studies Chapter 5: The Application of Polysynchronicity : Five Case Studies Chapter 6: Jazzin’ the Silents: Jazz and Improvised Music in Contemporary Scores for Silent Film1 Chapter 7: Imaginary Authenticity: Scores for Modern Silent Films Chapter 8: Wordless!: Music for Comics and Graphic Novels Turns Time into Space (and Back Again)1 Chapter 9: Silent Film Composers Speak! Appendix 1: Scores Appendix 2: Contemporary Composer for Silent Film Interview References Index