FILM SCORE FRIDAY 7/26/02

Just another reminder: our new CDs are I SPY, containing Earle Hagen's scores for five episodes of the classic 60s spy TV series, and THE PRODIGAL, Bronislau Kaper's epic music for the Biblical drama.

On September 10th, Varese Sarabande will release their long promised new recording of Franz Waxman's score to Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA, with Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Rebecca was the first of four films Waxman scored for Hitchcock, the director's first American film, and his only film to win the Best Picture Oscar®. The Marco Polo label released a Rebecca re-recording several years ago, but many film music devotees felt that Adriano's conducting of the score was insufficiently faithful to Waxman's original recording.

On the same day, Varese will release John Murphy's score to the urban thriller CITY BY THE SEA, in which policeman Robert DeNiro tries to protect son James Franco when he's suspected of a cop killing, and Milan will release Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt's score to INVINCIBLE in the United States.

On August 20th, RCA will release Gabriel Yared's score to POSSESSION. One week later, Superb Records will release Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil's (they scored Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior with director Tom Twyker) score to the psychological thriller ONE HOUR PHOTO.

Character actor Leo McKern died in an English nursing home on July 23rd at the age of 82. Best known as the titlular lawyer in British TV's long running Rumple of the Bailey, McKern also appeared in such films as X The Unknown, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Help!, A Man For All Seasons, Ryan's Daughter, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (as Prof. Moriarty), The Blue Lagoon, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Ladyhawke, and an uncredited role as the ill-fated archaeologist Bugenhagen in the first two Omen movies. One of McKern's finest performances, and a rare leading role in a feature, was in 1987's little-seen Travelling North, sort of an Australian (and superior) On Golden Pond -- McKern was in fact an Australian, and only moved to England at the age of 26.

Due to a journalistic error, I've thought of the last few decades of McKern's career as merely borrowed time. In the mid-1970s, the cult TV series The Prisoner played on the U.C. Berkeley campus where my brother was going to school, and McKern appeared in three episodes as "Number Two." A local paper's listing for the series referred to him as "the late Leo McKern," so for the next couple years every time I'd see him in a movie I'd think, "Wow, this must have been his last role," until after his second appearance in an Omen film it dawned on me that he probably wasn't even remotely dead, and two more decades of wonderful performances followed.

I know, McKern had nothing directly to do with film music, but he was a marvelous actor and will be greatly missed.

Eight Legged Freaks - John Ottman - Varese Sarabande
Frontier House - Edward Bilous - Pacific Time
I Spy - Earle Hagen - Film Score Monthly
The Maltese Falcon and Other Classic Scores - Adolph Deutsch - Marco Polo
The Prodigal - Bronislau Kaper - Film Score Monthly
Reign of Fire - Edward Shearmur - Varese Sarabande
The Son's Room - Nicola Piovani - Pacific Time
Wendigo - Michelle DiBucci - Pacific Time

Austin Powers in Goldmember - George S. Clinton - Score Album on New Line due Aug. 20
The Country Bears - Christopher Young - Song Album on Disney incl. 2 score cues
The Kid Stays in the Picture - Jeff Danna - Song and Score Album on Milan due August 6th

K19: THE WIDOWMAKER - Klaus Badelt

"Nearly everything annoying about the picture comes straight from the studio playbook, including a hectoring score complete with women's chorus."

John Powers, L.A. Weekly

"In the end, it goes too far, letting its characters express values to the accompaniment of a score so overbearing that it lacks only the Vienna Boys' Choir."

Keith Phipps, The Onion

"Visual fx are minimal and highly convincing, while the sound becomes a character unto itself, when not drowned out by Klaus Badelt's overdone score"

Robert Koehler, Variety

EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS - John Ottman

"John Ottman's conventional if effective orchestral score might have capitalized further on pic's potential for genre ribbage."

Dennis Harvey, Variety

FREE AS THE WIND
(FROM THE MOTION PICTURE "PAPILLON")
Words by Hal Shaper, Music by Jerry Goldsmith

Yesterday's world is a dream
Like a river that runs through my mind
Made of friends and the white pebbled stream
That I knew as a child

Butterfly wings in the sun
Taught me all that I needed to see
For they sang, sang to my heart
"Oh look at me! Look at me

Free as the wind
Free as the wind
That is the way
You should be"

Originally published by Soultown Music Inc.

