Film Score Friday 2/12/99

by Lukas Kendall

The label releasing the soundtrack for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace will be... Sony Classical! See www.sonyclassical.com and www.starwars.com. There's a press release, but it doesn't say anything interesting. I suspect that the album will be one 70 minute disc, sequenced by Williams and Ken Wannberg out of film sequence.

Reportedly there had been three labels bidding for the album: RCA Victor, because they did the Special Edition 2CD sets, Sony Classical, because they're Williams's recording label, and Elektra, because they offered a lot of money. And Sony Classical won.

In a very surprising turn of events, a selection from The Phantom Menace will be premiered in concert on March 21 by Williams with the the Boston Pops (www.bso.org), at a "Tanglewood on Parade" concert. Hopefully this will be televised. Late News! I goofed! The concert is August 4; tickets go on sale on March 21. Sorry! -LK, Friday evening

In other news, there are no longer plans to have any original transitional music in Fantasia 2000, which Bruce Broughton had been signed to do.

Reportedly there was a big celebrity roast for Jerry Goldsmith Wednesday night in Los Angeles, with some 200+ attendees, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Scoring assignments: Michael Kamen will score Iron Giant... Elmer Bernstein is replacing Howard Shore on Al Pacino's Chinese Coffee... Graeme Revell will score Michael Mann's next movie, as yet untitled.

100 Rifles!

See Wednesday's column for complete information on the newest FSM CD release. A couple of letters we got:

From: Karl Scott <karl_scott@opcode.com>

I remember buying a Leroy Holmes album of Western Themes to obtain just the theme. Thanks for all your efforts on behalf of us fans.

From: "David N. Butterworth" <dnb61@hotmail.com>

Fielding. Goldsmith. Williams. Rosenman. Fried. The list of 'Silver Age Classics' composers was starting to look impressive. And then today saw the release of the latest CD, '100 Rifles,' composed by...Jerry Goldsmith? Wait a second. Didn't we already see that name? Fielding. Goldsmith. Yes! There it is.

Now I don't want to sound like a John Barry stick in the mud but I was kind of hoping that maybe we'd get *one* Silver Age Barry score out of you before the spice of life started to wane.

Here's the simple explanation: we release the Silver Age Classics CDs in the order in which we can complete them. We do have a Barry title in the works, but it's taking longer than we had hoped; 100 Rifles was at the gate, so we're thrilled to release it.

Thanks to everyone who has ordered--your CDs are shipping now!

October Sky

From: ProfBartok@aol.com

I was fortunate enough to see a sneak preview of Joe Johnston's "October Sky", and was pleased with the soothing score of Mark Isham. He made excellent use of a solo violin. But it does strike me as odd that James Horner didn't score the movie. Horner scored all of Johnston's other movies, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", "The Rocketeer", "The Pagemaster", and "Jumanji". Is this another example of Horner abandoning his directors i.e. Ed Zwick, because of his new fame since Titanic?

I don't know why Horner did not do October Sky, or Ed Zwick's The Siege, for that matter, but I don't think it's as simple as him not wanting to do it. Maybe he was too expensive, or unavailable, or the filmmakers didn't want him, for whatever reason. The only way you can say for sure is to ask and find out, and I haven't done that in this particular instance.

Oscar Nominations Reactions

See the music lists announced last Tuesday.

From: "Harnsberger, Bill" <HARNSBH@TALKAM.net>

Congratulations to Jerry Goldsmith on his "Mulan" nomination. For Chrissakes, Academy, this year GIVE IT TO HIM!

The omission of James Horner for "Mask of Zorro" is a crime. Perhaps he's just burned too many bridges to get a nomination unless he has to club them over the head with a score that's impossible to ignore (i.e. "Titanic"). "Zorro" was universally praised by critics and the public at large. It's an amazing, complex, innovative piece of work. And the song he co-wrote for the film beats most of the song nominees hands-down.

I won't deny any of the score nominees their glory-Congratulations to them all. But Horner was robbed. The Academy can make up for it only by letting John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith win in the same year. If that happens, I shall forgive them-right after I proudly soil my britches.

From Cary Wong:

I'm usually silent about these things, but when it's so obvious that they missed the boat, I have to say something. How could the Oscars not nominate Thomas Newman for THE HORSE WHISPERER??? It is a classic piece of American music that transcends the movie. It is a moving score.

Why? I don't know. They didn't. Every year people cry about why this or that score (or actor, or script, or anything) was not nominated. The reason is, logically, because not enough people voted for it. Either they didn't remember it, or didn't think it was good enough, or they're just ignorant. So that's why!

Apes!

See Monday's column.

From: "Nicolai P. Zwar" <NPZwar@aol.com>

Cheers! A Film Score Daily article, concerned with two of my favorite composers and two of their respective best scores (one of them sadly still unreleased). Bravo, John O'Callaghan, my sentiments exactly (so I don't have much to add, really). After "Fantastic Voyage" has finally been released on CD (thanks to FSM), "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes" is one of the film scores I have high hopes for to get a release as well (some day, some time). Leonard Rosenman is one of the best film composers of all time, and he's not nearly getting the appreciation by film music afficionados as quite a few other, less deserving composers. Thanks for every article about him and his music.

Shopping?

