|
|
|
"Brophy always has ingsights that resonate."
Sight & Sound, London, November 2004"Brophy's writing is a delight."
Mojo, London, November 2004"Outstanding contribution. Insight-packed thought-bombs."
New Statesman, Nov 29th, London, 2004"An engaging little book."
The Wire, London, August 2004"Passionate and diverting."
Movietime, ABC Radio National, 2004"Remarkable and unique perspective. Fascinating."
Theatre Books Online, 2004"Expertly informed analysis. Brophy's sheer energy and enthusiasm never fails to shine through."
Close-upfilm.com, May 2004"Brophy accomplishes what all great writers on film do – he sends you back to films with refreshed capacities."
Senses of Cinema, No.34, Melbourne, 2005"An audacious experiment in writing in print. A tour de force."
Scan, Vol.2 No.2, Sydney, 2005"The kinetic power of sound is present in Brophy's treatment of each soundtrack, enlivening the very language of examining sound and its reception."
Screening The Past, No.19, Melbourne, 2005
"All too often we ignore the sound design of a film while fixating on image and story. Philip Brophy has been campaigning for years to have the aural part of our film experience given the same attention we give the images on the screen. He’s just published a book called 100 Modern Soundtracks which is both passionate and diverting. It’s an eclectic selection of films, from The Planet of the Apes to Resident Evil, via half-forgotten classics from France, Germany and Japan - but the key word in the selection is 'modern'. Why should our ideas about film sound be stuck back there with the outdated conventions of the symphony orchestra?"
Julie Rigg, Movietime, ABC Radio National, 2004
"This remarkable and unique perspective on film aesthetics examines the hitherto underexplored aural dimension of cinema. 100 Modern Soundtracks takes the unique approach of discussing the sonic virtues of canon classics such as Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, and Psycho alongside critically maligned movies like I Spit on Your Grave, Resident Evil, and The Haunting. Also included is a fascinating preface which introduces cinema's alternate dimension of sound design and film scoring."
Theatre Books Online, 2004
"Philip Brophy's 100 Modern Soundtracks is an outstanding contribution to the growing body of literature on auditory culture. All the essays, on films as diverse as M and Dr Dolittle, are neologism-rich, insight-packed thought-bombs.
Sukheduv Sandhu, New Statesman, Nov 29th, London, 2004
"When starting to read Brophy's expertly-informed analysis, something becomes eminently clear: the 'film soundtrack' being referred to here is not simply the cleverly-chosen selection of pop hits available on the ubiquitous tie-in CD, nor is it the more 'respectable', orchestra-laden scores so beloved of the Oscar committee. Brophy uses these pages to reclaim the term, to wrestle it way from the modern vernacular. For 'soundtrack' it might be wise to read 'soundscape', the culminative effect of every recorded sound effect, every intonation of dialogue reading and - yes - every piece of music suitably affixed to the scenes in question.
Brophy's passion for the subject is clear, and while the BFI-endorsement often results in somewhat pseudo-intellectual sentiment, his sheer energy and enthusiasm never fails to shine through. The voice of the author is indelibly stamped over the choices of films merited for inclusion - the book takes the form of an alphabetical excursion though these movies, each being allocated two to four pages of insight. This is undoubtedly the most arguable aspect of the book: whilst Brophy finds a lot to say about films such as Contact , Face/Off and Resident Evil , a number of potentially more interesting soundscapes spring to mind, the works which spawned them - American Beauty , Jurassic Park , Ichi The Killer, a multitude of others - conspicuous by their absence. Then again, it is definitely refreshing to see mainstream cinema dealt with in such a manner, and maybe such arguments are what Brophy had intended to provoke: a reassessment of the way in which certain films are perceived. It is an intention in which he overwhelmingly succeeds, rarely setting a foot wrong in his professional, reasoned yet often surprisingly literary prose.
The impression is given that the construction of the book was a slowly-structured, piecemeal affair; certain films capturing Brophy's imagination at certain times and therefore finding themselves subject to further investigation. This is certainly something that is reflected in how the reader approaches the book - 100 Modern Soundtracks is not a continuous, narrative or particularly unified text and therefore does not demand that mindset to enjoy. Readers may well find the book to be a wholly reflexive experience - reading Brophy's thoughts on a particular film could inspire a critical re-watching, whilst on the other hand viewers may finish watching something for the first time and find themselves reaching for Brophy's volume, eager to double-check if that particular piece of cinema has merited inclusion. It is to Brophy's credit that he is fully aware of the confines of his format, that he works well within his structural medium.
As ever with a good deal of BFI Volumes, 100 Modern Soundtracks will be largely perceived to be a purely scholarly work, an aspect of the readership which Brophy clearly has in mind (a teacher himself, he acknowledges the constant inspiration of his 'hyperactive take-no-shit students'). Yet this would be a shame, as Brophy's passion itself is enough to carry the book into the realms of the more casual readership, as well as inciting a greater appreciation for the overall role of sound in cinema. Which - as anyone who works in the much-overlooked arena of soundwork will tell you - is no small deal indeed."
C. J. Davies, Close-upfilm.com, May 2004
Link to online review by:
Kevin John Bozelka, Senses of Cinema No. 34, 2005Link to online review by:
Darren Tofts, Scan, July 2005Link to online review by:
Katy Stevens, Screening The Past, No. 19, 2005
Contents of this page © Philip Brophy & the authors/publications quoted