Musical rhetoric in integrated-media composition

Rhetorical analyses of popular music in film can guide composition teachers to develop an anticipatory pedagogy for transforming ready-made musical materials into coherent and persuasive psychologically interactive, integrated-media compositions. This essay offers an analysis of The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as the thesis of Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill and an examination of a student-produced digital video homage to David Fincher's Fight Club that employs The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” as a vehicle for its argument. Scholarly attention to visual rhetoric has helped composition teachers and theorists envision new possibilities for composing in new media. Careful consideration of musical rhetoric may enable us to hear new possibilities for integrated-media composition as well.