Watching the progression of the films since this past week, it struck me how very different each of their scores were. I did enjoy High Noon, but when I heard the opening song practically every time the sheriff showed up, I really did expect the camera to come across some fellow sitting just around a corner playing his guitar and singing. Occasionally, I expected it so much that when I never saw the singer, I wanted to laugh-though there was not much comic relief in the film, period. I've come to the conclusion that this mode of thinking is drawn from what I have been taught by films I've seen over the course of my life. However, I did not experience this while watching In the Heat of the Night OR American Graffiti, though there were popular songs that showed up in (or across) both of those films. But, I've been sensitized to certain expectations, and since the actual sound effects of the film were more subtle than they generally are in films made in more recent years, I automatically figured that the song itself would somehow become more directly related to the picture (rather than being simply a leitmotif).
The part of High Noon that we watched in class before we watched the entire movie brought the showdown scene from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly immediately to my mind. I just went back and watched that scene: although Ennio Morricone's score doesn't "match up" so obviously with the images, the change of scenes does coincide with the rhythm of the music as the camera switches from face to eyes to hand and back around again. It's a very intense sequence, slowly building to the climax of who will shoot-and be shot-first ("And then we will find out who is right . . . and who is dead." [The Princess Bride]). However, the scene is made both memorable and stunning due to Morricone's powerful score. In fact, the filming and directing is usually very basic-almost "home" style, from time to time-but the film is remembered (inarguably) as the greatest of the Spaghetti Westerns because of Ennio Morricone.
Although I had read Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird, and seen the play, I hadn't yet gotten the chance to watch the film until Tuesday. [Random thoughts: although there was a bit of comic relief in the film, since the book was able to include more events that aren't directly related to the arc of the story, the book is loads funnier. It was a pity they left out the part where Scout decided to start swearing all the time . . .] I really loved the score, and was struck by the variety of the music and styles throughout the film. I found that it worked very well-though sometimes a composer becomes a little too ambitious and decides to put together so many different musical ideas it sounds like a compilation score. As an example, I thought of Harry Gregson-Williams' score for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Though I have read interviews with him in which he explains why he see-saws between styles, listening to the soundtrack still feels as though he couldn't decide what kind of score he wanted to write, so he stuck all of his ideas together. Fortunately, it doesn't bother you when you're watching the movie unless you're already aware of it.
I was very happy to hear the "What Makes a Great Melody Great" speech again; I happened to misplace my notes from composition class, and hearing it once more solidified it in my brain. With any of John Williams' themes-Superman, Jurassic Park, Artificial Intelligence . . . everything is absolutely perfect. I think about this in everything I hear now (especially in The Beatles' music!) and realize that the more static a melody, the less memorable the song (or piece). [George Harrison tended to write melodies that are more conjunct in their arcs, while Lennon and McCartney generally used more leaps in their songs. Of course, I suppose that this was part of his prerogative, as he was always pursuing the ideals of Indian mysticism . . . However, I've noticed that this generally makes appreciation for his songs more limited.]
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the place for most of the completely dissonant music that was being performed in the concert halls throughout the later 20th century should have been-and should still be-restricted to the movie theater. While film composers may not have come up with all of their most effective scoring notions without the "classical" composers of the time, I believe that the common layman seeking to enjoy current "art" would be better served if he were exposed to the most "progressive" sorts of music in context of a film. There were a lot of pieces I did not care for while we were studying them in Music History or Theory classes-but I run out and purchase a soundtrack album in which the film composer has exploited many of these modern musical ideas.
It may seem like a strange dichotomy, but at the same time, I found myself liking certain pieces after having read or heard why they were created, or about what they had been written. One example is George Crumb's Black Angels: I find it an extremely effective, hair-raising piece, but when I listened to it for the first time, I had no idea what it was about, and found it hideous and terrifying. This is a type of 20th-century of art: art that its creators MUST explain so that the viewer or listener can appreciate it. I prefer it immensely to the art that is not actually saying anything, while missing the days when there was no need for explanation. That is, I think, my attraction to the film score as a genre: I know why it is, what it's for, and where it's been. At that point it needs no explanation, because the images have already been the explanation, and they are essentially inseparable.
