Inter-Planetary Soundclash

Abstract

This article concentrates on one particular textual and thematic cluster within the Hollywood feature film Mars Attacks! (1996), Tim Burton's big-budget homage to Cold-War era Science Fiction cinema — the affectivity and significance of musical sounds (and sound technologies). In particular, with reference to the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987) 1 and the application of aspects of their work to uses of music in contemporary cinema in Murphie (1996);2 it considers the role of sound passages (and their associations) as territorialising refrains which eventually clash to produce the film's narrative denouement.3