Abstract
This chapter examines the concept of metalepsis, that is, the transgression of narrative levels (Genette, Discourse du récit. Paris: Seuil, 1972), to analyse moments where the soundtrack in comedy film demonstrates a sense of self-awareness and becomes both the subject and vehicle of the joke. Metalepsis, as an interaction between two worlds, for example, the narrated world and the narrating world, provides opportunities of critical self-reflexiveness. This is part of a long tradition of metafiction, which found its apotheosis in postmodern culture. I argue that metalepsis is a potent vehicle to convey messages of satire, parody and/or irony and encourages a more critical engagement with the conventions, mechanisms and constructedness of cinematic representation. The musical metaleptic moments include characters that can become aware of and interact with the soundtrack and its apparatus, films that discuss and emphasise the commerciality of its soundtrack, films that address the clichés and the artificiality of the mechanisms of film music, a deliberate form of musical anachronism as a comedic device.
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Notes
- 1.
For a close analysis of this moment see: Giorgio Biancorosso (2009).
- 2.
In films as early as The Countryman and the Cinematograph (Robert W. Paul, 1901) and Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture Show (1902, dir. Edwin S. Porter) the reflexivity concerns showing the films’ audience and its reception on screen, while films as How It Feels to Be Run Over (1900, dir. Cecil M. Hepworth) and The Big Swallow (1901, dir. James Williamson) make the technical apparatus of film (here, the camera) visible inside the narrative.
- 3.
Translation by Jeff Thoss (Thoss 2015, p. 8).
- 4.
See also Chap. 36, in which Michael Baumgartner discusses the concept of meta-filmmusic.
- 5.
See also Ron Sadoff’s chapter on Mel Brooks’s films.
- 6.
This unexpected videoclip parody had already been made by Zucker Abrahams and Zucker in The Naked Gun, during a romance montage between Drebin and Jane. https://youtu.be/XTSjhm2t8ms accessed 15 November, 2022.
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Bouvrie, M. (2023). The Self-Aware Soundtrack: Music as Metaleptic Device in Comedy Film. In: Audissino, E., Wennekes, E. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33422-1_6
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