This brings to mind the story of one of Beethoven's piano sonatas: he played it through. One of the listeners present at the time inquired of the composer, "Yes-but what does it mean?" Without a word, Beethoven simply played the sonata again. (I think this is a wonderful anecdote, but it also reaffirms my sense that, had I known him, I would have disliked him intensely.)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Post 2: a Work in Progress
I have to say that the more I read in our textbook, the more invaluable I find it. The interviews, anecdotes, images, and clear writing are priceless. (One thing on a side note that I would mention is the writer like exclamation points a little too much. His italics are much more effective and I wish he would limit himself to THOSE.) I think it is very important that the author is fascinated by his subject-and he clearly is. It makes me smile to see all the photos that are footnoted "From the author's personal collection," and I wish I could have the same collection; I especially liked his picture of John Williams (who is one of my heroes).
I must stand firm on my statement that John Williams IS "one of my heroes," even though it has now been more fully revealed to me that he stands on the shoulders of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (and Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, etc. . . . ). Are there ANY composers, film, TV, classical, or other, who have NOT begged, borrowed, or stolen from former composers, living or dead? The answer is of course, a great, resounding "NO." I can understand people discrediting Watson and Crick for their work on the helix module for DNA, because they took everyone else's research; that research was facts, and using someone else's knowledge of facts and claiming that it is YOU who discovered it is an extremely different case than reworking artistic ideas. It saddens me that film composers are not more highly regarded, and I utterly despise how some people discredit film composers specifically for the reason that they do not write "originally." My issue is whether "originality" or "creativity" is really the most important thing in art. For me, coming up with new approaches and concepts and taking previous artists' ideas in order to renew and rework them, practically recreate them, are just about equal. Often, the latter can even seem MORE impressive, since the ear and/or eye is already well-adjusted to the type of work and can more easily appreciate its changing faces.
Continuing the discussion of John Williams' music, I would say that the Star Wars main title theme is almost like a subset of Korngold's earlier fanfare. I only heard them to compare them once in class, but I got the sense that musically Star Wars seemed more compact. It is reminescent to me of James Horner's recycling of the melodic and harmonic structure that Bill Conti first explored in The Right Stuff for his score for The Rocketeer: something that becomes more solid, more memorable. I might be wrong, and I might alter this notion at a later date after comparing them at greater lengths, but at this point in my life it's how they strike me. It is probable that this is my view because of the mere number of times I have been exposed to these two themes, but I will be sure to look into it further. Of course, if it weren't for Korngold (and Steiner and Tiompkin-or however his name is spelled, forgive me), there would BE no Horner or Williams as we know them.
History is an imperfect syllogism: it brings to mind a whole sequence in the movie, which is in theaters now, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: IF this person had not done THIS at THIS precise moment, then THAT person would not have been THERE at THAT time . . . and eventually you find that if the lineup of events had not all matched in a certain way, then a certain terrible accident would have never happened. I still can't get over how dependent people in the film business-or, I guess, people in the entertainment business, period-are on "getting a break." For something that depends so much on who you know or who you can impress, it's incredible to me that we, as the listening and watching public, are fortunate enough to end up with people like John Williams, or Patrick Doyle, or Hans Zimmer-or really, any film composers-landing these jobs. When they were "lucky," so are we. Learning about the whole industry without just seeing the finished product on the screen has really opened my mind to a great many possibilities: who else might it have been? If there were a certain window of opportunity that had flown past, say, Alan Silvestri, who would have gotten there instead? I suppose it's like everything else in life-you never know what might happen.
Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood took me way back . . . I used to watch that film all the time at my grandparents' house, but hadn't remembered it too well. Astonishingly, however, there were 2 little moments in the score that I suddenly remembered. I had forgotten ALL of the main, foreground music-except for maybe 14 seconds of sound that I've had pop into my head every once in a while, making me extremely puzzled as to its origin. I'm glad to have solved part of the mystery of my life; but I confess I occasionally felt like Paul McCartney waking up that morning with "Yesterday" running through his head, being convinced that he had heard it before. Fortunately for him, he hadn't - but at least I never tried to put it "in" anything only to discover (again) that I hadn't just come up with it. I also wanted to state how very effective I found the score for The Best Years of Our Lives, particularly at the more emotional parts. The music welling up so perfectly suited the relationships on the screen, it was everything a score should be. There was a great deal of tension on the screen, obviously - the acting was very effective - but the music was, as Mendelssohn always insisted, saying what mere human words could NOT say. I think that is the true answer to a film score's identity.
