The Function Of Film Music, History And Analysis

The focus of this dissertation is the film music theory and film music researchapproach adopted in Peter Larson’s Film Music.The main body of this paper is divided into five parts except the conclusion.Chapter One, it is the introduction. Explanation are given for the motivation, PeterLarson and his book, previous research. Chapter Two，Peter Larson discusses filmand music, aiming to understand Peter Larson’s opinion about film and music. Itseems that Peter Larson hold that film is the art of shadow and sound, the art ofnarration, the art of pursuing reality, the art of commercialization, and the art ofwholeness. He also argued that music can convey emotional meanings andnon-emotional meanings. Chapter Three， namely Peter Larson discusses filmmusic’s characteristics and functions. As the core of the paper, this chapter is mainlyabout the author’s interpretation and appraisal of the film music’s five characteristicsand three kinds of function mentioned by Peter Larson. He pointed out that filmmusic have functionality, internality, fragmentary, discontinuity and relativecertainty. He also argured that formal functions, narrative functions and emotionalfunctions are the three main film music’s functions. Chapter Four, namely PeterLarson’s research on the Western film music history. This part focuses on theresearch core, research approach and history consciousness, to find thecharacteristics of Peter Larson’s research on the Western film music function’shistory. Chapter Five, namely Peter Larson discusses film music analysis. Itintroduces the method of analysing film music which established by Peter Larson,and the philosophy of the method. The dissertation’s conclusion is mainly about thefeature and deficiencies of Peter Larson’s music theory, as well as its theoreticalvalue and practical significance.