Sounding Cinema

Sounding Cinema turns to the musical television episode! Erika Chagdes, Abbie McLaren, Caleb Payne, and Nathan Platte spotlight the unique and often comedic opportunities that arise when a TV series turns into a musical…for just one episode. By comparing “Once More, With Feeling,” the infamous musical episode from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, with “Regional Holiday Music,” Community’s glee-ful fiasco, we discover some ways in which TV musicals can teach us a lot about musicals and the episodic format of television itself. 

More about the team:

Erika Chagdes graduated from the University of Iowa in 2024 with a BA in Cinema. She is excited to pursue a career in filmmaking.

Abbie McLaren is a University of Iowa student with a double major in Cinema and Journalism and Mass Communication (production and design track). After graduating in 2025, she plans to pursue film professionally through work or graduate studies. 

Caleb Payne graduated from the University of Iowa in 2024 with a BA in Cinema. He plans to attend a graduate-level studio art program in the future.

Samuel Ross, who provided original music, is a University of Iowa student drawn to both film and music. A Cinema major, Sam also composes, writes film music, and enjoys playing piano and bass.

Resources:

Kelly Kessler, Broadway in the Box: Television’s Lasting Love Affair with the Musical (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). 

Kathryn VanArendonk, “Theorizing the Television Episode,” Narrative 27, no. 1 (2019), 65–82. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2019.0004.

Paul Attinello, Janet K. Halfyard, and Vanessa Knights (eds.), Music, Sound, and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2010). 

Sounding Cinema returns to the immersive musicals of Jacques Demy, exploring the serious whimsy and peculiar pairs of The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Join Abbie McLaren, Caleb Payne, and Nathan Platte as we discuss the ways in which Demy’s film, Michel Legrand's music, and Agnès Varda’s documentary about the film play with and against the formula of the Hollywood studio musical.

Special thanks to: Samuel Ross, who wrote and recorded original and adapted music for the episode. Erika Chagdes, who helped with production preparation. Abbie McLaren, who designed our episode artwork.

More about the team:

Erika Chagdes graduated from the University of Iowa in 2024 with a BA in Cinema. She is excited to pursue a career in filmmaking.

Abbie McLaren is a University of Iowa student with a double major in Cinema and Journalism and

Caleb Payne graduated from the University of Iowa in 2024 with a BA in Cinema. He plans to attend a graduate-level studio art program in the future.

Sam Ross is a University of Iowa student drawn to both film and music. A Cinema major, Sam also composes,

Resources:

Rick Altman, “From Homosocial to Heterosexual: The Musical’s Two Projects,” in The Sound of Musicals, edited by Steven Cohan (London: British Film Institute, 2010), 19–29.

Andrea Bravo, “‘Have you found her yet?’: The Dream World of Jacques Demy’s ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort.’” UF Prism, 7 March 2023, https://ufprism.com/2023/03/07/have-you-found-her-yet-the-dream-world-of-jacques-demys-the-young-girls-of-rochefort.

Jacques Demy, director, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD, https://www.criterion.com/films/28615-the-young-girls-of-rochefort. (Includes Agnès Varda’s 1993 documentary, The Young Girls Turn 25.)

Michel Legrand, Les Demoiselles de

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.

Jack's book spotlights an array of fascinating albums and films. His recommendations for listeners are:

Music:

Films and TV

The musical excerpts heard in the episode are discussed in Jack’s book. In order of appearance, they are:

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.

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. 

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" differs from other musicals of the era and alters the screen-sound relationship. We also turn our ears toward the people responsible for giving WSS's dance sequences their distinctive sonic textures.

Nathan Platte and Anastasia Scholze 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, they welcome Ernesto Acevedo-Munoz (author of West Side Story as Cinema) to talk about how the film’s story and sound make it an enduring cultural touchstone.

Join Nathan Platte and Anastasia Scholze as they explore how music and sound draw us closer to film. First stop: the shifting soundscapes of Robert Wise's films (West Side Story, The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain, Odds Against Tomorrow, and many more).