The dictionary defines "auteur" as an artist with a distinctive style. In the "The Soundtrack Auteur" students will learn about major figures who straddle the worlds of pop music and film/TV/games, as well as figures who made a splash in popular music before crossing over to become influential in writing scores or songs or supervising music for film, TV and games. The auteurs we are likely to analyze and deconstruct in this class include (in no particular order): Danny Elfman (started in Oingo Boingo and before scoring films like Batman, Spider-Man), Mark Mothersbaugh (started in Devo before scoring films like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), Hans Zimmer (started in The Buggles before scoring films like Rainman and The Dark Knight), Trevor Rabin (started in Yes before scoring films like Con Air and National Treasure). We’ll also look at influential figures like Quincy Jones (Michael Jackson, The Color Purple), Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, I Heart Huckabees), Peter Gabriel (The Last Temptation of Christ), David Byrne (Talking Heads, Last Emperor), A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire) and others. Students will walk away from the course with a unique way to consider film music history (as told through the lens of auteurs) and a new way to evaluate how and why soundtracks work. We will also spend a good deal of time focusing on the role of the music supervisor in contemporary recorded music and students will complete a major research paper on an auteur of their choice.