What an extraordinarily interesting conversation I've stumbled across here. Numerous good points....

A couple of my own:

Recently I was at a talk by Elmer Bernstein where he casually stated that in the old days he would have the orchestra for a week to do a main title cue. I think every composer in the audience died a little at that moment...
What do we get now 2-4 weeks for the whole thing BUT with 790 sets of tiny changes (enabled by our wonderful technology). It is truly a different planet...

Another great point from a previous posting: if it doesn't make decent sense when played on the piano, then it is not the real deal. 90 players churning out dire harmony with no voice leading etc etc is very sad. There is plenty of very colouristic music that is great (Ravel, Messaien, even arguably Ligeti, Grisey etc), but the reason it works so beautifully is because as well as the colours being great THE NOTES ARE GREAT AS WELL!

All the best from the sunny UK...

O.K., to get something scandalous going related to this topic, here is my contribution - what is the worst film score you've ever heard?

I think the worst I've heard is the score to "4-D Man." At least among ones that come immediately to mind. This was a lesser 50s sci-fi film, not too bad really, but not too good either - but it had an incredibly, ridiculously intrusive big band jazz score. Now I agree with Max Steiner that film music should be noticed, but this was grotesquely out of character with the film and served only to show off the cool cats who were playing it fff every time they could.

Another bad score is not one, but several all lumped together - those atrocious early-sampler scores that have been plastered over silent movies recently. Part of this can be ascribed to low technology sampling, but sorry - not all of it. I remember hearing a score to a C.B. Demille silent film, that had an almost completely dry "timpani roll" accomplished by the composer hitting AS FAST AS HE COULD a single note sample. It was close to nauseating. Another characteristic of these silent film scores is that they are remarkably out of character with the original films. There is no attempt at "harmonizing" with the musical practice of the time in any way.

Carl Davis and Timothy Brock have done some brilliant scores recently to silent classics by Harold Lloyd and F. W. Murnau that accomplish this very thing - writing a contemporary score but with a "feel" that does not contradict the silent era.

I'm sure there are plenty of more recent scores to point out.

O.K. - here's another one:

James Horner, "Star Trek II."

When I first saw this film and heard this music I almost puked. (Though not from the film - it's a pretty good one if you like Star Trek.)

Outer Space = Augmented triad played by near-catatonic-by-arpeggio violinists

Khan = Motif stolen from Prokofiev "Alexander Nevsky."

Anything Else = Incredibly, shamelessly plagiarized John Williams-style cliches - you name 'em. They're all here. Every last one of them. This composer is the single most shockingly blatant plagiarist in the history of music, bar none.

William,

You know better than to get me started on that film composer and that film.

My contribution to your post will be to point out the lovely strains of Mahler's 7th that are to be found uncredited in that film as well.

Shameless is right.

Dave Connor

On your earlier post: There's a score that I think was a Titanic failure but I can't remember the name of the film.

Dave,

You've got me stumped. I can't imagine what you're refering to. Wait a minute! There was an incredibly long, melodramatic and overproduced potboiler by a director who said he was the King of the World. I can't think of the title though. Sorry.

BTW I thought of another - and this is by a great composer: Max Steiner. He was obviously one of the finest ever, but he did one that was so atrocious I was constantly irritated and driven almost to desperation trying - concentrating as hard as I could - not to hear the music as I watched the film. It was "Lady in White." Yes, not that famous a film, but a fairly good 40s mystery, based on a novel by Wilkie Collins, a great Victorian mystery writer. It was astounding how much the music conflicted - gratingly - with the film, even to the point of trying to assert itself over dialogue. And it was not the mix, since this was a major studio film and perfect technically. It was clearly a situation of the music being severely out of touch with the film's needs. And some films are so needy. Especially Victorian mysteries...

Outer Space = Augmented triad played by near-catatonic-by-arpeggio violinists

Hang on...you mean outer space doesn't sound like that??

Re worst score nominations: I heard a stinker last night. 25th hour by Terence Blanchard. Not good. Too much of everything and wall to wall noodling. Also a pseudo Lisa Gerrard thing. Ouch.

Also a generalised worst score nomination for anything by David Arnold. Sorry David.

By the way a UK paper recently carried an interview of Ennio Morricone (IMHO a seriously good composer) by the aforementioned Arnold. Quite funny.

I agree about Morricone. I haven't heard those other ones (consciously) and maybe that's a good thing from what you say.

Morpheus,

Morricone?

Oh yeah. Lots of fans of his around here. Great writer. Certainly one of my favorites.

William,

Max Steiner? Is it just me or is the theme for Gone With The Wind, simplistic, laborious and overblown?

King of the World? You mean King Kong the great film with a great score by Mr. Steiner? Or that awful film and score that just sort of sank into the depths?

