Integrated Soundtracks, Sergei Eisenstein, and Man-Eating Mermaids that Sing: Meaning and Method in The Lure

This article analyses the relationship between integrated soundtracks and genre through an examination of The Lure (2015). I discuss the filmmakers’ collaborative practice, and identify how the film integrates music, sound, and image in order to manipulate the codes of horror, fantasy, and the musical in a seamless and cohesive way. As well as positioning this practice within contemporary trends, this article also finds a historical precedent in Sergei Eisenstein’s writings and films. First, I chart the overlaps between Eisenstein and composer Sergei Prokofiev’s fluid collaborative working methods and those of The Lure’s filmmakers. Second, I use Charles Morris’s semiotics to account for the generation of meaning in The Lure as well as Eisenstein’s films at the level of semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. Reading Eisenstein’s methods and his films’ intended meanings through The Lure and vice-versa helps illuminate the relationship between craft and form as it pertains to classical (music-sound-image relations) as well as contemporary (the rise of integrated soundtracks and genre experiments) research questions in film studies.