That is very interesting YWT - I think your use of that Chinese word is absolutely right.  Also it reminds me of some reading I have been doing recently of some very good new translations of  Wang Wei and Tao te chien  who seemed to know exactly what is going on RIGHT NOW in the world even though they lived about a thousand years ago. 

I am glad that several mentions have been made here of the fast cutting of recent films.   It is an absolute abuse of cinema techniques, not a style at all.  For example - a director today, to prove he is "hot" will take fifty different angles on a simple scene that could be done in ONE TAKE and then cut them all together rapidly.  This is an artificial distortion of human perception being used in an infantile way, almost literally - the rapid changing of colors, images, angles delights the infantilized audience in the same way a baby is delighted at a spinning plastic mobile over his crib. 

Contrast this to another example - Kurosawa.  He is the absolute master of action in in cinema, because he varied the pace immensely.  At the beginning of Kagemusha, he has a take that lasts the entire roll, completely static - BECAUSE THE SCENE IS ITSELF STATIC.  In other words he does not fake anything.  If a scene is static, he films it in a static manner.  If it is action, he films it with brilliant fast cut shots.  Directors today have absolutely forgotten this, and use every angle, every lens, every camera movement, zoom, and cut they possibly can all the time to show they are bigshot directors.  But they are destroying the cinematic expression within their very films.  Hitchcock once stated that a close up in film is like  "Big Brass" in an orchestra. But if you use all your big brass constantly, what do you have?  Boredom.   You can't have pacing without variety and contrast, and contrast has been lost in all these new films.  I first saw this in a james Bond film aboout 15 or 20 years ago, in which James Bond never sat down and said anything. He just kept moving, skiing, running, jumping, driving cars, flying planes, running motorboats, you name it -- and it became completely boring because there was no contrast.  It actually became mentally SLOW MOVING with the physical non-stop action. 

So in a way, Zimmer is being shunted into doing this very thing in his music by the films he scores.  Of course John Williams scored a lot of action packed films and it never seemed to happen.  Why?  I don't know...

@William said:

f Zimmer said that it changes my attitude completely - that humbleness is very impressive. Though as I said in the first post I was not trashing him personally but rather criticizing the overly block chordal scores I have heard of his that are for the biggest films in the world which makes them seem very dominating, as if they are the "greatest"

I'll try to find it on the web and pass you the URL.  It was I believe an interview for some magazine.  I think if I recall correctly, it was a video interview.....

@PaulR said:

If they'd put a song in that film it would probably helped it a lot and I hate songs in films.

I did like the way that Horner handled the Titanic, placing the song at the end credits yet the theme was orchestrated throughout the film on different variations.....

@William said:

I am glad that several mentions have been made here of the fast cutting of recent films.   It is an absolute abuse of cinema techniques, not a style at all.  For example - a director today, to prove he is "hot" will take fifty different angles on a simple scene that could be done in ONE TAKE and then cut them all together rapidly.  This is an artificial distortion of human perception being used in an infantile way, almost literally - the rapid changing of colors, images, angles delights the infantilized audience in the same way a baby is delighted at a spinning plastic mobile over his crib. 

That's about as perfect an explanation you can get.

Chuck - I'm not  big fan of Titanic although I appreciate the work that goes into it. Back to Bourne. I just thought why get in a very good actor like Matt Damon for the Bourne Whatever when all he does is run. I can still run. I can run around for $15 million at any angle Greengrass wants.

Tonight I'm watching Throne of Blood followed by a depressing little number called This Sporting Life (which is great btw).

Good evening.

Fast cutting is one thing.  The other technique that I find distracting is the Big Text identifying some building or location.  I feel like I left the movie and began doing a search on Google World or something.......

I first noticed it in Fringe but recently have seen that technique used on the big screen.  It seems that one person uses it, then everyone has to jump on the band wagon.  The same thing happen with "Fast Cutting"....

@William said:

I am glad that several mentions have been made here of the fast cutting of recent films.   It is an absolute abuse of cinema techniques, not a style at all.  For example - a director today, to prove he is "hot" will take fifty different angles on a simple scene that could be done in ONE TAKE and then cut them all together rapidly.  This is an artificial distortion of human perception being used in an infantile way, almost literally - the rapid changing of colors, images, angles delights the infantilized audience in the same way a baby is delighted at a spinning plastic mobile over his crib. 

 

Yeah, I had mentioned this in my first post to this thread, films today are shot like comercials or music videos.  Just rapid fire cutting and a hypoglycemic camera that can't sit still long enough to absorb what's going on.  Not to mention the "wall of sound" soundtrack going on.   This sort of manic style can be effective but what these so-called "hot" new directors don't undersand is that there is a reason why the camera and shots stay fluid in films such as Matrin Skorsese's Goodfellas.  This style isn't really innovative either.  Brian DePalma did it in a lot in his early thrillers and he did it to give these films a sort of Hitchcock aftertaste.  An homage if you will. 