Dave Connor

You have a point there, Dave. Perhaps I am being a bit too positive about old Max. I agree on Gone with the Wind (gag). I wish it had just gone.

Why is the director of Lord of the Rings remaking King Kong? Why bother? You can't beat the original version with Fay Wray. Its impossible. Just leave it alone Jackson and do something original.

Make a film of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Your'e good at doing things in threes. Now, that would be worth waiting for.

Very good point Paul.

I was actually grateful that Mr. Jackson was going to do a version of the film having been so disappointed with the DeLaurentis version. But you're right: what's the point? That incredible movie will never be outdone - it's amazing. The first blockbuster.

Steiner did a great job on that film. I do wonder what Korngold thought of the theme to GWTW. I can't imagine he liked it at all.

Dave Connor

I agree with the puzzlement on remaking Kong which is a masterpiece and one of the great original stories of the cinema and probably the whole 20th century. It is a story of mythic significance, and was created just for that movie. Also I don't care if Kong will look more realistic - the original has character and was hand-made and hand-animated, and that is a thousand times more significant than CGI "realism."

A favorite anecdote of David Raksin regarding Steiner and Korngold:

Korngold's wife, "Erich, it seems that Max's music is getting better and your's is slipping."

Korngold, "Of course, he's been copying from me and I've been copying from him."

DC

Haha! Good! On Kong, I don't care if the computer graphics look brilliant, which they undoubtably will. But Jackson will struggle to get that feel of the original time and the pathos in my view. New audiences probably won't care though. So, OK, never mind.

Hitchcock on Tallulah Bankhead and the film Lifeboat. The crew complained Ms Bankhead refused to wear undergarments and it was causing camera angle problems because of the space. Hitchcock replied that he didn't know if it was a problem for the cameraman or the hairdresser.

Another. An actress asked Hitchcock which side her best profile was. Hitchcock replied ' Your'e sitting on it my dear'.

Yes Hitch was a character. I often am struck by how even in this time of immense overpopulation, there is absolutely NO ONE remotely like that one particular person. Even though many desperately want to be. He is one of those few whom you really want to be immortal (unlike most people whose mortality is an immense relief to themselves and others).

@William said:

I agree with the puzzlement on remaking Kong which is a masterpiece and one of the great original stories of the cinema and probably the whole 20th century. It is a story of mythic significance, and was created just for that movie. Also I don't care if Kong will look more realistic - the original has character and was hand-made and hand-animated, and that is a thousand times more significant than CGI "realism."

You obviously do not understand CGI (I hate that term) [:)] .I work in computer games... We have many animators here who painstakingly move each character frame by frame to achieve 'cgi animation'.... and the modellers who build the actual 3d models out of polygons.... vertex by vertex, and then they paint the texture maps which are then wrapped around the wireframe models. These are everybit just as hand crafted as stop motion... just as your compositions are no doubt just as hand crafted on your midikeyboard. Have you ever seen how texture maps are painted... well it's by using a program like Photoshop and a wacom tablet (a digital pen that you actually grasp and paint on the screen with, pressure and angle sensitive so you can shade as if it were a real airbrush.
.I am a traditional artist... you give me a pencil and i'll draw whatever, but I now also use computers because it is another medium. But no less artistic ability is required.

I am aware of the complexity of CGI since I do it and 3D animation. I am working right now on a video production using Poser 5 and Bryce and love using them. But I also have worked in traditional stop motion by hand and because of that I like its old-fashioned nature. The best animated films ever made are probably the Brothers Quay shorts, which are militantly old-fashioned, handmade, all-film, non-digital surrealism. I don't like the way stop motion animation has been assumed to be less valuable merely because it does not look as superficially realistic.

William, always good for a surprise...

You didn´t answer yet what kind of films you do yourself, b.t.w. I´m really curious!

@mathis said:

William, always good for a surprise...

I didn't know you were good for surprises Bill! Mathis is curious about everything (and why not?).

James, you make a good point, but I think what Bill meant and what I subscribe to is the 'magic' of the early animation such as Harryhausen i.e. Jason & the Argonauts, Mysterious Island etc. Yes, they can make it look better and more real these days, but the effect is not any less with the early examples of this art. [:)]

i for one have full faith in Jackson's ultimate King Kong that will come. He is on record saying that he wanted to make the film because all the remakes DID NOT capture the mystique of the original. And after LOTR how could he go wrong? he is a perfect filmmaker. It's not by accident that every single cinematic element of LOTR raised the bar for everyone in the industry. he directed it. Pure and simple, he is the next Hitchcock in my mind. The perfect filmmaker, who can have some bad films, or commercial failures, but none the less is the top of the craft and completely reliable for fans.

Evan Evans