Book Review

The Soul of Cinema: An Appreciation of Film Music. By Larry M. Timm. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN 0-13-030465-4. Pp. vi, 346.

Probably the greatest challenge in writing and teaching about film music rests in its fundamental interdisciplinarity. The daunting task of mastering the multiple disciplines of music history and theory together with film history and theory may be one reason why the field of film music has produced so few options for introductory textbooks. The Soul of Cinema sets out to fill a significant need: an introductory textbook for the increasing number of undergraduate courses on film music being taught at colleges and universities. Larry Timm's ambitious, if problematic, effort, "meant to be used as a college level 'appreciation of film music' text" (v), raises the question of whether or not an appreciation approach is even necessary with film music. The musical language of mainstream Hollywood film music is so familiar, pervasive, and capable of generating ticket sales and profits that appreciation may not be required. Approaching the study of film music as a cause for the creation of another canon seems less important and desirable than studying film music as a novel and powerful way of interrogating a cinematic text's narrative and rhetoric. Musicians working in the film industry, as Timm has done, may find the former to be a higher priority, but the latter goal, of examining music in a film as a way of becoming more careful readers and consumers of multimedia texts, might preoccupy those teachers who place a premium on honing their students' critical and interpretive skills.