Name Your Favored Composer

[drogulus]

Absolutely. And to repeat (hee hee  ) movie music can hardly be called original music, it's merely derivative/imitative pastiche, corny cliches and mannerisms, stylistic apeing; from the drooling sentimental passages, cheesy themes & fanfares and predictable "scary music" etc. Enjoyable & fun sometimes, but largely superficial though.

    Are you talking about Herrman, Morricone, Goldsmith, or Williams? A Psycho-like shriek on the strings has been a staple of horror films for decades now (including parodies), but when it was written it produced a real shock. There was nothing superficial about it in 1959. I remember when the film was shown on TV in the '60s how shocking it actually was. Even today the film (and the music) are genuinely disturbing. If this isn't art it will do until the real thing shows up.

[DavidRoss]

FWIW (not much, I'm sure, especially in the eyes of our most highly opinionated contributors here  ), one aspect of Kubrick's brilliance as a filmmaker that I particularly enjoy is his selection of music appropriate to the images and actions depicted on screen.  2001 is among his most successful films in this respect.

[PSmith08]

FWIW (not much, I'm sure, especially in the eyes of our most highly opinionated contributors here  ), one aspect of Kubrick's brilliance as a filmmaker that I particularly enjoy is his selection of music appropriate to the images and actions depicted on screen.  2001 is among his most successful films in this respect.

I'm with you there. Kubrick actually turned me on to music (that isn't by Richard Strauss or György Ligeti) with some of his movies. For example, the way he uses Schubert's E-flat piano trio (D.929, if you're keeping score) in Barry Lyndon got me into that piece, which primed my musical pump - by making chamber music seem interesting and accessible - for Beethoven and Bartók's quartets, without either of which I would not want to do.

All of Kubrick's mature works show a sort of musical sensitivity and intelligence that most other directors could only imagine.

[M forever]

Scorsese is a special case in that he is one of the few directors out there with an extensive knowledge of film, and film music, history.

...who also chose to use existing "classical" (or rather, "romantic opera") music, with great effect, copycatted ad nauseam in the meantime, in "Raging Bull". From your point of view, doubtlessly another lapse of judgment or maybe just a "rookie mistake" on Scorsese's part.

[sound67]

Those composers never created that and there is nothing shocking about it to those who know music, those musical things existed long before film guys merely aped it and attached it to a scene for added dramatic tension/effect. It just seems much more amplified with the visual, but it's a type of pastiche I was referring to earlier. So yeah, it's superficial (and always will be), but so is all of hollywood film music because of the very nature it's process...it can never be the 'real thing' so to speak.

The big blah again. You could try to be more wrong, but there's no chance you'd ever be successful.

Thomas

[sound67]

...who also chose to use existing "classical" (or rather, "romantic opera") music, with great effect, copycatted ad nauseam in the meantime, in "Raging Bull". From your point of view, doubtlessly another lapse of judgment or maybe just a "rookie mistake" on Scorsese's part.

Flawed logic again. Even if a concept works, or seems to work (sorry, I don't watch boxing movies), it doesn't follow that another concept might not have worked even better.

Thomas

[M forever]

Flawed logic again. Even if a concept works, or seems to work (sorry, I don't watch boxing movies), it doesn't follow that another concept might not have worked even better.

Very true. And how should a rookie like Scorsese be able to make the right decision? I guess he just fell in love with the temp track there. He should have hired a true film music expert (like you) to guide him in his decision. Too late...

[M forever]

OK, it just occurred to me that this comparison is totally unfair since no one actually knows North or has heard his work. To remedy this, I have uploaded his "Fanfare for 2001". I have also included a track by a composer who wrote a vaguely similar piece but for now shall remain unnamed, to make the comparison more objective. I have also not included any information in the files which are simply named A and B. It's a small download (6MB), so go ahead and listen to the two tracks, let us know which one you like better, and also, if you had to make the decision, which of the two tracks would you use in the movie "2001"?

Have fun!

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3mvc46

[Dancing Divertimentian]

FWIW (not much, I'm sure, especially in the eyes of our most highly opinionated contributors here  ), one aspect of Kubrick's brilliance as a filmmaker that I particularly enjoy is his selection of music appropriate to the images and actions depicted on screen.  2001 is among his most successful films in this respect.

FWIW, I'm in sympathy with this.

[eyeresist]

I don't know North and I never liked Strauss, so I picked Goldsmith. I really should own more of his work.

[M forever]

Yes, you really should.

[eyeresist]

Yes, you really should.

Befuddled gen-Xer: "Are you being sarcastic, dude?"
Jaded gen-Xer: "I don't even know anymore."

[sound67]

On balance, if you think how many more people on this board know Strauss than they do Goldsmith, old Jerry is holding up pretty well.

And he should. Fabulous musician he was. 

Thomas

[sound67]

FWIW, I'm in sympathy with this.

Signifying nothing ...

Thomas

[karlhenning]

On balance, if you think how many more people on this board know Strauss than they do Goldsmith, old Jerry is holding up pretty well.

On the whole, there are musical reasons why so many more people know Strauss than they do "old Jerry."

[DavidRoss]

I looked him up on IMDB, which listed 240 films and TV shows with music composed by Goldsmith, many of which I've seen, only one of which had--for me--a memorable score:  Patton.  I wanted to add Chinatown, because I think the music must have done an excellent job of helping establish the emotional tone of the scenes since the film was so well-crafted in every respect, but I couldn't recall a single theme from the movie.

[karlhenning]

I looked him up on IMDB, which listed 240 films and TV shows with music composed by Goldsmith, many of which I've seen, only one of which had--for me--a memorable score:  Patton.

Such a long (though justifiably) movie, the fact surprises many people (who are not themselves composers), that there's actually so little music (much of it coming back from time to time, and why not). The echo-ey fanfare is very nice;  the march is all right . . . contrasting middle section is a little odd.  A prime example of how the film score is musical material furnished as one component of the movie, and how it is the movie which is the composition.  There's no way in heaven or on earth that "old Jerry's" bits for Patton are 'a composition'.  But for the movie, it does its job strikingly well, indeed.

[Sergeant Rock]

There's no way in heaven or on earth that "old Jerry's" bits for Patton are 'a composition'.  But for the movie, it does its job strikingly well, indeed.

A very odd comment, Karl.  Webster defines composition as "that which is composed, specifically a work of music..." Old Jerry composed the score, and it is a work of music, therefore, the score to Patton is a composition, and, as you rightly noted, a very good one in the context for which it was composed. Personally, I enjoy it divorced from the film too.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

A very odd comment, Karl.  Webster defines composition as "that which is composed, specifically a work of music..."

I've discussed ere now the several readings of composition, Sarge; in light of that discussion, I don't think my comment will seem all that odd.

[karlhenning]

I mean this post here, buried back in the Film Music thread.