I must stand firm on my statement that John Williams IS "one of my heroes," even though it has now been more fully revealed to me that he stands on the shoulders of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (and Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, etc. . . . ). Are there ANY composers, film, TV, classical, or other, who have NOT begged, borrowed, or stolen from former composers, living or dead? The answer is of course, a great, resounding "NO." I can understand people discrediting Watson and Crick for their work on the helix module for DNA, because they took everyone else's research; that research was facts, and using someone else's knowledge of facts and claiming that it is YOU who discovered it is an extremely different case than reworking artistic ideas. It saddens me that film composers are not more highly regarded, and I utterly despise how some people discredit film composers specifically for the reason that they do not write "originally." My issue is whether "originality" or "creativity" is really the most important thing in art. For me, coming up with new approaches and concepts and taking previous artists' ideas in order to renew and rework them, practically recreate them, are just about equal. Often, the latter can even seem MORE impressive, since the ear and/or eye is already well-adjusted to the type of work and can more easily appreciate its changing faces.
Continuing the discussion of John Williams' music, I would say that the Star Wars main title theme is almost like a subset of Korngold's earlier fanfare. I only heard them to compare them once in class, but I got the sense that musically Star Wars seemed more compact. It is reminescent to me of James Horner's recycling of the melodic and harmonic structure that Bill Conti first explored in The Right Stuff for his score for The Rocketeer: something that becomes more solid, more memorable. I might be wrong, and I might alter this notion at a later date after comparing them at greater lengths, but at this point in my life it's how they strike me. It is probable that this is my view because of the mere number of times I have been exposed to these two themes, but I will be sure to look into it further. Of course, if it weren't for Korngold (and Steiner and Tiompkin-or however his name is spelled, forgive me), there would BE no Horner or Williams as we know them.
History is an imperfect syllogism: it brings to mind a whole sequence in the movie, which is in theaters now, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: IF this person had not done THIS at THIS precise moment, then THAT person would not have been THERE at THAT time . . . and eventually you find that if the lineup of events had not all matched in a certain way, then a certain terrible accident would have never happened. I still can't get over how dependent people in the film business-or, I guess, people in the entertainment business, period-are on "getting a break." For something that depends so much on who you know or who you can impress, it's incredible to me that we, as the listening and watching public, are fortunate enough to end up with people like John Williams, or Patrick Doyle, or Hans Zimmer-or really, any film composers-landing these jobs. When they were "lucky," so are we. Learning about the whole industry without just seeing the finished product on the screen has really opened my mind to a great many possibilities: who else might it have been? If there were a certain window of opportunity that had flown past, say, Alan Silvestri, who would have gotten there instead? I suppose it's like everything else in life-you never know what might happen.
Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood took me way back . . . I used to watch that film all the time at my grandparents' house, but hadn't remembered it too well. Astonishingly, however, there were 2 little moments in the score that I suddenly remembered. I had forgotten ALL of the main, foreground music-except for maybe 14 seconds of sound that I've had pop into my head every once in a while, making me extremely puzzled as to its origin. I'm glad to have solved part of the mystery of my life; but I confess I occasionally felt like Paul McCartney waking up that morning with "Yesterday" running through his head, being convinced that he had heard it before. Fortunately for him, he hadn't - but at least I never tried to put it "in" anything only to discover (again) that I hadn't just come up with it. I also wanted to state how very effective I found the score for The Best Years of Our Lives, particularly at the more emotional parts. The music welling up so perfectly suited the relationships on the screen, it was everything a score should be. There was a great deal of tension on the screen, obviously - the acting was very effective - but the music was, as Mendelssohn always insisted, saying what mere human words could NOT say. I think that is the true answer to a film score's identity.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Blog's Maiden Voyage
Evening to all! Hey there, Dr. B. Though I guess this will be afternoon for him. Here are some of my thoughts . . . And I'll try to make this an "intriguing" read, even though it also happens to be an assignment. :-)
So . . . I have found the film music class to be extremely enjoyable so far, since it is an art form by which I've been fascinated ever since I was a young kid. I really have no idea how old I was, in fact, but I do have these fleeting, vague memories of listening to my parents' old LP of Vangelis's soundtrack to Chariots of Fire and being just entranced by the main title. (So much so that whenever I hear it borrowed by other films, such as Madagascar or Vacation, resentment boils up in my heart. Even though I like those movies, too.) I always wondered how on earth they were allowed to do that, because I figured that Vangelis would own the rights -- well, my questions are being answered! Enough chitchat -- lets get down to the actual post now.
