hmmm....  that's all I have to say.

edit -

no I did realize something. You're absolutely right.

Mozart DID jump up and down on furniture like a chimp, he did compose everything instantaneously with no work and was a constantly annoying asshole to everyone whose music he ridiculed, Salieri did poison him despite all historical evidence not indicating that,  everything in this wonderful film was beautiful.  It did have lots of  pretty pictures though of course they were not of Vienna or Salzburg.  They were Prague which Milos had to film in.  But never mind that.  It is a perfect representation of Mozart, BECAUSE - as I did not realize UNTIL THIS THREAD - I need to shift my own concepts into the intuited (and certainly false)  mindset of Salieri.  Whose VIEWPOINT makes all this perfectly true.  Even though ALL OF MUSICAL HISTORY CONTRADICTS IT AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR ANYTHING DEPICTED IN THE FILM.  AND WATCHING AN ACTOR PORTRAYING MOZART LIKE A CHIMP IS A BIT IRRITATING.  Never mind any of that.  My mistake!   

I stand corrected.

Actually there were some scenes shot in Budapest as well (I walked down some of the same streets), give the guy a break, he could not afford to film the thing in Vienna... Also, Salieri never poisoned Mozart in the film either; however he did commission the Requiem for the purposes of dramatic effect (as opposed to have the Viennese Count introduced late in the film for historical accuracy). The movie depicts Salieri's own warped opinion of Mozart, the joker who composed effortlessly  - IF that was really Salieri's opinion of him... It's supposed to suspend disbelief, but I suppose turning the genius into a clown was just too much for you, even if it was all in poor old Salieri's mind... I would still recommend the Shostakovich film to you, but stay away from Ken Russell's Liszt or Mahler to avoid further grief!...

 sorry Errikos I got a little carried away there.  Thanks for that reference. 

I would ask, why make a film about a composer to begin with?  Or why make a film about any great artist?  I think a film about the trials and tribulations of some nameless beat cop somewhere would be more interesting than a biopic about a genius.  Think about it for a second, you're all composers, how would a movie about your life transpire?  How do you think a film about, say, Albert Einstein, Van Gogh, or Shakespeare would play out.  Unless you're a big fan you'd probably pass.  Unfortunately, films about art geniuses have to be, 'embellished' so to speak, to attract a distributor.  It's funny how you don't have to do a whole lot of embellishing when it comes to capturing the life of some loser serial killer for a film.  There has to be something to pull a paying audience in.   

William mentioned that somebody like Kubrick should have done a subject like Mozart or Beethoven.  To be honest William, I don't think Kubrick would have touched it with a ten foot pole.  He tried touching Napoleon, a vastly more dynamic life than even the most gregarious composer, and he gave up. It took him about 20 years but he finally gave up.  Could you imagine Mozart through Tim Burton’s eyes? 

I think Amadeus is one of the most misunderstood films of film history.  After viewing it, most people conclude, "so Mozart was an obnoxious immature little punk.  Hmmm! I didn't know that."  As Erik pointed out, Amadeus is about Salieri and not about Mozart.  Basically, Amadeus is about a pious composer who renounces his faith in God.  That's it.  The root of Salieri's jealousy is his belief that God chose, "this creature" called Mozart to be his instrument of beauty instead of him (Salieri). 

In reality, the jealousy was probably the other way around but for a different reason.  If my music history serves me correctly, at the time, German composers had to fight and claw for respect in their own homelands because nobility favored Italian composers.  Why? Because they were... well, Italian.  It's known that Salieri was hired over Mozart for some teaching assignments and Mozart was constantly in financial need.  In fact in some cases, if Mozart knew Salieri applied to the same post he was considering, he wouldn't apply.  I could see some jealousy being sparked there but not for Salieri's musical prowess that's for sure.

The funny thing is that when I read the title to this thread I thought you were talking about movies made about bad composers [:P]  Now there's an idea.  If it worked for Ed Wood, why not?    

Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy are dead... and me, I don't feel so good right now [H]

At all costs stay away from that Coco Chanel / Stravinsky movie; it takes the cake for the worst composer movie ever in the history of all universes, past and future... I think Ed Wood's illegitimate son directed it.

I think that the main point of Amadeus is that the director tried to mould the story into a re-telling of Cain and Abel with Salieri jealous of Mozart's gifts from god. Whether he was right to do so is up for debate.

