Fearless Vampire Killers has incredible images, like an insane dream one might have after viewing too many Hammer films.  I think he was maybe trying to do an homage to Hammer, somewhat like Tim Burton doing one with Sleepy Hollow.  Polanski is one of the greatest of all filmmakers for both the visual and psychological. 

For another example - have you seen "The Tenant" ?    That film is the most alarming and intimate portrait of schizophrenic experience - first person point of view.  Some of the images get into your brain in the worst way - like Roman (who plays the main part brilliantly) seeing his double across the sleazy apartment courtyard at night observing him with binoculars, the hallucinations at the end which include a bouncing ball that turns into a head, the ghost of a suicidal woman trying to turn him into herself, etc.    And of course - what a tremendous music score!  It is by Phillippe Sarde and has a similarly haunting, melancholy and eerie quality with great orchestrations including some really fine clarinet solos. 

@PaulR said:

Chinatown is a latter day noir film and is a testimony to Polanski as a director (and as a bit part player). If you want a visual feast and a very interesting score that goes with it - The Fearless Vampire Killers (dir. Polanski) is well worth watching. No - it's not a moronic modern day teen phuque-up load of vampire bollocks. It has great photography, is funny and has a certain gothic/comedic quality you just don't ever see anymore. Great casting too.

I was a lucky kid aged 9 who, in 1968, watched "The fearless vampire killers" at the movies, in september, during late holidays out of my city, just before coming back to school, which in Roma - those days - started in october. It was a little town's cinema where I spent nearly all my afternoons. I still remember that beautiful soundtrack, by Krzysztof Komeda (he also did the splendid music for "Rosemary's Baby" for Polanski, which I watched in the same cinema...). Obviously, I now own the CDs of them both.

Well, apart from these memories, once upon a time music for movies was composed with paper, pencil and a piano. Then orchestrated, when needed, very often by the author. And soundtracks were "intelligent" enough to engage, sometimes, just a single instrument. Do you remember the harmonica's solo in " C'era una volta il West" by Ennio? Or that very simply dry "Point Blank" opening/main/end title by Johnny Mandel? Or how about "Amarcord" by Nino Rota?

"Epos" - hence "epic" - was a word (once dense in significance) I had to cope with during my ancient Greek (along with Latin) lessons at school, aged 13 and much later, including University. Nowadays, everybody can "post" an "epic mockup" (!)... Obviously, nobody is more twat than HZ, so everybody is entitled to trifle with a few lousy "ostinati" and other "grain drying on the stalk" put together in a low frequencies' soup, that to-day spells "Modern Soundtrack". I'd love to say more, but it is not my intention to bother you any further. 

@Miki Mart said:

nobody is more twat than HZ, so everybody is entitled to trifle with a few lousy "ostinati" and other "grain drying on the stalk" put together in a low frequencies' soup, that to-day spells "Modern Soundtrack". I'd love to say more, but it is not my intention to bother you any further. 

No, please bother me further.  I like it.  That's a good point about solo instruments.  How often do you hear that today?  In order to have "class" a gigantic orchestra must be used, constantly, with strings smeared all over block chords like excrement in a child's playroom.

Great points Miki Mart and great references. It's easy to forget the talented composers that made their living primarily on TV like Mandel, and especially Rose (my favourite). As far as Ennio, Johnny and Nino are concerned, these were guys that did not have access to symphonic forces a lot of the time back then, but were still able due to sheer talent to articulate so much with so little (the Man with the Harmonica example). When finally they were offered the 80-piece bands, they showed what they could elicit from them as well (incidentally Chinatown also features an ad-hoc chamber ensemble).

If deaf people cannot agree that older instrumental/orchestral film-music was infinitely better than today's offerings in every respect, perhaps they can concede that it was infinitely more varied.

@Errikos said:

As far as Ennio, Johnny and Nino are concerned, these were guys that did not have access to symphonic forces a lot of the time back then, but were still able due to sheer talent to articulate so much with so little

This is something that makes me think about how limitations are very inspiring to creativity.  Jean Renoir said that if he had no limitations, he wouldn't know where to begin.  And yet everyone always tries to obtain no limitations.  Perhaps in the future, when people have no limitations, they will just sit and think, "Yep, I could do that.  No reason to, really.  But I could."  

Anyway, I also was thinking of some great scores of the past that had severe limitations on what was available, and this resulted in better scores than what you would hear from the most gigantic, unlimited ensemble possible.  For example - Jerry Goldsmith on "Thriller" and the "Twilight Zone" - he used chamber scoring, and created classics that are better than almost anything he did later, except of course for Star Trek, which was where he was allowed anything he could dream up , and created a vast, majestic masterpiece.  Or  Roy Webb, on the Val Lewton series of films from the 40s.  He could use only small string ensemble, four brass, one percussion and five woodwinds.  So he had the woodwinds double different instruments, and used various chamber scoring effects to create some of the best music done in Hollywood movies at that time. 

Anyway, it is important to use limitations, as they are often the mother of invention!

@William said:

Anyway, it is important to use limitations, as they are often the mother of invention!

And by 'limitations' of course we are referring to limited resources; not limited imagination and/or limited integrity.

All of you D.J.s and co(m)py-pasters out there... Do you hear this loud enough?!!

Garritan have "proudly" released their Instant Orchestra - for instant composters I guess, no percolation of material is necessary... Claims:

"Everything is pretty much orchestrated for you and ready to go...", "The library does not assume ANY prior knowledge of scoring music or orchestrating"(!!!!!) "A giant step in creativity"(!!!!!!)

And just as the chimpanzees were hopping and salivating... "Just add Imagination!". Oooooooohhhh, must they?..... Who do you think you're talking to?...

With this and other such marvels of contemporary creative apparatus, I put it to you; how can Modern Film Music not be better than the decaying, analogue, talent-based music of the past?...

@William said:

That is disturbing.  It is nothing but commercial pandering.  Talk about "taking the low road"!  

BTW Errikos, I admire how you have as your logo a philosophical statement against 99% of modern film music.  Not to mention your deliberate typo "Composters."  I congratulate you on your Extreme Curmudgeonliness. 

Indeed, soon enough the words musician and discernment will have lost whatever meaning they had left. 

By the way, why don't you also don an appropriate signature here Bill?

Do we realy need that type of talk on this site ?

@jsmit72 said:

Do we realy need that type of talk on this site ?

Well, yeah, actually we do.  It kind of keeps things in perspective don't you think?  Why don't you come and join in our "Reindeer Games" there Smitty.

Say William, I think if our humble moderator were to subtract two posts for every post you delete you'd be at like negative 5,000 posts right about now. 

BTW, Happy New Year all![<:o)][B][D]bb

@jsmit72 said:

Do we realy need that type of talk on this site ?

I think the question should be "Does film-music really need composeurs that cannot put one musical note after another without using software?"

@jasen: Happy new year to you too mate [8]

I used to think North Koreans were insane, boring bastards.....

Until I watched Extreme Couponing from the USA. Hahahahaha! Those Yanks are ffffffffucking wierd.

Happy New Year...but don't expext too much out of 2012. Could be disastrous.