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Pre-existing music has been used to underscore the moving image since the days of ‘silent’ film, and this practice is still commonplace today in Hollywood and beyond. Such music may be ‘classical’ or ‘popular’ and can feature within the narrative of a movie diegetically, non-diegetically, or both. With regard to art music in film, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often the composer of choice, given the popularity and familiarity of many of his compositions. However, his music is employed cinematically in a range of different situations and for a variety of purposes.

In this chapter, I focus on ways in which compositions by Mozart are used to manifest the music and death nexus present in the narrative of three films that were released in different decades. ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni (1787) features in the first film I analyse, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945), with the aria being linked to the symbolic death of the moral compass of the protagonist. I then consider the inclusion of music from one of Mozart's symphonies in the storyline of the film Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), the narrative of which includes the themes of deception and murder. The final film I examine is I am David (Paul Feig, 2003), in which one of the characters sacrifices his life to save that of his friend. Each example encapsulates death as embodied affect, with Mozart's music specifically impacting upon the emotions of the protagonists.

This study is a queer autoethnography which deconstructs assumptions about a queer musical perspective and the associated heteronormative power and privilege. Using the lens of a Heideggerian interpretive phenomenology, it examines the request for and subsequent actualising or unfolding of musical compositions that respond to works of art. The request, being for a ‘queer compositional response’ to artworks occurred as personal; it touched my experience of being occurring as a kind of existential threat. As such, the personal is clearly political, positioning the experience of the request for queer compositions as a cultural experience which I am examining as socially unjust, or discriminatory. Furthermore, examining the intersectionalities of oppressive heteronormative and sexist attitudes and actions as queer in the world is an authentic mode of being in Heidegger's analytic of Dasein.

In order to effectively serve diverse communities, an organization must first create an internal culture of empathy and acceptance. An organizational read can be an opportunity to create this culture as well as create times, spaces, and experiences to transfer knowledge and build community beyond an organization on a topic of importance that has an impact on the communities it serves. The University of Tennessee Libraries' 2019 organizational read program featured Robin DiAngelo's book White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, which helped create diversity conversations to enable personal changes that facilitated more effective engagement. This chapter provides an overview of the Libraries' organizational read, including its structure and evaluation, and discusses the success of the program in building community engagement and outreach. Examples are shared regarding how the program has impacted the Libraries' outreach efforts to three new communities, as well as details for future iterations and plans for the program to continue to expand beyond the Libraries. Ideas are provided for adapting the program to other types of communities that want to build bridges for change.