Film Score Friday 6/15/01

News from Taylor White at Percepto Records, www.percepto.com:

This summer, Percepto will release the complete original score to THE CHANGELING, the much-heralded 1979 chiller starring George C. Scott, Trish Van DeVere and Melvyn Douglas. This haunting classical-flavored score showcases the talents of three composers -- Rick Wilkins, Ken Wannberg (veteran music editor for John Williams) and Howard Blake who teamed up to deliver one of the genre's most effective scores. The deluxe booklet features in-depth liner notes by film music historian Randall Larson, plus rare behind-the-scenes photos from the film.

Also due this summer is the deluxe re-release of composer Bruce Broughton's exquisite soundtrack to the 1986 fantasy THE BOY WHO COULD FLY accompanied by a full-color booklet and liner notes by Daniel Schweiger detailing the making of the film and its score.

MCA

Upcoming pop soundtrack and related reissues from the Universal family of labels: June 26: The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff), Country Man. July 24: House Party, Do The Right Thing. July 31: Rockers.

Uh-oh...harsh words for Mr. Zimmer:

From: Deborah Young-Groves <kittybear@gto.net>

I never want to hear again how James Horner 'plagiarizes' his other works when I could barely sit through Pearl Harbor without thinking I was watching Gladiator!

OK perhaps the main theme was not the same but EVERY time there was an action scene there were those drums again and the rhythm sounded the SAME.

I will say the same thing I have said about Mr. Horner - Mr. Zimmer needs to score a different type of film - to get his creative juices flowing again.

From: "Bob Bryden" <thebrydens@sympatico.ca>

I cut Hans Zimmer a bit of slack because of 'Thin Red Line' and 'Gladiator' after more than a decade of seriously disliking his output. Now after 'Mission Impossible 2' and (ugggh!) 'Pearl Harbor' I must report - the hack is back! In full negligible force and technologicaly correct. From his early amateur synth ramblings through his uninspired, award-winning efforts for 'Lion King' to his Rota rip-off, 'As Good As It Gets', etc., etc., I was fairly regularly appalled. Nothing prepared me for 'MI2' or 'Pearl Harbor'. Anybody who HASN'T had enough of John Barry's majestic monotony or Delerue's lilting sensitivity will love PH. I would have called the first few tracks, 'Somewhere in Time You'll Find a Little Romance at Pearl'. It's hard to underestimate just how much this astoundingly ripped-off score sounds like it was written not ON but BY a computer. Media Ventures, by now, no doubt have a bit of software called 'Majestic Romance and Towering Heroism'. Hans and company just pop it in the tray and trim to fit the bill. I don't really mind when film composer's pilfer the classics but when film composers pilfer other film composer's - that's really sad. Ultimately, a composer should be one who CAN compose. They say Tiomkin stole shamelessly - maybe stylistically, but I've listened to tons of classical music and have yet to hear THE MELODY of 'Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin' or 'Green Leaves of Summer' verbatim in a Tchaikovsky or Scriabin piece. Maybe Hans is starting to bless us with those 'themes' which never made it into 'Gladiator'. Let's just call it 'More and More Music from Gladiator' but 'Pearl Harbor'? I can't find ANYTHING to like about this music. Unlike the truly great film musicians, Hans Zimmer is clearly only as good as his director. (Terrence Malik, Ridley Scott.)

The following letter (excerpted) was forwarded to me by Preston Jones, who got it from Ron Bohn (veteran film music buffs, both!) who got it from a discussion group of some kind. I assume it's OK to reprint -- it's certainly very interesting about this legendary unused Herrmann score.

A letter from Robert Swarthe

The Bernard Herrmann Soundtrack for Torn Curtain

I've just played my DVD of Torn Curtain for the first time. I write with special reference to the "Bonus Materials" section which includes the scenes scored by Bernard Herrmann using his original studio recordings. I have not had time to check out all of the cues, but the music for the murder of Gromek is definitely not synched correctly at all -- starting approximately 1:07 early -- immediately after the cooking pot hits the telephone on the wall next to Gromek (Bonus 12:14, Main Film Ch. 8, 48:23). On the DVD, the music ends before Newman and the farmer's wife start to drag Gromek towards the oven. The music just seems to fizzle out in the middle of the scene for no reason.

