“Wake Up!” with Narrative Film Music: Optimizing Narrative Power Through Spike Lee’s Compilation Soundtracks of Popular Music | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 14, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 2042-1869
  • E-ISSN: 2042-1877

Abstract

Filmmaker and director Spike Lee famously features popular music in his films, often incorporating compilation soundtracks that function as sonic narrative devices, sometimes alongside original scores. Through analysis of three of Lee’s films based on true stories— (1992), (1994), and (2018)—and their soundtracks, it is evident that Lee’s use of popular music in his historical films not only situates the works in their respective time periods, but also emphasizes the relevance of each film narrative in American history, both past and present.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/fm_00305_1
2024-03-15
2024-04-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Cooke, Sam. “A Change Is Gonna Come.Ain’t That Good News, RCA Victor, 1964.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Fink, Michael. “How Music Functions in Films.American Music Teacher, vol. 40, no. 2, 1990, pp. 2453, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43542406. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Harrison-Kahan, Lori. “Inside ‘Inside Man’: Spike Lee and Post-9/11 Entertainment.Cinema Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 2010, pp. 3958, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40962836. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Hubbert, Julie. “The Compilation Soundtrack from the 1960s to the Present.The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies, edited by David Neumeyer, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 291318, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328493.013.011.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Johnson, Pete, and Joe Turner. “Roll ‘Em Pete.Vocalion, 1938.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Kohn, Eric. “Spike Lee’s Secret Weapon for 30 Years: ‘BlacKkKlansman’ Composer Terence Blanchard.IndieWire, 31 Dec. 2018, www.indiewire.com/2018/12/spike-lee-terence-blanchard-blackkklansman-1202029566/. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Lee, Spike. BlacKkKlansman. Focus Features, 2018.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Lee, Spike. Crooklyn. Universal Pictures, 1994.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Lee, Spike. Malcolm X. Warner Bros., 1992.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Stilwell, Robynn. Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-Existing Music in Film. Taylor and Francis, 2017, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315095882. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Sundar, Pavitra. “Meri Awaaz Suno: Women, Vocality, and Nation in Hindi Cinema.Meridians, vol. 8, no. 1, 2008, pp. 14479, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40338915. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Winters, Ben. “The Non-Diegetic Fallacy: Film, Music, and Narrative Space.Music & Letters, vol. 91, no. 2, 2010, pp. 22444, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40871578. Accessed 9 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/fm_00305_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/fm_00305_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error