I do like Foremans 'Amadeus'. True, the depiction of Mozart can not be accurate the way it is done. It is, and irritatingly so, focused on highlighting a very childish behaviour (it's actually the Mozart of the 'Bäsle'-letters). And true, there are many historical errors (there is an articel somewhere in a musicologist-journal listing the worst of them). But then there is this cinematic/artistic quality of really good cinema. And what I most like about the movie is the way it highlights Mozart's music. Remember the scene where Salieri describes the Adagio of the Gran Partita? An unforgettable moment and I bet this gave many people an understanding of Mozart who before didn't care at all about classical music. In my opinion the music is in a very good way the actual star of the movie. There is a scene where Mozart comes late to his own music - to me this is significant: it's not about the person (who is admittedly depictured in a ridiculously one-sided way) but about the music. However there is one point I really don't like about it and that's the way Salieri is treated as a composer. He's depicted as heavily inferior, a composer who has to be grateful for the slightest idea, creating utterly insignificant music as the little piano piece later on ridiculed by Mozart. His music is only there to demonstrate the tremendous superiority of Mozart. That really doesn't do his music any justice

@BadOrange said:

There is a Tristan and Isolde movie that was released recently. That would quite possibly be the worst assignment as a composer, or perhaps the easiest if you just rip the original overture and arias but like that would happen. To compose film music for the guy that pretty much invented all the conventions the great film composers took their cues would be daunting. I suppose I could check IDMB but these things always end bad with the wrong composer doing the wrong thing because the director just doesn't understand the rather complex issue at hand when dealing in underscoring a movie with such ties to the great composers. My guess is a Rabin meets Early 2000 Zimmer fiasco with pedal tone madness, I do feel that the director should think more about the music in these cases and if at all possible, use music that was around at the time. An abled orchestrator could tie in any loose material but I think the music should really be a collection of pieces from the era at hand than a thru composed poorly written score that hints at some obvious themes that makes no impression on the laymen and just makes the more knowledgable film viewer shudder.

Yeah, I feel like using Wagner in a modern Hollywood period piece would just feel ridiculously out of place, but I think that says more about the movies in question than it does about Wagner.

This is too interesting not to respond - what do you think of the use of Wagner and Carl Orff Carmina Burana in "Excalibur? "   Of course it is not a current film, but at the time that came out - early 80s - it was a very striking film and use of music, though obviously a temp track that stuck.  But like 2001, it worked so well for the film it was extremely effective.  The images were cut to the Siegfried Funeral music perfectly, and the 1st section of Carmina  Burana was so powerful in that context (like Arthur riding to save the kingdom, etc.) that I think it may have caused the recent obsessive  use of loud chorus - especially staccato shouts, etc. - in so many medieval flavored (not to mention other action) films.  Like LOTR's use of choir - that is directly out of Carmina Burana.  And it may have originated in this Excalibur's use of that particular music.  What else?  Though it has now become a cliche - I expect a huge violent chorus to announce the arrival of Leonardo de Caprio on the streets of Brooklyn these days.

You make an interesting point, and I think what's happened is that we're still living with the style and size of the gestures that Wagner invented, but not so much his harmonic language. I think for the most part, mainstream audiences have lost their taste for functional and expressive chromaticism in film music. 

Haha I kind of despise choirs of any kind in films these days because, like you say, they're so overplayed. They no longer mean what they used to, and instead just feel like an insincere and manipulative gesture 99% of the time. It's like the film and the composer don't really "earn" them -  or else it just feels tonally inappropriate (see: every movie trailer meant to feel "epic" - including harry fucking potter). Or another good example is comparing the original Star Wars trilogy score to the new prequel trilogy. Battles that used to be underscored by Stravinskyish/Holstish/early 20th century post romantic type cues with loads of chromaticism are now replaced with big surging Orff choirs singing long diatonic phrases, and even though Williams is really a very decent and thorough guy, it still feels lame and pretentious to me. I guess you can make an analog to how the gritty and functional production design and VFX of the original trilogy was replaced by clean and pristine CGI. 

But I'm also a huge hypocrite and philistine because I love the LotR score pretty much all the way through, although it's not quite interesting enough to listen to on it's own.  But Howard Shore is a real dude, and there're reasons why directors like Cronenberg, Scorcese and Fincher have used and continue to use him. 

I wish there was danger of getting cancer for gratuitous, vulgar, easy-way-out usage of wordless choirs in films (not really....) I understand how VSL wants to make money and releases the product, but I have to congratulate East-West for going all the way and providing the Word Builder (no matter what the shortcomings are or the difference of quality between libraries) - I hope VSL will follow suit.

I can't agree on anything bad said about John Williams who scores every bloody insignificant scene, where the least happens, a stupid transition, with proper symphonic backing, counterpoint and all, where others feel they're getting paid to just rest their giftless fingers on the white notes of their synth until that scene is over (if they don't do that for most scenes anyway...). That is one of the subtle that separate the men from the boys in the profession. Even his choral offerings in the prequels (maybe Lucas insisted), or even in other films ('Saving Private Ryan', 'Empire of the Sun', etc.), always sit beautifully with the orchestral part, which is so musical and interesting that the total doesn't seem empty as is the case with most everyone else's attempts. I am not saying these tracks are his finest hour, but they are heads, shoulders, legs and feet above everybody else's.