It is always profoundly gratifying to be sitting in class when the lecture turns to things you once knew. (The only bad part is that you can't remember them by now, because your head has been crammed with so much else since then ...) I've read Rick Altman's "The Silence of the Silents" and other articles by him, as well as all the books our textbook footnotes. This is why: sophomore year I really, REALLY wanted to do my music history research paper on the music that would be played in silent films. Unfortunately, it turned into an enormous tome that was so random and sprawling that it read practically like a work of fiction. It also focused mainly on Wagner and the Gesamkunstwerk, so I'm sorry if I looked like a bobblehead during class when you were lecturing on that. It just all came back to me. How I wish -- I wish intensely -- that Wagner were still around so we could have let him loose on the film industry. He would have been even crazier, probably. One instance of "love the art, hate the artist." Totally.
I was deeply interested in the thought process behind The Battleship Potemkin. All my freakin' life have I been hearing about that film (mostly from my grandfather, who could talk the feathers off a hen) and never even thought "Odessa Steps" was literally set IN Odessa. [It would interest me -- and I need to look back at the movie -- but I know that they filmed The Legend of 1900 at, I think, that same harbour area. (Great movie, by the way -- a bit weird, featuring one of my favorite Morricone themes.)] I took especial notice of the times something would happen over and over again -- such as the plate smashing. I've seen that in modern films SO OFTEN -- I'm guessing this was one of the first, too. If I were a REAL composer (as in, if I could organize my brain), I would love to experiment with frames like that: bam bam BAM! That does give me a lot of ideas. A Trip to the Moon, to me, was both amusing and rather disturbing: what the heck happened to the guy they left ON the moon? Of course, I realize that a lot of things that people USED to think of as good clean fun have been warped by more contemporary society -- clowns, for example. (Gee thanks, Stephen King!)
Speaking of Stephen King -- nothing would normally compel me to watch a film like Carrie. However, after reading the description in the book, viewing it made for an unforgettable experience. NOT just because of the bloodstained arm poppin' out of the ground, either. Though I thought that was a nice touch. But since I had read about the flute solo, and in particular its apparent beauty, I found myself listening particularly closely, analyzing it and getting caught up in it then WHAM -- HOT DOG! Awesome. I jumped, then I laughed -- because I was so taken in. I rarely watch horror films, since I generally think they're so stupid I laugh and annoy everyone in the theater (yes, I HAVE been asked to shut up before) but I'm really looking forward to seeing more things like that and really taking note of the elements in the music, be they subtle or blatantly obvious.
Just a note on something that's getting mentioned quite a lot: how weird and freaky it is to "see dead people" on screen . . . My mom at first refused to see The Dark Knight because it freaked her out that Heath Ledger had died, partly stemming from his role as the Joker. I don't know why I didn't have the same reaction -- I guess it's because I've always tended to think of films as pieces of art (mostly) rather than documents (Galaxy Quest, ha ha!) or memorials of days past. Unless they're home movies. Caravaggio is dead; Rossini is dead; Moliere is dead; but since you can't see them, that's the difference, I guess. Which brings me to Siegfried: I found it stunning, especially visually -- although the score was well-suited and did have lovely moments. Like I mentioned, the intensites of the black, white, and gray elements on screen were so beautiful. I've never even been much of a fan of black and white films. I used to watch the old Little Rascals, but that's about it. But, it's a really unique effect that Fritz Lang used amazingly well to produce something amazingly dynamic in appearance. I didn't even mind the slowness -- I'm always very interested in the whole story and had never seen it told in such a straightforward narrative before.
Although I remain extremely interested in film music, it has been brought home to me by all the anecdotes -- and especially the interviews with actual film composers -- that I could never handle such a life. Not that I'm creative enough to begin with, but at the word "politics" I was gone. Orchestrator is also an intriguing job -- also one I'm never going to be able to do, but really, the finished product must be so insanely pleasing to hear and witness when the film's in the theater. It saddens me deeply that music remains such an afterthought in the production process -- but so many people jump up to go out and buy the soundtracks to big movies coming out, even if they're not really musical. To me that's a wonderful thing -- and really, they should give the music budget more than the crumbs from their tables.
AGB out. See y'all Monday.
So . . . I have found the film music class to be extremely enjoyable so far, since it is an art form by which I've been fascinated ever since I was a young kid. I really have no idea how old I was, in fact, but I do have these fleeting, vague memories of listening to my parents' old LP of Vangelis's soundtrack to Chariots of Fire and being just entranced by the main title. (So much so that whenever I hear it borrowed by other films, such as Madagascar or Vacation, resentment boils up in my heart. Even though I like those movies, too.) I always wondered how on earth they were allowed to do that, because I figured that Vangelis would own the rights -- well, my questions are being answered! Enough chitchat -- lets get down to the actual post now.