When you ask you're typical film school graduate, " In Scarface, why did DePalma orbit the camera around Tony Montana in the opening sequence?  This was never repeated in the film and why only Tony?  The typical answer is, "Cuase it was cool!  Cause Tony's a cool guy and it's a cool shot."  No, you boob, Could it be that Tony is lying and giving the Immigration Officers the runaround in order to conceal his past, hence the camera is "running around" Tony?  Get it?  I got it.  Apparently a generation of film school graduates didn't.  But they use this technique along with all of the fast cutting to "look cool."  In reality they look foolish. 

Take a look at any dramatic television show these days.  Aside from the jump cuts notice what the camera is doing.  Notice how the background is constantly shifting and how the camera is rotating around subjects, dolly in, dolly out, and panning.  It's only natural that the music would go along with this style of instant gratification or "fuzao."  The music fits the style. 

William, Congratulations on another thought provoking thread.  I've been away from the forum this Labor Day weekend and was quite surprised to see this many replies to your OP when I came back.   

@William said:

I recently saw "Inception" which featured a very loud score by Hans Zimmer.  He also did the Dark Knight with the same director. 

Another though on Zimmer for discussion:

How do you feel William about Zimmer's collaborative approach to writing film scores?  Some thoughts I have is that is has the potential to be a great score considering that generally speaking, things accomplished in a group many times turn out better then if it was done by a single individual.  It can also be more productive considering there are more individuals working on the task at hand and time constraints.

That being said, do you feel that it also has the potential to water-down the uniqueness of the scoring style.  When you listen to Bach or Beethoven, you know instantly who wrote it based on the style and approach.  Where multiple writers are involved, do you loose this?  If so, is that all that important? 

@Chuck Green said:

[quote=jasensmith]Perhaps talking about Williams is a bit OT but since we're on the subject... Another of Williams attributes is when 

Jasen,

Not knowing for sure, doesn't the director have the final say as to what and how much music is applied to the video?  If that's the case, then I don't necessarily think we should hold the composer directly responsible....  Do they get paid on the number of minutes of music they write whether it's used or not?  I know that's not always the case as for some are paid by the project but that would be incentive enough to write as much as possible whether it get's used or not.  Not an expert in this area, maybe someone else would care to chime in and qualify.......

Hello Chuck and thank you for the reply.

Normally, yes the director does have the final say in how the film takes shape both visually and sonically.  However, in the case of Spielberg and Williams, I think there is enough mutual respect and professional courtesy between the two that Spielberg probably wouldn't have said anything if Williams decided to throw in a loud drum and fife score over the soldiers storming the beach in Saving Private Ryan or any of the other battle sequences in the film.  Sometimes less is more and Williams is skilled enough to realize when scoring is necessary to add to the story and when it just subtracts.  At the same token if, at the end of Schindler's List, Speilberg had told Williams, "you know John, to pay respect to those who perished during the Holocaust, let's just not have a score at all.  Let's have a moment of silence here."  I'm sure Williams would have obliged.  He may not have agreed but... 

I guess it could be argued that in some cases a director is ironically responsible for overscoring a film.  Spielberg requested Williams to purposely overscore the film 1941 and I think it worked to make the film funnier than the writing could do. 

My favorite scores are ones that I can remember after veiwing a film just once.  One score I remember very well is Morricones's Once Upon A Time In The West.  I especially loved the first 15 minutes of the film.  It's almost like watching an Italian opera.  Pacing.  It's all in the pacing.  As an aside, did you know that Sergio Leone originally wanted Charles Bronson to play 'The Man With No Name' character made famous by Clint Eastwood in Leone's Spaghetti Westerns?  United Artists said, "NO!!!"  Some things never change.   

Funny Jasen you mentioned this.  I spoke to it earlier in a post on this thread.  Even though I listened to the soundtrack many times over the past few years, I've never seen the movie until last week.  During the first 15 minutes, I found myself thinking, boy is this slow......  For some reason, I didn't flip the channel and continued to watch as it continued to pull me in.  

I'm still not sure if it was because of how the movie was done or if I was curious to see how Morricone incorporated the score into the movie.  About half way through, I was into the movie and analyzing the score became secondary.

As I am young generations, I can talk about the fast-cutting of nowaday films.

I have to say, fast-cutting really makes a film a "hit" feeling. Visually it did make the movie looks more paced, more "impact". And yes that definitely can make us young generations shout out "COOL!" or something like that. But the problem of that, (even I as a young man can see) is this technique cannot be second-thought. First time it may be cool, but if you think again, you will find it's useless, it's boring and there is no sense at all. It is not a thinking that this technique is good and unique for this film, it is not well thought but "everyone's doing that, why not us". No mind, no enough thinking is put into the film. So yes, may be when the film come out, we(as young people) will say it's cool. But after a little 3,4 years, no one will remember it.

And what worst is that, these non-sense, these "fuzao", makes people who watch them, listen to them, "fuzao" too. Many people will not pay much attention to the details even you did put your mind into it. Many people will find it strange if you do not act same as other "fuzao" musicians and directors. They will simply think you are not right. I really hate this. People won't try to feel the arts, they will only see, only listen to the representation. They won't try to see the soul.

