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  1. Home
  2. Orchestration & Composition
  3. Your Music
  4. James Newton Howard's Sixth Sense
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    Speaking respectfully and without obscenity (I'm trying so hard to be good!!! [:D] Though it is so difficult ... [:'(]

    but as Herbert Lom in the later Pink Panthers put it as he smiled within the asylum and his eye began to twitch - "every day, in every way, I'm getting better") ---

    concerning The Sixth Sense, the music score was excellent, but I am beginning to wonder if director Shyamalan is a One-Hit Wonder. That film was an excellent ghost story that had a very positive effect upon current cinema in general (witness all the subtle ghost stories that appeared after it), but his other films all seem to be somewhat lacking, and his reliance upon "twists" is getting to be desperate. I personally found "The Village" to be incredibly disappointing. It started out creating an alternate universe that was fascinating, and then simply played a shallow trick upon the audience. Very dishonest storytelling.
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    @Guy said:

    christian,

    Something's wrong, I think I'm getting the forum in german and I didn't even click to have it in german...

    [[;)]]


    Well Guy,

    click on italian, or as my father used to say "God speaks italian, and german only when he gives orders"

    [:)]

    .
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    This is part of the problem with being a filmmaker/composer as opposed to just composer... (though that also is a great thing to be as old Ludwig von B. proved) Half of what you say about the one will be ignored by the others. Or something like that...

    You are not supposed to be such a combo - like a Lovecraftian beast - as only Mathis and Herb here know personally - as far as I have discovered... John Carpenter is another. Charlie Chaplin (with apologies to David Raksin as Dave C pointed out) is another. Ha-ha! Good company. I feel better already.
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    @Guy said:

    christian,

    Something's wrong, I think I'm getting the forum in german and I didn't even click to have it in german...

    [[;)]]


    Well Guy,

    click on italian, or as my father used to say "God speaks italian, and german only when he gives orders"

    [:)]

    .

    ...and God sings "Mexican Hat Dance" when he was in a fiesta mood?
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    @William said:


    concerning The Sixth Sense, the music score was excellent, but I am beginning to wonder if director Shyamalan is a One-Hit Wonder. That film was an excellent ghost story that had a very positive effect upon current cinema in general (witness all the subtle ghost stories that appeared after it), but his other films all seem to be somewhat lacking, and his reliance upon "twists" is getting to be desperate. I personally found "The Village" to be incredibly disappointing. It started out creating an alternate universe that was fascinating, and then simply played a shallow trick upon the audience. Very dishonest storytelling.


    I fully agree.

    I don't get your other post.
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    I am aware that this thread has gone into another direction since I was first wondering about the Sixth Sense, but indeed Mathis has pointed my in the right direction with Penderecki.

    I have now revisitied a few of his scores (certainly not available in any local library though) and surpisingly I could find almost all my favourite (atonal) passages from 6th Sense again in the 60s Penderecki scores. (Sometimes they are worryingly similar). Of course the tonal part of that score (as William descibed) has a great sound too, but is also easier to analyze by ear.

    Whether they are New Music clichés or not I wouldn't really now but in terms of film music there are certainly other cliches that are far more overused.

    Dom
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    I guess you are refering to Penderecki's "Threnos"

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    Yes the Threnody, but also De Natura Sonoris I+II, Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra, and the Lukas Passion.
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    @Dom said:

    surpisingly I could find almost all my favourite (atonal) passages from 6th Sense again in the 60s Penderecki scores. (Sometimes they are worryingly similar).


