A couple of questions to get you going:

1. Do you think there can be great scores for terrible movies?

2. What are everyone's favourite examples of "suberbly inappropriate" film music? I mean music that's absolutely the opposite of what you'd expect if you saw the images in silence and guessed what the music might sound like (for example, Johann Strauss's "The Blue Danube" accompanying spaceships in "2001: A Space Oddysey")...


Laters

Guy

Those are interesting questions, Guy.

I've mentioned one great score for at least a bad movie (maybe not terrible) - "Obsession," a really lame story but one of the most astoundingly beautiful scores of Herrmann. The score has all the drama, tragedy and emotion that the movie wanted but couldn't accomplish.

I think that the Blue Danube was oddly appropriate in "2001" but Alex North's rejected score was a thousand times better.

One example of a grotesquely bad score I remember is the one to "4-D Man" - yes, a rather obscure sci-fi film, but it was memorable because of its bad music - it had an extremely LOUD big band jazzy score that would suddenly intrude into the scenes of scientists in a lab, or a man being afflicted by pain because he had partly gone into the 4rth dimension. The effect was more than just taking you out of the film, it caused everyone in the room to laugh hilariously each time the cats started up their jam session.

I'll cast a vote for David Newman's 'The Phantom.' The movie was a yawner, but I really enjoyed the score. Nothing worth an Oscar or anything, but it was an energetic and fun piece of music, performed by the London Metropolitan, that far outpaced the actual movie.

Thanks William - I'll try and track down the "Obsession" score. Actually, didn't Hermann do a score for "Farenheit 451"? I thought that was a terrible film, but, again, I doubt Herrmann would've disappointed with the music. "McCabe & Mrs Miller" - is that his too?

Alex North's rejected score - yes I've read about it but never actually heard it. I'll search out that one too.

Isn't it weird the way some Hollywood blockbusters have these massive scores for giant, post-Mahler orchestras, where everyone's playing to the max, but when you walk out of the cinema you can't remember anything about it - it all got absorbed into the wall of noise from the explosions and wizz-bangs! I'd guess the film composer who's most noticed and enjoyed by the moviegoers right now is Thomas Newman, and it's because of all those quiet, reflective bits where he has three notes on the piano plus some sordino strings. Whether you like Newman or not, I guess the point is, he finds the moments in the movie where his music can actually get heard over the dialogue and the sound design.

Laters,

Guy

@evanevans said:

Ennio Morricone (Has signature cues he writes in every film that match other films in structure)

Evan Evans (has distinctive use of polytonality and solid orchestration) [[;)]]

Yes that's right about Morricone. I've noticed that over the years. Also, Thomas Newman too.

Evan the Evans? Yes - very solid! [[[;)]]]

@William said:

I think that the Blue Danube was oddly appropriate in "2001" but Alex North's rejected score was a thousand times better.

I agree that the Danube was appropriate not inappropriate, BUT just because Alex North wrote a nice score doesn't mean it was a good one. I fully support Kubrick's decision NOT to have original music. The film works best that way. It transcends the medium better than typical methods.

It takes a really good composer to say, on a film he's hired for, "I think the best score for this film ... is to have none!". I'm sorry, but all these guys just sweatin' to scribble notes on the page are missing something if they'd just backup and get some perspective. Film is an art. Writing a score for one is not always the best choice a composer can make.

That's why I believe the most powerful and effective film composers are those willing to try anything, even if it's not musical. As I have quoted myself saying on my own website for many years now:

"Film scoring is an artform seperate than any other ... including music."

Evan Evans

Evan,

I agree that Herrmann uses the interval constantly. However he uses it in a far more straightforward manner (as you suggest) in easily recognizable chord formations as in the Vertigo main title. Goldsmith uses it in far more varied ways, often times not recognizable because it's not a triadic formation and is split between instrument groups where as Herrman very often has it within a single orchestral choir (but not always obviously.)

I would agree that Herrmann probably numerically used it more times. However he seems more chained to it than Goldsmith who seemed to free it from any chains.

Dave Connor

Hi.

I think Stanley Kubrick had a genius for "superbly inappropriate" music - music which doesn't just amplify or enhance the latent drama or emotion, but turns the scene inside out. Johann Strauss in "2001" is a famous example, but there's a scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where the most vile, irritating comedy-novelty record from the 1960s is played as loudly as possible through a scene of total carnage. Its slapstick, happy-go-lucky dumbness is far more unsettling than any dissonant score would be. It's weird to think that a really bad piece of music serves the scene far better than any "good" music could.

Guy

Kubrick wanted above all, irony. And so he used the Blue Danube in "2001," the piece you mentioned Guy, the Mickey Mouse Club theme song in Full Metal Jacket, Beethoven's Ninth Ode to Joy at the end of "Clockwork Orange." Kubrick was a complete artist of the most severe, uncompromising kind imaginable, and so he used whatever he could to get the effect he wanted.

So obviously he was going for something that cut away all conventions - unless those convetions helped what he was trying to do. Having a complete, well-organized score - like Alex North provided - meant nothing to him unless it gave him the effect he wanted.

However, despite the fact I am acutely aware of Kubrick's ironic and unconventional approach in "2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater) I still think the score North did may in fact have provided what Kubrick wanted just as well as the temp track which is what he used.

