@dagmarpiano said:
Which is better? Here's what I think. The older stuff is better to listen to and has more artistic merit. The modern stuff can work better on action films, but worse on films with any complexity, emotion and imagination.
What do you mean by older stuff? For example, the scores to the first Conan, the first Predator, the first Batman. Those are absolutely great pieces of scoring and music also, yet fairly new. Are those "older film music" ? You say action scenes are better scored with Zimmerian drones.
HAVE YOU HEARD THE SCORE TO CONAN??? Have you watched the blistering scenes of that film with music that practically rips your guts out and stomps them into the dirt???? You think Zimmer can even approach that level of shocking power?
On a calmer note, one other thing to consider is the minimalism of Herrmann. Your thread seems to be saying that old film music is nice music but bad film scoring, and new film music is bad music but good film scoring. However, Herrmann did both well and had an extremely minimalist style that was never too complicated or fussy. You are right that some old film music was too complicated in musical development, counterpoint, etc. But now we have the reverse of too little. Even individual composers of the past - like Max Steiner - occasionally went too far but on other films were perfect.
So I would infinitely prefer to have a genius like Korngold or Steiner going off on musical tangents and giving me too much than a lowbrow like (fill in the blank) staying on target and giving me too little.
What I find really weird is the last Oscar winner. Which had an outraged thread of its own a while ago here. When you think of what John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Erich Korngold, Max Steiner, Dmitri Tiomkin, Alfred Newman, Alex North and above all HERRMANN - "Praised be Thy Name, I am not worthy! I am not worthy!" - what, I say, those GENIUSES did, and what that little goofy guy poking and noodling with a synth did...
IT IS NAUSEATING.
But then Little James Horner sitting in his plagiaristic corner got an Oscar too, so never mind. The Oscars - as everyone who has watched them since "Out of Africa" got Best Picture over Kurosawa's "Ran" knows - are a joke.