Here's the way the music should match up:

Timings given are for Chapter 8 in the main movie section of the DVD (not the Bonus section). The murder music should start just AFTER Gromek is stabbed in the chest -- a split second AFTER the metallic sound effect of the knife handle breaking (at 49:30). The music ends just AFTER Gromek dies in the oven, his convulsively twitching fingers finally releasing their grip on Newman's neck. The music fades out under the sound of the farmer's wife turning off the squeaky gas oven handles (approx. 52:00).

We all have heard that Hitchcock originally did not want any music during the Psycho shower murder, but changed his mind after hearing Herrmann's cue. When I originally saw Torn Curtain in the theater, I thought that Hitchcock's doing the murder without music worked amazingly well. I was convinced that it did not need any music. It is interesting to see what Herrmann decided to do. He did let the Gromek murder scene play quietly with only dialog and effects for quite a while before bringing in the music.

This lets the audience know that neither the murderers nor the victim want the waiting cab driver to hear anything going on inside the farmhouse -- even when their lives are at stake. When it begins to look like nothing Newman and the farmer's wife can do will stop Gromek, then Herrmann punches the music in strongly. This is not like Psycho where the music shocks you into the very beginning of the murder. There's trilling effect in the music which fits the gas oven, but makes no sense as laid in, in the DVD Bonus section. If you can, try to synch the music up to the film. You'll see/hear that I'm right.

I know there are other examples of Herrmann waiting to bring in music until the scene reaches a dramatic point. The only one I can think of right now is not the best example, but in North by NorthWest the music for the cropduster sequence does not start until the point where Grant is saved, AFTER the cropduster explodes into the oil truck. In this case, the music functions as comic relief to the tension of the sequence which preceeded it.

It's too bad that this happened. I think the sync on some of the other cues is rubbery, but will have to try to figure that out later. In the Torn Curtain Rising DVD documentary, they discuss and show stills of the deleted Gromek's brother scene. They say that is all that remains of it. I wonder if the actual film exists anywhere. I believe that Herrmann scored (but did not record) music for Gromek's brother because there are cues named "The Sausages" and "The Photos" in the score (at UCSB). There are no sausages or photos emphasised anywhere else in the film.

Another note. There was a documentary Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann (Dir., Joshua Waletzky, Alternate Current International) which was released on laser disc a few years ago (it was also shown on PBS and was entered for Oscar consideration). In it, they did show some of Gromek murder with the Herrmann music. I think they synched it correctly. As I recall they only used an excerpt, not the entire sequence.

Another nitpick: The narrator mentions that John Addison used a bit of Hitchcock's TV Theme during his cameo appearance in Torn Curtain. Unfortunately he talks over the theme, making it inaudible. The music comes up right after, but it is no longer "Funeral March of the Marionettes!"

There is at least one cue that Bernstein did not use on his LP which Herrmann did record -- "The Blurring." It's used during a kind of tearstained wipe transition from CU Julie Andrews to Ext. East German Airport (another Whitlock matte painting). I can't be sure, but I think the DVD's got the music placement wrong. I think it should start on the effect and carry over to the Airport interior when the dialog resumes. But I can't swear to this. It just seems like the music is an "effect" tied to the visual and Herrmann would not start his music effect way BEFORE the visual effect. The more I think about Torn Curtain, the more I remember. There's a fun cue on Bernstein's LP called "The Corridor." It starts on a camera angle looking straight down a spiral staircase (DVD Chapter 13 1:20:08). Newman and Andrews are beginning their escape from East Germany. In the movie as released, there is no music and the scene is flat. With Herrmann's cue, the scene actually become exciting, even though it contains exactly the same action. As I recall, Bernstein comments in his liner notes that the orchestra broke into spontaneous applause after playing that cue. Any thoughts? Any comments? Is this old news to you all?

See the recent column by Steven Kennedy:

From: Manolo Roig <mrt40438@teleline.es>

Thanks for your great article about Spanish film music and the cd's you review[ed]. It's funny that finally it has been an American who has written about it at Film Score Monthly. I think our actual film music deserves it, because of the great quality of the releases of the last 3 years.

We are living a new "golden age", due to the new batch of composers that have appeared: Cales Cases, Eva Gancedo, Angel Illarramendi, Javier Navarrete, Manuel Balboa, Luis Ivars, Ramon Paus, Jose Maria Pagan, Alberto Iglesias, Joan Vives, Suso Saiz and many many others. Thanks to the JMB label many of the scores of those composers are being released. But don't think they are only difficult to find for you, even [we] have problems to get them. One year ago you could find them easily everywhere, but in the last year they are hard to find outside Madrid and Barcelona, where you can find them very cheap.