I know what you mean, cause I am also a very very big John Williams fan and apologist. But you have to agree it gets boring to repeat the same tried accusations over and over again against the Media Ventures horde, and even the best OG film composers aren't above scrutiny. 

Duel of the Fates is obviously very thoroughly made by an excellent craftsman, and I looved it as a kid, but even a very thoroughly made Orff rip off will never really be more than an Orff rip off. Yes, a lot of the music in "A New Hope" takes its cues from Holst and Bruckner and Stravinsky, but by a different order of magnitude imo - in other words,  maybe every great artist steals, but I would argue not to the extent that John Williams ripped off O Fortuna with "Duel of the Fates."  Or I guess with a title like that, you can call it an homage, but it's the same thing at the end of the day.

Which, honestly, would be fine except that to me the #1 criterion  of film music is not originality, but whether or not the music fits the movie, and helps the movie's identity. As far as problems with the Star Wars prequels as films, I think there are about a million you could get at before you touch the score, but that doesn't mean it's still not a big step back from the original trilogy. Star Wars at it's heart is a space fantasy film, a modern day Flash Gordon serial. It simply doesn't have the pathos to support a style of music that was originally conceived to try to encapsulate the nature of fate and luck - it seems pretentious as fuck, because you end up with movies about space cowboys and space wizards fighting each other to the tune of a piece called "Duel of the Fates," and that's going to be pretentious no matter how well written it is.  As we all know, when you follow this line of thought you end up in a cycle of dramatic and musical inflation where everything has to outdo what came before it in being "totally epic bro". If George insisted, well, it's still John's fault for not standing up to him - Lucas has notoriously bad taste (watch "Empire of Dreams" read between the lines to see how his ex-wife saved the original film through editing) and Williams would have absolutely had the clout to say "no bombastic choirs George, remember what film you're making here." 

Sorry I brought this so off topic :)

JW is a most consummate professional and he certainly won't "stand-up" to a director/producer of Lucas' experience, he could just walk away from the project. Like I said, comparatively to what is currently around, the 'Duel of Fates' is magnificent, and it certainly doesn't comprise the whole soundtrack. The rest of the music is beyond superb, and (as with the original trilogy) 1000 times more than what was called for. I don't consider myself anybody's apologist and know enough about music to know approximately where JW sits as a composer in the grand scheme of things (as I also know quite a bit of his concert music). I just wanted to bring one more detail to the table, JW was 40-something (at the height of his physical and mental powers, still hungry, "eye of the tiger" etc.) when he was scoring 'A New Hope' and 70-something when he was scoring the CGIs. Even with Potter you can tell that although the music is still scintillating and energetic, and in the CGIs absolutely masterful, there is just that extra high-frequency vibration missing (naturally), something that was just there, as icing on top of the technical prowess in the days of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I find that's the case with most composers - allowing for the odd exception.

It's not at all unprofessional to disagree with a director, and in fact I would find it more unprofessional for a composer to act as a Yes-Man. And experience has little to do with it - before "Phantom Menace," Lucas had only directed American Graffiti, THX and A New Hope, and he had been out of practice in the directing world for 22 years (and it shows). Williams was infinitely more experienced than Lucas, and if Lucas had any sense he would have trusted Williams 100% of the way (which, for all we know, he did).  If Lucas had insisted on that particular tone of the music to the point where Williams, had he disagreed, felt that he had better leave the project, well, that would have been professional of Williams as well. Of course we're talking entirely hypothetically here, who really knows what was going on. But there's a good argument to be made that the disaster that was "Phantom Menace" was entirely the result of George surrounding himself with Yes-Men - whether or not Williams was one, well, who knows. It's not really the point, the point is that a composer as famous and rich as Williams is 100% responsible for any music he writes in a film, no question, regardless of whose idea it was, unless the director I guess played tricks during the editing or the mixing. Given the standard to which Williams clearly holds himself to, I'm sure he would agree with me. At that level, a director may be the boss, but the composer is not his slave. 

Anyway, you didn't really respond to anything I said - we're in agreement that "Duel of the Fates" is well made music, but you didn't address anything I brought up re: it being a pretty close replay of Orff, or more importantly the pretension of music that was made to encapsualte huge ideas being the score for a movie about space wizards. 

