Cinematographic Trajectories of the Musical Avant-Garde: at the Crossroads of West and East

This article examines the transformation of film music in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries through the lens of the ideas of John Cage, Toru Takemitsu, and Tan Dun, whose aesthetic strategies are analysed here within a unified theoretical framework for the first time. The focus of the study is the reconceptualisation of sound and silence – from an illustrative function to an autonomous philosophical statement. The paper explores the concepts of silence, sound, performativity, corporeality, and cultural memory. Particular attention is paid to the transcultural dialogue between the Western avant-garde tradition and East Asian aesthetics, specifically the notions of ma and non-linear time. Using Tan Dun’s score for the feature film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as a case study – with its synthesis of different models of sonic thinking – the article demonstrates how contemporary cinema becomes a space for the re-actualisation of avant-garde ideas within popular culture.

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