    [:D] [[;)]]
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    Hmm... I wouldn't know, since I am not a Penderecki fan (not being a masochist) however that sounds rather disgusting. A bit like James Horner and his depradations among the concert composers of all eras...
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    Well, as I said, these are chlichées. Could well be that Penderecki once had invented some of these sounds, but they're all over the place in New Music.
    Using that is not any more of a rip-off than using shifting minor chords.
    Die-Hard New Music people would strongly disagree, of course.
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    @William said:

    Speaking respectfully and without obscenity (I'm trying so hard to be good!!! [:D] Though it is so difficult ... [:'(]

    but as Herbert Lom in the later Pink Panthers put it as he smiled within the asylum and his eye began to twitch - "every day, in every way, I'm getting better") ---

    concerning The Sixth Sense, the music score was excellent, but I am beginning to wonder if director Shyamalan is a One-Hit Wonder. That film was an excellent ghost story that had a very positive effect upon current cinema in general (witness all the subtle ghost stories that appeared after it), but his other films all seem to be somewhat lacking, and his reliance upon "twists" is getting to be desperate. I personally found "The Village" to be incredibly disappointing. It started out creating an alternate universe that was fascinating, and then simply played a shallow trick upon the audience. Very dishonest storytelling.



    As my fellow warrior, 'William the Discerning', takes a brief rest, laying his axe and sword down for a respite, i shall take up my trusty halberk in his place, and say that The village was one of the most lame,uninsipring, stuttering, and awful movies i've ever seen. An interesting concept bereft of any ability to affect anyone. (IMHO) The twist, as my erstwhile colleague, friend, and advocate of death to mediocrity put it, was almost completely destroyed by poor imagery and dreadful directorial fumbling. What a pile of rubbish that was. They would have done better to put a pile of Amish types in sunflower frocks and raise questions about the sexual and social ambiguity of driving a horse and cart in drag down the busy I98 truck route. 'The Village'? They should have called it 'The Garage'.

    The sixth sense was passable, and although it had several places where scenes clunked from one moment to another, at least there was some sort of plot hidden in a potentially fruitful concept. The music was good, and 'saved' the film in several places, papering over the visual cracks in the imagery that appeared from time to time.

    And William's veiled and intelligent prod in the direction of Horner, with his dubious aspirations of originality, certainly strike a chord here too........

    Regards,

    'Alexander the Irascible.'
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    Irascible, thanks for your always-devastating comments which, ironically, brought to mind something concerning the main virtue you point out concerning The Sixth Sense - the entire basic concept is lifted from a great, but obscure low-budget film called "Carnival of Souls," with changes made mainly in the characters.

    Has anyone seen that? It is now available in a great DVD release from Criterion Collection. A black and white film from the early 60s that has a number of scenes that are more surreal than Bunuel, and extremely haunting. It also has a brilliant music score, played on pipe organ. A beautiful example of how low budget can be an inspiration for real creativity.
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    @William said:

    Irascible, thanks for your always-devastating comments which, ironically, brought to mind something concerning the main virtue you point out concerning The Sixth Sense - the entire basic concept is lifted from a great, but obscure low-budget film called "Carnival of Souls," with changes made mainly in the characters.

    Has anyone seen that? It is now available in a great DVD release from Criterion Collection. A black and white film from the early 60s that has a number of scenes that are more surreal than Bunuel, and extremely haunting. It also has a brilliant music score, played on pipe organ. A beautiful example of how low budget can be an inspiration for real creativity.


    I just watched "Carnival of Souls" at

    http://www.ppccinema.com/nshowmovie.html?movieid=16

    The organ soundtrack is fun and at 07m:02s you see the organ

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    I'm watching it right now. Great link, great film! Love the score - very hip actually.

    Edit: I wish William and others would list the top ten or twenty films like this that are "must-see." I would hate to miss out on any gems like this.

    A new thread for this would be great.
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    [quote=mathis]

    @Another User said:

    Angelo Clematide:

    “The aim of music is not to express feelings but to express music. It is not a vessel into which the composer distills his soul drop by drop, but a labyrinth with no beginning and no end, full of new paths to discover, where mystery remains eternal.”

    Could very well be, maybe straight out from his Charles Eliot Norton chair of poetics lectures at Harvard College in 1939/40
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    Sixth Sense was ruined for me because I watched an Italian comedy called La Cosi é la Vita about a month before and it uses a similar idea.
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    "Così è la vita" ---> the soundtrack or the plot, or both?
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    Cosi e la Vita (That's Life) has a similar twist in the plot. I don't believe the music is similar at all.
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    I guess neither you nor Angelo saw Carnival of Souls, made in 1962,  which is the exact same story with different characters.
  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on