So may be that's why people like these guys. creating music without soul. Because they won't see it. But on the other hand, they have to feed them without delay. More, more, more. Or, people will forget these guys, completely.

Yes - quite a lot of talk about Brian De Palma. Yes he's a very good director and of course it's no secret that De Palma's great source of directorial inspiration comes from people like Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. Indeed he descibes Hitchcock as the Websters of film making. He's a huge fan of Bernard Herrmann too - but any director worth a salt would be. They understand Herrmann.  One of the films that caught me at the time was his clever remaking of Blow Up by Antonioni. His was called Blow Out and instead of using images to catch the offender he uses sound. Carrie was another film he made and indeed Herrmann was down to score that one but alas died.

Directors who make films like video games won't be too interested in any of that. Simple as that. They need the constant drone of fast paced underscore (usually chug-a-chug- strings) to help their directorial deficiencies. Like pace and content for example. Don't blame the score writers because it's usually 99.99+% down to the director. You can't polish a turd.

Yes indeed Sergio Leone was a great director and at the time was underrated believe it not. If you're interested in the pacing of a film you might one day want to see Barry Lyndon. Another director who understood pace - Stanley Kubrick.

As I understand it, Hans Zimmer has more or less always collaborated with other musicians that he writes with, or gets to write the scores.

@denis said:

Does anybody know where to buy this sort of film scores? Are they available at all?

I downloaded mine from iTunes.  You may also want to check out Yo-Yo-Ma Plays Morricone.  That's when I first was exposed to Morricone through Yo-Yo-Ma's Album.

@PaulR said:

As I understand it, Hans Zimmer has more or less always collaborated with other musicians that he writes with, or gets to write the scores.

I wasn't aware that collaboration was alway Han's approach?

@denis said:

Does anybody know where to buy this sort of film scores? Are they available at all?

Now I understand Denis.... Not sure on that one.

@PaulR said:

As I understand it, Hans Zimmer has more or less always collaborated with other musicians that he writes with, or gets to write the scores.

I wasn't aware that collaboration was alway Han's approach?

I was merely trying to be controversial.  [:-*]

I only ever notice music in fllms when it's noticable as good music to me regardless of the film, or when I've noticed I'm noticing the music in the negative and I feel it took me out of the film.

I notice John Williams music a lot, and not because I liked any of it. I think he's a most excellent musician, orchestrator, he can knock out some catchy tunes, but to me, as a composer on this sort of elevated level like you guys are talking about here, he's an absolute fraud. The last time I noticed it was in one of the later Star Wars debacles, and I was saying repeatedly, 'please, back off this telegraphing to (at) me every single feeling with this overblown 19th century orchestra and the cliches attendant to, my ears are bushed".

But, both Williams and Hans Zimmer are heck of in demand and being emulated, so, they are doing their job right - and it is a job.

If I were a director, and wanted old hoary cliches to work for me, I'd do a Kubrick and stick to my temp track and save some $.

Williams can 'knock out' some catchy tunes?

I see.

You actually hit the problems for writers on the head though. Producers/direcors love tried and tested.  They understand what audiences like in an historical sense. Ergo, they tell the writer to sound like this or that. That's part of the deal. These people can't afford to have any imagination or put up with anything that might be experimental or new. Not that I can do either because I can't. They're not in the business of predicting something that an audience will really go for that's entirely original. Most original things in film are accidental and usually put out by an independent company. If it scores big financially then usually what happens is the big studio will pick up on it and then do the big budget copy many times over in different guises - or the big big budget remake. Same goes for all the stuff that make up the film from editing, cinematography down to the score. For example, when they were making Citizen Kane, the studio shiitt itself daily. After it came out, highly original and all of that, Hollywood decided that was the way to go for several years.

But the issue for anyone who gives a shyte is this. Every time these days on forums someone puts up a piece of music, 99 times out of 100 it will be derivative. You will have heard it before almost certainly in a different guise. The tune won't be the same but the entire style and orchestration will be. And that's part of the strength that scoring writers have to be able to demonstrate today. They have to able to copy. If you can be bothered to learn how to copy a style you will probably make money in this field.

On a personal note, I hear a lot of music done with orchestral samples on forums and websites. Imagine if there was no such thing as orchestral samples. How many orchestral works would you even hear in  a year. Hardly any. It would be as it was - almost all electronic. That's why a lot of scores pre orchestral sample days were in fact done a lot with synthesizers. And don't think that orchestral scoring with samples started when the samples were really high quality. Any writer using midi and samples would use just about anything of any quality. You think if there were orchestral samples when they made The Terminator around 1982 it would have been electronic?

I think it's extremely wasteful for musicians today to religiously copy Hans Zimmer and John Williams. It never ever sounds as good and simply sounds like a second rate copy. Clever - but  boring. But that's what directors want.