The Use of Songs in European and Latin

The Use of Songs in European and Latin-American Cinemas (1960-2010):
Generic Variants, Aesthetic Hybridisations and Transnational Stakes
International conference
Belgium - 28, 29, 30 April 2016
Université Libre de Bruxelles / Université Catholique de Louvain /
Universidad de Buenos Aires / Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique
Organizing committee: Sophie Dufays (UCL), Dominique Nasta (ULB), Pablo Piedras (UBA),
Hubert Bolduc-Cloutier (ULB/UdM), Geneviève Fabry (UCL), Quentin Gille (ULB), Freddy
Malonda (Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique), Lucía Rodríguez Riva (UBA)
Scientific committee: Sophie Dufays (Université Catholique de Louvain), Dominique Nasta
(Université Libre de Bruxelles), Pablo Piedras (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Séverine Abhervé
(Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Julie Amiot-Guillouet (Université de Paris-Sorbonne),
Martin Barnier (Université de Lyon 2), Serge Cardinal (Université de Montréal), Rita De
Maeseneer (Universiteit Antwerpen), Marina Díaz López (Instituto Cervantes), Valérie Dufour
(Université Libre de Bruxelles), Laurent Guido (Université de Lille 3), David Gullentops (Vrije
Universiteit Brussel), Robin Lefere (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Nadia Lie (Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven), Ana Laura Lusnich (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Christophe Pirenne
(Université Catholique de Louvain / Université de Liège), Phil Powrie (University of Surrey)
Argument
Since the 1990s the exegesis devoted to the role of songs in films has significantly increased.
Publications, often from Anglo-Saxon academy, have first studied classical Hollywood cinema
before dealing with cinema from other countries, notably European cinema. In Latin-American
cinema, the popular song hasn't been studied a lot, despite its wide impact. Until now, most works
devoted to popular music focus on the classical period; national European canonical cinemas such
as the French cinema from the 30's or the first German musicals, and the "Golden Age" of the
Mexican and Argentinian cinemas (rancheras comedies and cabareteros melodramas in Mexico
as well as the tango films in Argentina). When they are concerned with post-classical cinema, the
studies devoted to songs generally concentrate on specific film genres (such as the musical biopic)
or musicals (such as rock), or on the works of some exemplary directors (such as Almodóvar).
However, the musical and sung aspect, whether it is intra-, meta- or extradiegetic, has acquired a
new and single power in the recent forms of European and Latin-American cinema, in
blockbusters as well as in "auteur films".
This international conference aims to address the semantic and pragmatic functioning of songs in
European and Latin-American cinema starting from the 60's, i.e. from the "nouvelles vagues"
momentum, which is also one of an increased synergy between cinema and popular music
(entailing the fact that television idols reached the status of film stars). The studied songs may be
original or already existing featured as autonomous discourses or used as an accompaniment. We
will namely be able to distinguish, sticking to the categories proposed by Louis-Jean Calvet and
Jean-Claude Klein, between the action-song, the expositive-song that introduces a character, the
synthetic-song (catalyst of the film), the pause-song that suspends the action, the leitmotif-song
and the credit-song. The point is to analyse the roles of songs in relation to the diegesis, to the
narrative structure and to the rhythm of the films, but also their effects in terms of audience
reception, which implies to take into account the extradiegetic values and references they vehicle
in the films as connoted cultural intertexts, as well as the media that accompany its distribution
(show magazines, telenovelas, advertisements on television, etc.). Such an analysis requires
several approaches (aesthetic, semio-narratologic, pragmatic, musicologic, cultural, historical), to
broach gender issues and transnationalism and to re-examine some traditional binomials and
trinomials of art and cinema theory (elite culture versus popular and mass culture; auteur cinema
versus commercial cinema; classical cinema versus modern and postmodern cinema…). On the
other side, if classical cinema is not the first subject of the conference, it is necessary to refer to
and to re-evaluate it, since film modernity is based on a constant intersection with classicism.
The following lines of reflection will be favoured:
Songs and cinematographic genres: how do traditional links develop between some songs and
cinematographic genres? What does the presence of some types of songs entail in the reception of
a film, in terms of generic categorisation and, broader, in terms of audience reception? How did
things unfold inside the cinematographic industries and discography in show culture and mass
culture? Which dynamics can be observed between the cinema "d'auteur ", genre cinema and the
numerous uses of popular songs?
Classical, modern and/or postmodern uses of the songs: Which uses of pre-existing songs (of
national or inter/transnational tradition) occur in Latin American and European films since the
60's? What kind of relationship with classical cinema do these different uses imply? Amongst the
"postmodern" uses, where and how do quotation, pastiche and recycling operate? Besides, which
new genres have appeared in - or have been created for - the films of the same continents since the
60's, and which are the effects of it?
Discourse and song: which type(s) of characters sing in Latin American and European cinema? At
what moment do they sing? What is the effect of their songs? What are the narrative, aesthetic,
affective, commercial reasons implications? In what way do song occurrences influence filmic
narratives?
Proposals can be in French, Spanish or English; those about Hispanic cinema should be in
Spanish.
Deadline for sending proposals: 30 September 2015.
Proposals should only be sent to the following email address: [email protected]
Contents: Title, abstract (max. 300 words, including the chosen scientific corpus and an
explanation in relation with the lines of the conference) and a brief bio-bibliography (max. 200
words, including the institutional affiliation and address).
Registration fee: 30 euros