It is always profoundly gratifying to be sitting in class when the lecture turns to things you once knew. (The only bad part is that you can't remember them by now, because your head has been crammed with so much else since then ...) I've read Rick Altman's "The Silence of the Silents" and other articles by him, as well as all the books our textbook footnotes. This is why: sophomore year I really, REALLY wanted to do my music history research paper on the music that would be played in silent films. Unfortunately, it turned into an enormous tome that was so random and sprawling that it read practically like a work of fiction. It also focused mainly on Wagner and the Gesamkunstwerk, so I'm sorry if I looked like a bobblehead during class when you were lecturing on that. It just all came back to me. How I wish -- I wish intensely -- that Wagner were still around so we could have let him loose on the film industry. He would have been even crazier, probably. One instance of "love the art, hate the artist." Totally.
I was deeply interested in the thought process behind The Battleship Potemkin. All my freakin' life have I been hearing about that film (mostly from my grandfather, who could talk the feathers off a hen) and never even thought "Odessa Steps" was literally set IN Odessa. [It would interest me -- and I need to look back at the movie -- but I know that they filmed The Legend of 1900 at, I think, that same harbour area. (Great movie, by the way -- a bit weird, featuring one of my favorite Morricone themes.)] I took especial notice of the times something would happen over and over again -- such as the plate smashing. I've seen that in modern films SO OFTEN -- I'm guessing this was one of the first, too. If I were a REAL composer (as in, if I could organize my brain), I would love to experiment with frames like that: bam bam BAM! That does give me a lot of ideas. A Trip to the Moon, to me, was both amusing and rather disturbing: what the heck happened to the guy they left ON the moon? Of course, I realize that a lot of things that people USED to think of as good clean fun have been warped by more contemporary society -- clowns, for example. (Gee thanks, Stephen King!)
Speaking of Stephen King -- nothing would normally compel me to watch a film like Carrie. However, after reading the description in the book, viewing it made for an unforgettable experience. NOT just because of the bloodstained arm poppin' out of the ground, either. Though I thought that was a nice touch. But since I had read about the flute solo, and in particular its apparent beauty, I found myself listening particularly closely, analyzing it and getting caught up in it then WHAM -- HOT DOG! Awesome. I jumped, then I laughed -- because I was so taken in. I rarely watch horror films, since I generally think they're so stupid I laugh and annoy everyone in the theater (yes, I HAVE been asked to shut up before) but I'm really looking forward to seeing more things like that and really taking note of the elements in the music, be they subtle or blatantly obvious.
Just a note on something that's getting mentioned quite a lot: how weird and freaky it is to "see dead people" on screen . . . My mom at first refused to see The Dark Knight because it freaked her out that Heath Ledger had died, partly stemming from his role as the Joker. I don't know why I didn't have the same reaction -- I guess it's because I've always tended to think of films as pieces of art (mostly) rather than documents (Galaxy Quest, ha ha!) or memorials of days past. Unless they're home movies. Caravaggio is dead; Rossini is dead; Moliere is dead; but since you can't see them, that's the difference, I guess. Which brings me to Siegfried: I found it stunning, especially visually -- although the score was well-suited and did have lovely moments. Like I mentioned, the intensites of the black, white, and gray elements on screen were so beautiful. I've never even been much of a fan of black and white films. I used to watch the old Little Rascals, but that's about it. But, it's a really unique effect that Fritz Lang used amazingly well to produce something amazingly dynamic in appearance. I didn't even mind the slowness -- I'm always very interested in the whole story and had never seen it told in such a straightforward narrative before.
Although I remain extremely interested in film music, it has been brought home to me by all the anecdotes -- and especially the interviews with actual film composers -- that I could never handle such a life. Not that I'm creative enough to begin with, but at the word "politics" I was gone. Orchestrator is also an intriguing job -- also one I'm never going to be able to do, but really, the finished product must be so insanely pleasing to hear and witness when the film's in the theater. It saddens me deeply that music remains such an afterthought in the production process -- but so many people jump up to go out and buy the soundtracks to big movies coming out, even if they're not really musical. To me that's a wonderful thing -- and really, they should give the music budget more than the crumbs from their tables.
AGB out. See y'all Monday.
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