Lavish musical soundtracks contributed a special grandeur to the new widescreen, stereophonic sound movie experience of postwar biblical epics such as Samson and Delilah, Ben-Hur, and Quo Vadis. In Epic Sound, Stephen C. Meyer shows how music was utilized for various effects, sometimes serving as a vehicle for narrative plot and at times complicating biblical and cinematic interpretation. In this way, the soundscapes of these films reflected the ideological and aesthetic tensions within the genre, and more generally, within postwar American society. By examining key biblical films, Meyer adeptly engages musicology with film studies to explore cinematic interpretations of the Bible during the 1940s through the 1960s.
- ISBN10 0253014433
- ISBN13 9780253014436
- Publish Date 27 November 2014
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 July 2015
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Indiana University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 288
- Language English