Reading Guide for 24 Frames Under (by Russell Lack)
Below you are provided with a list of questions to accompany each week’s readings (questions will be added on a weekly basis). Some of these questions will appear on the mid-term. All of the questions relate directly to the readings.

Readings for Weeks 1 and 2: pp. 3-60

• Where do we locate (in time) the beginnings of the music and cinema relationship?
• What were some of the reasons for adding music to (silent) film showings?
• What are some precursors to the cinema?
• What is the Glass Harmonica?
• When was the phonograph invented? Who invented it?
• What are some examples of sound synchronization (including music and/or dialogue and/or sound effects) in the early silent film period?
• What are cue sheets, and when were they first used?
• What is "diegetic source music"?
• What role does Vitaphone have in the history of sound synchronization?
• What musical elements were used for Abel Gance’s Napoleon (France, 1927)?
• Who is Herman Finck and why is he important in the history of music and cinema?
• Who is Camille Saint-Saens?
• Who is J. S. Zamecnik?
• Who is Erno Rapee?
• Who is Hugo Reisenfield?
• What is the Edison Kinetogram?
• Why is D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (USA, 1915) considered important in the history of film scoring?
• How did Luis Buñuel decide to score his film L’Age d’or (France, 1930)?
• What role did music play in Eisenstein’s classic silent film, Battleship Potemkin (USSR, 1925)?
• Who is Carl Davis and what does he do to silent films?
• Are there surviving cue sheets for 1920s jazz-related films, according to the book?
• What is the story of violinist William A. Krauth?
• Why are the Strand and Vitograph theatres in New York (opened in 1914) significant for the history of music and the movies?
• What types of instruments were typically used in to accompany films in the silent days? What instrument or combination of instruments were most common?
• Who is Roxy Rothafel?
• What was MGM producer Irving Thalberg’s estimation of the importance of music during the silent era?
• Why did live music accompaniment fade away with the rise of "canned" sync-sound systems in the late 1920s?
• In the opinion of the author, Russell Lack, what does music do for a movie?

Reading: Lack, pp. 149 - 157

• Lack characterizes the Hollywood studio system as "monopolistic" for which historical period? Why? How does this apply to music?
• What are "recording rights" and "publishing rights" and why are they important?
• Why does Lack single out Henry Mancini as significant among composers of the 1950s and 1960s?
• Lack calls these men "high-profile and powerful composers in the US film industry": Burt Bacharach; Henry Mancini; Elmer Bernstein; and Leonard Rosenman. Name two film credits for each of these composers. Try to find out what is noteworthy about each of their style (you may have to consult other books or the Internet for this).
• What are some of the innovations in sound technology for Hollywood films during the 1950s?
• What is the importance of multi-channel recording according to Lack?
• Why is the soundtrack to The Robe (1953) important?

Reading: Lack, pp. 158 - 206

• What is musique concrète?
• According to Lack, how does music evolve in the 1950s (and beyond), and why is this important to cinema?
• Who is Toru Takemitsu?
• Who is Ravi Shankar?
• What is serial music and which film composer has used this technique?
• Did audiences for the cinema grow or decline in the 1950s, according to Lack?
• Who is Miklós Rózsa? What are some of the films has he scored? What characterizes his musical style?
• Who composed the score to Spartacus? How did he achieve his desired musical effects?
• In what way, according to George Antheil, does music resemble a language?
• How might music create archetypes, according to Lack?
• What happens to the Western genre by the 1960s, according to Pauline Kael?
• What type of music frequently is used (or imitated) in the classic Western films?
• What are Spaghetti Westerns?
• Which composer is most associated with the Spaghetti Westerns?
• What is meant by New Wave cinema?
• What are some of the different ways jazz music has been used in film scoring?
• Lack argues that jazz scores are fundamentally different than orchestral scores. Do you think he is correct?
• Who is Martial Solal?
• Who supplied a score for Louis Malle’s film, Lift to the Scaffold (1958; also called, Elevator to the Gallows)
• What is the relationship between Quentin Tarantino and Jean-Luc Godard explained in the book?

Reading: Lack, pp. 310 - 321

• Who is John Cage?
• What is the Theremin?
• Who is György Ligeti?
• What role has electronic music played in the movies?
• Who is Walter Murch?
• Who is Ben Burtt?

Reading: Lack, pp. 207 - 231

• What is Elmer Bernstein’s view of the use of pop songs in films? Why? Do you agree?
• What is the importance of the 1948 Supreme Court judgment in United States vs. Paramount et al.?
• When does television hit the scene as an influential component of American cultural life?
• What impact did television have on music?
• What characterizes the musical style of Henry Mancini?
• How does the rise of rock and roll have cinematic repercussions?
• Who is John Barry and why is he important in film music history?
• Who is Isaac Hayes?
• What does Lack mean by "corporate barrel-scraping" (p. 220)?
• What were the revenues for music publishing in the US in 1995?
• Who is Quincy Jones and when did his involvement with film music begin?
• What does lack think about the soundtracks to Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994)? Why?
• What is interesting about the films Murder was the case (1994) and La Haine (1995) in terms of music?
• What is Lack’s view of the use of music in the 1980s TV series Miami Vice?
• Who is John Cage?
• When does pop music become ambient music, or random music, in Lack’s opinion?
• What does Lack mean when he says that pop music "culturally loaded" (p. 228)?
• When, according to Lack, does pop music become just a "slick interplay between the different divisions of global entertainment corporations" (p. 228)? Do you agree?
• Who is Wim Wenders?
• Who is Ry Cooder (and what is his relationship to film music)?

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