From: Towerimp@aol.com

Just a quick note to anyone who happens to be in London at any time. Two places to check. 1. Cineman Store - cool as. Loads of stuff, mags, posters - the works. Bit expensive sometimes though. But worth it. Then 2. Tower friggin Records. Piccadilly. Check the soundtrack section. Awwsome. These guys have got so much stuff. I found Fly/Fly 2 double cd Japan edition. All three Evil Dead films Japan edition (all on one disc) Intrada stuff, bang up to date Morricone stuff, those cool Roy Budd Cds just released. This place is great. I say checkit out each and everyone. The buyers name is Giles. Him and this guy Neil are pretty cool and will talk to you for ages about stuff and get it for you if they've sold out. How often do you expect that from a big record store ?????

Jerry Goldsmith Signing

Speaking of London, here's something to go to:

Film Composer Jerry Goldsmith Makes A Rare Public Appearance At Hmv

Prolific film composer, Jerry Goldsmith will be at HMV 150 Oxford Street W1 on Thursday, 4th March at 1.00pm to sign copies of his famous soundtrack CDs.

Jerry Goldsmith has been an awesome inspiration for two generations, scoring masterpieces that range from early 60's to the present, including such classic titles as Start Trek: The Motion Picture, Planet of The Apes, The Omen and Alien. His scores have been essential in promoting the fine art of film music composition, and he is known in the industry as a great and admirable personality.

Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on both The Wind And The Lion and Patton, and he won his first Academy Award in 1976 for The Omen. MEET JERRY GOLDSMITH AT HMV

WHERE? HMV 150 OXFORD STREET, LONDON

WHEN? THURSDAY, 4TH MARCH 1.00PM

WHY? TO SIGN COPIES OF HIS CLASSIC SOUNDTRACKS

A Reply to Justin Freer

See last Friday's column:

From: Neil Lewis, srndipt@continuum.org

I will take your side in that I agree the quality of movies is going down, but not to the extent you present in your letter.

When you mention 'such classics as Citizen Kane, The Sea Hawk, They Died With Their Boots On or the Ten Commandments', you're clumping together several decades of filmmaking, leaving out about several thousand films, many of which were vapid, uninspired, money-making product from the Hollywood studio system, frequently as dumb as something like Con Air, if in a different way. If we did the same to the past several decades (or let's say a decade, since the general consensus seems to be that movies have taken a u-turn back to the junk heap more recently) we'd get classics like Wings of Desire, Goodfellas, Schindler's List, Fargo, Ran, Dreams, etc. These are prime examples of cinemagraphic master-works.

The 90's has also brought us several new, promising composers, some from more traditional backgrounds, some from new venues. Elliot Goldenthal studied composition under a talented composer, just as Williams had, and worked his way up doing concert works (which he still does) and films like Drugstore Cowboy. I think he is (to avoid controversy, let's just say 'one of') the most talented composers working today and represents a new plateau.

Danny Elfman is also very talented, and has come from a different background. His work may not be the most compositionally layered or complex, but he certainly can spot a film well and has offered a refreshing new sound.

Howard Shore is also classically trained, albeit not under someone particularly famous (give the guy a break, he came from Canada). Carter Burwell is always interesting.

The 90s has brought many memorable scores, and while movies are getting worse and the composers are becoming more hackneyed, it's not as dramatic a decline as many fear. As for the Zimmers and the Rabins, movies are a popular 'art' and you're bound to have some, uh . . . well, yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Morricone Sneak

From: MHazotte@aol.com

Last week i went to the Fantastic'arts Festival of Gérardmer (France) which presented in European premiere Virus, Urban Legend, The Bride of Chucky, Cube, Phantasm 4, Psycho etc. John Landis, Robert Englund, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Asia Argento...composed the jury (Cube won).

The event of the festival was Dario Argento's The Phantom of the Opera starring Julian Sands and Asia Argento. I enjoyed that movie, although it's not as good as Argento's first movies. The photography is somptuous, actors are great and the music is beautiful. Morricone composed the score (he also scored the first three movies of Argento and the 1996 Argento's Stendhal Syndrom). That score is romantic, moving and sometimes scary. For me, it is his best score since The Untouchables and i hope it will be realised on cd. Also great is his score for The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean (a Giuseppe Tornatore film; the score is edited by Sony classical) which contains many complex piano cues. That disc contains 78 minutes of music! and it is very magnificent. It is the first time since The Untouchables i enjoyed a Morricone score that much and it's clear that 1998 was a great year for him (remember Bullworth). I can't wait for his music for George Romero's Resident Evil next year!

Carl Davis in Concert

This appeared on the FILMUS-L mailing list:

From: David Wishart <David@DEEWIZ.DEMON.CO.UK>

Subject: Carl Davis' Latest "Silent" Score

Carl Davis will be conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in his new score for the Ramon Navarro / Norma Shearer 1927 silent film OLD HEIDELBERG (directed by Ernst Lubitsch) at a screening of the film at London's Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 13th February at 7:30 p.m.

Mr Davis will also be giving a free talk on his work prior to the screening at 6:15.

Tickets five to sixteen pounds.

R.I.P. Fred Myrow

See http://www.phantasm.com/hpages/Fredobit.html for an obituary of this composer.

Finally...

Tired of Oscar nomination talk? Go to Dave Friede and Pat Runkle's alternative awards site, the Hard-Ass Oscars, at http://www.eatel.net/~prunkle/oscar.html. A quick glance at the quality (or peculiar lack thereof) of the nominees will explain the site's focus...

Have a rifling weekend!

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