Just coming back from "Troy". This film is quite nonsense, but what the hack.
The music is as good as what one can do in two weeks. He missed some great moments in my opinion.
But the whole soundtrack is a mess. I can´t remember any big picture with that amount of asynchonity. That comes from constant changing of the picture edit and inserting new versions of the vfx department. It´s hardly possible nowadays to deliver a fully synchronous soundtrack since really a lot of picture information is finished only after the mix. But in this case it was extremely bad. There are several quality standards really going down, not only in the music department. And it´s often out of the creators hands, it´s mostly really bad organisation. But people seem to not care anymore.
Furthermore the adr voice dubbing was so bad, not only soundwise but first of all because of bad directing. Very rarely the postsynced dialog fitted the picture. The whole audience recognized it. There were several laughters not intended by the film. Well the acting in general was on quite low level. Peter O´Toole with his great face was really a highpoint in this film.

So, how to miss as many possibilities as possible with 200 million dollars. This Troy legend is such a great subject, with this budget he should have been able to make a great film.
As a really off-topic thing I find it really curious that in our oh so much civilised society this martial massacres attracts such a great audience. I mean there are so much films produced in the recent years which deal with nothing else than war and killing. This still seems to be the bottom of our souls or what?

Good night,
- Mathis

"... but what the hack."

Exactly my point. Thank you, language barrier.

Very, Very, funny Bill.
DC

[:D]

Man, writing in a foreign language is a weird thing.. I´m often curious what you guys actually read as opposed to what I meant....

@mathis said:

So, how to miss as many possibilities as possible with 200 million dollars. This Troy legend is such a great subject, with this budget he should have been able to make a great film.

Good night,
- Mathis

Unfortunately with this size budget one gets approval committees, focus groups and test audiences, so anything original is likely to get filtered or removed completely. That is why I'm always so surprised when a big budget Hollywood movie is actually any good.

@mathis said:

Man, writing in a foreign language is a weird thing.. I´m often curious what you guys actually read as opposed to what I meant....

Quite so Mathis. It never ceases to astound me that so many people on this excellent forum, from non-native-speaking English countries, speak fantastic English. No only speak, but write it too! People from England assume that the rest of the world should all speak English, which means that the truth is, we're too lazy or too dumb or too arrogant to learn another language properly. I include myself. Indeed, a lot of people from England are unable to read, write and speak English as eloquently as our European neighbours. Incredible, to me, the level of quality English language you and all the other Europeans speak and understand. Fantastic!

200 million dollars aye? Could have built a hospital for that! The point about films like Troy and actors such as Peter O' Toole and Julie Christie, for example, is an old trick. Derek Jacobi in Gladiator, and so on. Familiar cinema stalwarts that appeal to the older audiences. Hollywood usually uses British actors as character references or the obligatory 'badie'. British actors don't mind, of course. It runs a parallel with what Fred Story mentioned about familiarity in music. It's safe. I wonder if Gabriel Yared's score would have 'lifted' the film in anyway. What do you think? I bet it would have, although, not saved it, from the sound of your description.

DG makes a very good point about test audiences, committees etc. I've watched committees in action from close up, over time. I wonder if Pressburger & Powell did that when they were about to release a film, or Ealing? Originality is not part of their collective consciousness. Hehe! Just a wild guess, but it's not Daniel, is it?

All the best(s)

PR

If I tried to write in German it would be a rich source of unintentional comedy.

@PaulR said:

Quite so Mathis. It never ceases to astound me that so many people on this excellent forum, from non-native-speaking English countries, speak fantastic English. No only speak, but write it too!

Thanks for the flowers, as we germans say... [[;)]]
Actually I feel I can better read/write english than I speak. That comes from, well, guess what, reading and writing ( [8-)] ). I learn a lot of my english actually on this kind of forums. There´s always my great dictionary running in the background and I use it a lot. I learn a lot of casual english in these chats.
But when I have to speak I´m not fast enough with looking up... most horrible for me is a phone call. there I don´t even have my hands for sign language.

