The polysynchronous film score: the relationship between music and image/narrative in contemporary scores for silent film

The medium of contemporary scores for silent film offers extraordinary opportunities for innovative relationships between music and film. The “polysynchronous film score” is a term suggested for the purpose of this paper, referring to film scores whose relationship to the image/narrative falls outside the established analytical dichotomy of the terms synchronous/asynchronous, upon which the prevailing discourse in film music studies has been based. The research has a threefold intention: i) to identify the dominant conventions of film music, and silent film music in particular, and show how they are adhered to in contemporary scores for silent film. ; ii) to show why the art form of contemporary scores for silent films provides unique opportunities to work outside of these conventions. ; iii) to point the way to possible alternative relationships between music and film. I begin by discussing current thinking about the relationship between music and film, and how film music conventions are maintained in contemporary scores for silent films, as well as the ways in which assumptions about “silent film music” influence the latter. I then discuss both the history and technique of silent film scores in their original incarnation (circa 1895–1930). This is followed by a short history of the art form of contemporary scores for silent film, focusing mainly on a discussion of the work of some important practitioners and an analysis of excerpts from their work in terms of the conventions that I have discussed in earlier chapters. I then give some specific examples that exemplify some of the possibilities for the polysynchronous approach, drawn from my own work. The last part of my written thesis is an exegesis of my current creative practice work: the 65-minute score for Lotte Reiniger’s 1927 silhouette animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed, focusing on the ways in which it expresses the ideas of polysynchronicity and innovation in silent film scoring.