Welcome to the podcast! Here's what we have in store for the series.

Here we embark on a two-part exploration of the 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story. After surveying the extraordinary career of WSS director Robert Wise, we welcome Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz (author of West Side Story as Cinema) to talk about how the film’s story and sound make it an enduring cultural touchstone. For more information on the films and sources cited, visit here.

Many of the songs in West Side Story feature the dubbed voices of uncredited ghost singers. We illuminate how West Side Story's use of "ghosts" differed from other musicals of the era and alter the screen-sound relationship. We also turn our ears toward the people responsible for giving WSS's layered soundscape its distinctive texture.

Sounding Cinema welcomes Rebekah Erdman, Cecilia Kryzda, Anastasia Scholze, and Noah Zahradnik to discuss The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Sound of Metal (2020), two titles that push film sound to its extremes. In the first of a two-part series, we consider how director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand unsettle a strikingly realistic story by having the characters sing all their lines.

Rebekah Erdman, Cecilia Kryzda, Anastasia Scholze, and Noah Zahradnik return to Sounding Cinema to discuss Sound of Metal (2020), a film that challenges its central character--a musician-- to listen differently to the sounds and silences that define daily life and the relationships within it.

Cecilia Kryzda and Nathan Platte talk with Jack Curtis Dubowsky about his recent book, Easy Listening and Film Scoring, 1948-1978 (Routledge, 2021). A composer, performer, and scholar, Jack illuminates the vast and underappreciated opportunities easy listening provided film composers and how certain styles and habits shaped later music and film practices. Jack also explains the process of writing the book, including his inspiration behind the project and how his vision for the book changed over time. To see Jack's film and album recommendations, visit here.