Abstract
The comparative functions of temporal processes in music and moving-image art forms have occasionally been the subject of explicit theoretical discussion in screen music literature (Bordwell, Doane, Widgery, de La Motte-Haber & Emons, Leydon). But these discussions have by no means exhausted the topic or provided systematic understanding of the field. Drawing on examples from television and cinematic media, some of which foreground narrational and/or conceptual issues of the distortion or manipulation of time, this paper attempts to define three related signifying properties of audio-visual temporal interaction: the (broader) cultural-historical, the (locally) expressive and the (deeper) structural. These are theorized primarily in the context of philosophical questions of non-classical temporality and narrative raised in the recent Rieser & Zapp collection (2002) and in the work of other theorists in this area, such as Levinson, which impacts strongly on the concerns of screen music studies. It is hoped that this discussion will provide a framework for future research paths in understanding the structuring of time in multiple media.