This dissertation investigates the collaborative process of film scoring as practiced in the films of David O. Selznick, a producer whose close attention to music distinguished him from Hollywood competitors. Drawing from extensive archival research, I examine the producer's memos, composers' scores, and various correspondences to trace streams of influence that shaped the musical rhetoric of Selznick's most significant films. Close study reveals that interpretive arguments concerning these films are best grounded in a thorough knowledge of the film scores' collaborative construction. Rather than depicting Selznick as a producer-auteur who merely imposed his ideas on composers, this dissertation views the scores from his films as sites of artistic contestation in which musical decisions made before, during, and after composition alternately reflect instances of negotiation and resistance.

Selznick's collaboration with composers Miklós Rózsa, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman forms the centerpiece of this study, with select scores receiving special emphasis. Analysis of King Kong (1933), The Young in Heart (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Rebecca (1940) shows Selznick's growing involvement in the film scoring process and also highlights the savvy mediation of composers and music directors. Inspection of Symphony of Six Million (1932), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), and Since You Went Away (1944) further reveals Selznick's indebtedness to musical practices of the silent cinema. The scores for Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), and Portrait of Jennie (1948) bear intricate collaborative tensions—often involving director Alfred Hitchcock—and receive a chapter each, allowing ample space to explore the aesthetic controversies surrounding each score's production, promotion, and reception. In these chapters theoretical concerns, such as the relationship between music, subjectivity, and gender, gain nuance when set against the backdrop of creative collaboration. By considering issues of authorship and artistic control, this dissertation demonstrates that the scores for Selznick's films convey a dense polyphony of ideas, revisions, and interpolations effected by composers; music editors, directors, and producer. Scrutiny of these scores and the process of their construction illuminates rarely glimpsed facets of film music production, encouraging the scholar to reconsider the social dynamics that constitute artistic collaboration in multimedia.