There's another label who releases film music, Saimel, who has released mainly scores of the great Spanish maestro Jose Nieto, one of our best composers, and of other composers I mentioned above.

Once again, my congratulations for your reviews.

From: Acaimo Gonzalez Sarmiento, Redaccion del gabinete de prensa <becagab@ull.es>

I write these lines from Spain (so pardon my poor English!)

This morning Film Score Monthly has given to all Spanish film music lovers a great surprise. Although the name of Pedro Almodovar is well known around the world, the Spanish cinema is a weak industry, considered in an international landscape. So, It's amazing to comprove that the music of our composers is capable of travelling beyond it natural frontiers and being understood by foreign listeners.

Steven A. Kennedy has made an excellent work analysing the works of Illarramendi, Baños, Cases, Gaigne and Iglesias. He has focused his review on musical aspects; I supouse it is the best way to write a text about scores from films very difficult to see there in the USA. If you belive my word, I assure you that all the music described fits perfectly with the images of the respectives movies.

Nowdays we are living a little "Golden Age" in Spanish cinema. After two decades of divorce between audience and national films, a generatioanl change produced arond the 90's rose the number of moviegoers. The profits of Spanish cinema obiously increased, and so did the production values of the new movies, including the scores. All the composer you have written about (minus Carles Cases, who is a bit earlier), are good examples of this new generation of Spanish film composers (add to the list the names of Bingen Mendizabal and Eva Gancedo).

Anyway, I would like to comment that the best composer of our little industry, Jose Nieto, must be include in the essay. During the 80's, a poor period of our cinematography, he made great efforts to dignify the music from films. For example, he fought harder with the producers to mix in Dolby System his score for "Star Knight", the first Spanish score mixed in that way. Among his best works are "Libertarias", "La pasion Turca", "El maestro de esgrima", "Dias Contados", "Finisterre" and "El rey pasmado", examples of his diverse style: full sinphonic and choral, etnic, jazz and "new-aged". Ha has also worked on documentaries for the BBC, as "Armada" or, especially, "Crusades". Recently, he has written a great theoric book about film composition, called "Música para la imagen: la influencia secreta" ("Music for the image: the secret influence"), and has made three recordinds of classical Spanish film composers from the 40's and 50's. Last year he recived the Spanish-National Prize of Cinematography; it was the first time that a composer was honored with thar consideration.

Pardon the length of this message... and the bad use of the English language!

From: "Heathcliff Blair" <heathcliff@hblair.fsnet.co.uk>

Praise to David V. Coscina for providing something approaching a theoretical analysis of Alex North's Dragonslayer score.
 
Although fan-based soundtrack comments are always welcome, film music has rules of compositional theory and procedure which should be scrutinised. This will, at least, relay the precise and subtle expertise of geniuses like North to future film composers. And judging from recent, all too pat, producer-friendly film scoring ventures, they're going to need it.
 
Commentary such as Mr Coscina's can only enhance the craft of film music and increase its general reputation as a serious art form.
 
Good for you Mr Coscina. I hope others follow your example.

From: Jeff Heise, Jedbu@aol.com

I believe that Arthur Lintgen has it wrong when he says that Franz Waxman resigned from the Academy when Alfred Newman's score to THE ROBE was not nominated. It was Bernard Herrmann who resigned, feeling that his good friend (and boss at Fox) had been slighted. This is probably what made the collaboration between Herrmann and Newman on THE EGYPTIAN work-they simply respected each other, and as I remember Newman was responsible for Herrmann being put on the Fox payroll when the iconoclastic composer had alienated many in the business.

Esquire Magazine is running a series of articles on "What It Feels Like" (i.e. to be in a plane crash, be stuck in quicksand, etc.). Elmer Bernstein has contributed a short original piano piece, on what it feels like to approach 80 years in age. Listen at http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/010601_mfr_feelslike.html

Jeff Berkwits has reviewed our Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Conquest/Battle for the Planet of the Apes CDs at Scifi.com: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue215/sound.html

British site www.vitaminic.co.uk is presently doing a promotion for Silva Screen albums; see www.vitaminic.co.uk/specials/silva_screen/album.shtml. They are offering a "Director's Cut" sampler culled from Silva's catalog of film music re-recordings as well as a competition for an MP3 player (www.vitaminic.co.uk/specials/silva_screen/competition.shtml).