I don´t think, Yared´s score would have made a great difference to the film I have to say. In some cues (the romantic ones) I would say it even was a better choice to not use his music. The film would have appeared like a melodrama from the fifties. But especially the song stuff and also the action stuff I think would have been much better.
But this is a kind of film one really can´t *save* with music. That would be a great miracle. Maybe that would mean one could change the world with music. What a dream!

@Another User said:

I learn a lot of my english actually on this kind of forums.

Mathis


It's 'these kind of forums' or

It's 'this kind of forum'

Don't push your luck. [:D]

Ok, I seem to need some detention...

"That would be a great miracle. Maybe that would mean one could change the world with music. What a dream!"

This is what every musician should try to do.

@mathis said:

But this is a kind of film one really can´t *save* with music.

Unfortunately I don't think that one can ever save a film with music. If the music is of a much better standard than the film all that happens is that the focus is pulled away from the pictures; this never works. Of course if one is asked to score a bad film, then the music still has to be as good as possible in order to maintain one's reputation [[;)]]

The example I remember that is closest to music saving a bad film is "Obsession" - a piece of clap-trap from the pretentious writer Paul Schrader (criminally responsible for the god-awful remake of "Cat People") and Brian de Palma who can do some good things but screwed up a bad idea here - Hey! Let's do "Vertigo" with father and daughter!

Huh?

But anyway Bernard Herrmann's music is so great that it almost makes the film watchable. Almost. But fortunately you can listen to it alone on the soundtrack album.

I saw this the other day - strictly in the interests of research of course. Lots to say about it...much of it mitigated by the fact that I learn from the preceeding posts that it was written in two weeks - no wonder he had Vaughn Williams posthumously write the last cue! (Tallis Fantasia? Good choice IMHO).

Gladiator Too - check. But it makes Ridley look pretty good doesn't it?

Pity about the Yared score. Cold mountain was fairly impressive no? A powerfully intense piece of work. Amazing horn section as I recall - fully exploited too!

Anyone seen the new Almodovar? A wonderful score - mixed very loud - a la Hermann by Iglesias. Really fantastic in every respect. Great playing by Gavin Wright's lot etc...Worth a look definitely.

Morpheus,

Was this Vaughn Williams section credited or is James Horner using his normal technique -
rip off anything he can get his mits on?

I don't think it was credited ... more in the way of "un hommage" ... basically it was identical music, except that the orchestration was expanded to include the full (and i do mean FULL) band.

tallis fantasia or greensleeves fantasia is the source - can't remember which one just now, but it is the second subject in the piece im thinking of...

best from sunny scotland!

Yes, Horner does a lot of those "homages" doesn't he?

BTW is Scotland really sunny?

Yes indeed he does, BUT I think I may have the answer to this particular one...

Its the curse of the temp.

Saw Master and Commander the other day and Hey Presto the same Vaughn Williams cue is all over it like a strange pastoral miasma transported into the ocean from some English sheep meadow. The effect is quite peculiar really. Or is it just me?

So probably it was just a temp that stuck. As they do.

That particular score is quite unusual in that it uses mainly 18th C existing music (complete with sterling efforts by Russel Crowe to mime playing the fiddle).

All the best from (really) sunny Scotland. About 15 degrees here today. Phew! Too hot for us Northern types...

"Strange pastoral miasma"

I had a touch of that last night myself.

actually, I had something against the music in the lord of the rings trilogy.

the score for the first movie was nothing short of brilliant. But in the 2nd and 3rd movie they kind of tried to form a theme that was always played when an action event took place. that kind of made it feel 3rd rate to my ears, instead of making a breathtaking new themes for every movie.

probably not the composers faultthough. he got his orders from someone else. There was a trailer with the orcs marching through middle earth and the chorus was nothing short of spinechilling. that trailer music (originally composed for LotR) never made it into the movies. so sad.

I believed these movies were epic enough to escape from the annoying thememusic effect. maybe i'm picky because i'm a muscision [[;)]] but isn't it a bit cheesy at times?