@William said:

"2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater)

Man, I still can´t believe it. You´re crazy, man! [[:|]] [:D]

@dpcon said:

I agree that Herrmann uses the interval constantly. However he uses it in a far more straightforward manner (as you suggest) in easily recognizable chord formations as in the Vertigo main title. Goldsmith uses it in far more varied ways, often times not recognizable because it's not a triadic formation and is split between instrument groups where as Herrman very often has it within a single orchestral choir (but not always obviously.)
I would agree that Herrmann probably numerically used it more times. However he seems more chained to it than Goldsmith who seemed to free it from any chains.
Dave Connor

Ok, but I have to go on record and say Goldsmith is more known for his use of 4ths, and especialy fifths than 7ths. But I totally hear you and think that the 7th plays a strong role in Goldsmith, I just think it's not his strongest.

Evan Evans

Last night I heard a terrible score - in the Waler Salles film "The Motorcycle Diaries". It was as if the composer had taken the mic checks and tune-ups of the musicians from some other project and had managed to sell these cast-offs to the director as a "score". Okay, maybe there's an arty John Cage -type score to be made out of mic checks and tune ups - but no way was this the case here. Either the director's tone deaf, or the composer got the gig through nepotism - maybe both!

Another great, truly original & distinctive film score: Louis & Bebe Barron's electronic score for "Forbidden Planet". Absolutely incredible!


Laters

Guy

@evanevans said:

I have to go on record and say Goldsmith is more known for his use of 4ths, and especialy fifths than 7ths. But I totally hear you and think that the 7th plays a strong role in Goldsmith, I just think it's not his strongest. Evan Evans

I agree that JG's music is often dominated by harmonies derived from 4ths and 5ths (unless he's doing period or something.) My point on the Major 7th is that he will use what is a very sweet harmony (in triadic form) for dramatic exclamation and power. Normally (in film music history) anything but a major 7th chord is used for these kind of effects. He would use it for big stingers! It always got my attention when he would do that. I don't think it's his strongest suit either but a kind of innovation in the use of the interval and chord.

Dave Connor

Yes, Forbidden Planet - that is a brilliant score of complete originality from one of the most stiflingly conventional times in the history of movies - the 50s. All of the sounds were from unique circuits created specifically for the composition.

I agree completely on Herrmann's use of the 7th - it is almost an obsession in itself. Though Vertigo used a lot of augmented triads and bitonality, the ethereal use of major 7s is one of his hallmarks, not to mention the more disturbed major 7 with a minor triad - as in Vertigo and Hangover Square - and the famous minor 7 3-note motif from Psycho that he quoted at the end of Taxi Driver.

A more interesting question might be "What film composer do you NOT recognize from work to work??"

BTW for the question at hand my vote goes to Elfman. He has done some good stuff (Delores Claiborne comes to mind) but the Peewee Herman oompah oompah/Edward Siccorhands minor key yelping children's chorus (along with the Batman half @ssed romantic grand themes) can be spotted a million miles away (even when John Williams rips them off to do the Harry Potter flix).

@William said:

"2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater)

Man, I still can´t believe it. You´re crazy, man! [[:|]] [:D]

Really? I built a home theater just so I could keep watching it... probably up to 60 or 70 viewings by now by now (I pull it out every month or two..) [[:D]] [[:D]]

@William said:

"2001" (I saw it forty times when it was first out in the theater)

Man, I still can´t believe it. You´re crazy, man! [[:|]] [:D]

Really? I built a home theater just so I could keep watching it... probably up to 60 or 70 viewings by now by now (I pull it out every month or two..) [[:D]] [[:D]]

Yes. It's interesting about 2001. I have good and bad memories about it. We've discussed it many times on this forum. It almost has a documentary feel to it at times. Alex North wasn't the only one to have his score rejected btw. Pink Floyd were also in the frame for a while, I believe.

Didn't Miles Davis do a score for a Louis Malle film? Anybody heard it?

What about potentially great movies ruined by bad music? I think "Amistad" was spoiled by a bad score. Whenever Anthony Hopkins appears on screen the composer (John Williams?) switches on this limp default pseudo-Copland music. It's so clunky and naff and, ultimately, distracting - in a serious film about an incredibly serious subject.

There have been rumours for some time that Chris Cunningham is making a movie of "Neuromancer" with a score by Aphex Twin. I've no idea if it's true, but I hope it is. I could imagine that combination really shaking up all our ideas about film music.

Laters

Guy

@William said:

Not to mention the more disturbed major 7 with a minor triad - as in Vertigo.

This is the very chord I was referring too in Vertigo (i.e. the use of the interval of the major 7th regardless of other voices, mode etc.)

Here's a question for you William (because I stated that Goldsmith used the major 7th for power and drama instead of sweetness): Didn't Herrmann precede him in that, in films like Jason and the Argonauts? Using big huge Major 7ths for dramatic purposes as opposed to say Mahlers very sweet use of it in the Adagio of his 5th?

You're the expert here. I'm very curious because I think it's a real innovation.

Dave Connor

I don't know if I'm an expert. Evan is an expert on Herrmann, but I'm merely an obsessive-compulsive. I think too much about his music and probably should be medicated.

However you are right that Herrmann used this for dramatic effect before any other film composer - the score I've refered to before is "Hangover Square" which is one of the greatest uses of music and film together in Hollywood history. The music is completely incorporated into not only the plot but also the entire psychology of the main character. And this has the prominent, extremely dramatic use of minor triad with major 7th in the piano concerto being written in the story. It is interesting how this chord sounds "wrong" (in being an unresolved dissonance in the minor) by way of an AUGMENTED interval - in effect, an augmented traid is formed above the minor third. But having the leading tone in this position suggests it is trying to go somewhere but can't. It is maybe impossible to put into words - it simply has to be heard in the music - and yet this corresponds in an eerie way to what is happening in the character's mind. Something like the way the repeated arpeggios on the ma7 minor triad in "Vertigo" echo the unresolved psychological tension and swirling dizziness of the story.