The Music of Fantasy Cinema

Equinox's Genre, Music and Sound series documents contemporary film genres as they have developed in the postwar era. Each volume analyzes the variety and shared patterns of music and sound use that characterize a particular genre. Fantasy has had a modern resurgence in cinema due largely to the success of superhero narratives and the two major fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films. This volume examines music in fantasy cinema across a broad historical perspective, from Bernard Herrmann's scores for Ray Harryhausen, through the popular music scores of the 1980s to contemporary scores for films such as The Mummy and the Harry Potter series, allowing the reader to see not only the way that the musical strategies of fantasy scoring have changed over time but also to appreciate the inventiveness of composers such as Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal, and popular musicians such as Queen and David Bowie in evoking the mythic, the magical and the monstrous in their music and contributing to the creation of fantasy narratives.