It's not at all unprofessional to disagree with a director, and in fact I would find it more unprofessional for a composer to act as a Yes-Man. And experience has little to do with it - before "Phantom Menace," Lucas had only directed American Graffiti, THX and A New Hope, and he had been out of practice in the directing world for 22 years (and it shows). Williams was infinitely more experienced than Lucas, and if Lucas had any sense he would have trusted Williams 100% of the way (which, for all we know, he did).  If Lucas had insisted on that particular tone of the music to the point where Williams, had he disagreed, felt that he had better leave the project, well, that would have been professional of Williams as well. Of course we're talking entirely hypothetically here, who really knows what was going on. But there's a good argument to be made that the disaster that was "Phantom Menace" was entirely the result of George surrounding himself with Yes-Men - whether or not Williams was one, well, who knows. It's not really the point, the point is that a composer as famous and rich as Williams is 100% responsible for any music he writes in a film, no question, regardless of whose idea it was, unless the director I guess played tricks during the editing or the mixing. Given the standard to which Williams clearly holds himself to, I'm sure he would agree with me. At that level, a director may be the boss, but the composer is not his slave. 

Anyway, you didn't really respond to anything I said - we're in agreement that "Duel of the Fates" is well made music, but you didn't address anything I brought up re: it being a pretty close replay of Orff, or more importantly the pretension of music that was made to encapsualte huge ideas being the score for a movie about space wizards. 

As for the new things you brought up, it's true that what Williams wrote is very impressive for a 70 year old, and it's also true that it's less vital than Star Wars/Raiders/Close Encounters/Superman era Williams. If you want to pinpoint where the spark died down, I'd go way back actually. I don't even find that his 90s work (yes, even Schindler's List)

It's not at all unprofessional to disagree with a director, and in fact I would find it more unprofessional for a composer to act as a Yes-Man. And experience has little to do with it - before "Phantom Menace," Lucas had only directed American Graffiti, THX and A New Hope, and he had been out of practice in the directing world for 22 years (and it shows). Williams was infinitely more experienced than Lucas, and if Lucas had any sense he would have trusted Williams 100% of the way (which, for all we know, he did).  If Lucas had insisted on that particular tone of the music to the point where Williams, had he disagreed, felt that he had better leave the project, well, that would have been professional of Williams as well. Of course we're talking entirely hypothetically here, who really knows what was going on. But there's a good argument to be made that the disaster that was "Phantom Menace" was entirely the result of George surrounding himself with Yes-Men - whether or not Williams was one, well, who knows. It's not really the point, the point is that a composer as famous and rich as Williams is 100% responsible for any music he writes in a film, no question, regardless of whose idea it was, unless the director I guess played tricks during the editing or the mixing. Given the standard to which Williams clearly holds himself to, I'm sure he would agree with me. At that level, a director may be the boss, but the composer is not his slave. 

Anyway, you didn't really respond to anything I said - we're in agreement that "Duel of the Fates" is well made music, but you didn't address anything I brought up re: it being a pretty close replay of Orff, or more importantly the pretension of a musical style that was made to encapsualte huge ideas like Fate and Luck being the score for a movie about space wizards. 

As for the new things you brought up, it's true that what Williams wrote is very impressive for a 70 year old, and it's also true that it's less vital than Star Wars/Raiders/Close Encounters/Superman era Williams. If you want to pinpoint where the spark died down, I'd go way back actually. I don't even find his 90s work (yes, even Schindler's List) to be the same standard as his 70s and 80s stuff

I addressed what I felt I should address. Personally I don't find this score any closer to Orff than I find E.T. to Prokofiev or a lot of his stuff to Stravinsky, Shostakovich or Mahler, so I didn't think the point merited any more special attention, and I agree about the space wizards.

I disagree strongly about the Lucas point. It doesn't matter that he is the culprit behind 'Howard the Duck' or 'Slipstream' etc. He is the experienced director and producer of his film and if Williams thought he was crap he simply would not work for him. I don't see Williams as an inexperienced petulant youngster that will - as you put it - "stand up to him"... There is a difference between being a 'Yes-Man' and 'Standing-Up' to directors. In this case, those two know each other very well and I am sure they discussed everything very professionally and cordially and even if we don't know whose idea the choirs were, it was Williams' duty to deliver what the director wanted, unless it really went against his grain, it obvioulsy didn't. And of course he takes full responsibility. Plus, like I said, in my opinion the other 100 minutes or whatever of the soundtrack are just beyond professional and the call of duty.

'Schindler's List' left me rather cold in all respects; I don't think Spielberg is the director for that kind of thing, and Williams, again the consummate professional, turned in the best he could in an area that really isn't his strength at all (lyrical heartfelt melodies). If he didn't walk away from that (let alone getting an Oscar for it, but we know how those work), I don't see how he would have a problem with the 'Duel of Fates'.

P.S.: You can press 'Edit' and amend your posts, you don't need to re-post them.