This week's star-crossed lovers are composers whose quiet, brooding styles make them especially suitable for contemporary stories of paranoia and unease -- Michael Small and Carter Burwell.

Brighton Beach Memoirs - Two Bits
Child's Play - Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
Comes a Horseman - The Hi-Lo Country
Consenting Adults - The Spanish Prisoner
Continental Divide - Doc Hollywood
Firstborn - Fear
Klute - Kiss the Girls
Mobsters - Miller's Crossing
The Parallax View - Conspiracy Theory
The Postman Always Rings Twice - Blood Simple
The Stepford Wives - Simone
Target - The Jackal

A word from the Bravo channel:

Music Behind the Scenes is a new series that looks at movies and the music that makes them memorable. Each one-hour installment of this six episode series looks at the music of a specific movie genre and uses footage, clips and interviews with major directors, composers and stars. Music Behind the Scenes airs on Monday nights at 10PM ET/PT beginning July 22.

HUMOR * Premieres Monday, 7/22 10PM, 1AM, 7/23 4PM Films in this episode include: Beverly Hills Cop, Nurse Betty, Life of Brian, Brazil, Airplane, The Full Monty and Young Frankenstein.

HEROICS * Premieres Monday, 7/29 10PM, 1AM, 7/30 4PM Films in this episode include: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Last Emperor, Dr. No, Gladiator, Rocky and Tomorrow Never Dies.

LOVE & SEDUCTION * Premieres Monday, 8/5 10PM, 1AM, 8/6 4PM Films in this episode include: Love Story, The English Patient, Romeo & Juliet, Emma, Dangerous Liaisons and Don't Look Now.

SUSPENSE - Premieres Monday, 8/12 10PM, 1AM, 8/13 4PM Films in this episode include: Psycho, The Godfather, Chinatown, Halloween, Midnight Express, Mona Lisa and Donnie Brasco

THE CHASE * Premieres Monday, 8/19 10PM, 1AM, 8/20 4PM Films in this episode include: Terminator 2, Speed, Mission Impossible, The Great Escape, Thelma & Louise and Diva.

THE INDEPENDENTS * Premieres Monday, 8/26 10PM, 1AM, 5AM Films in this episode include: Clockers, Straight Story, Edward Scissorhands, Crash, Fargo, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Once Upon a Time in The West and The Good The Bad and The Ugly.

All times are Eastern. For Pacific Time subtract 3 hours. Presently, Bravo programming is not available for purchase.

Jean-Francois Houben has published, in French, an 840 page dictionary of film composers, entitled "1000 COMPOSITEURS DE CINEMA". Each entry contains detailed biographical information; a filmography; references to related books, compilation CDs, and Internet webpages. "The original movie titles are always included in the filmography (with the usual title for France and the other French countries). So all English & American movies are - of course - mentioned with their original titles."

Here is the official webpage.

From: Mike Atkins MKAT71@aol.com

Subject: "Lay Low, Lalo"

I do apologize for jumping the gun on this issue. I wrote my letter before I read last Friday's column, so I didn't realize that only A-M had been covered [in the composer/director partnerships column].

I tend to be a rather impulsive person, and I also have a silly chip on my shoulder regarding the pathetic lack of representation that Schifrin's soundtracks and scores have on CD. While guys like Williams and Goldsmith get the deluxe treatment of their original scores on CD, Lalo has to re-record his old scores. And when total hacks like Roy Budd have their entire film music careers unleashed on CD, that just makes it worse. I apologize for my paranoid conspiracy theory regarding the American recording industry's plot to pretend that Schifrin never existed. I hope Oliver Stone is reading this.

Mike Atkins, in his letter, wrote:

"What made Schifrin's work of the sixties and seventies so much better and more important than anything John Williams ever did was his appreciation of silence, and his innate understanding of when to use music and when NOT to use music."

Speaking for many film music fans, I, too, appreciate Schifrin's use of silence. In fact, when Schifrin is the composer, the more silence the better.

Oddly enough, millions of people around the world agree that John Williams's music is extraordinary...not rubbish.

Last year a friend of mine worked in an office tracking down Norwegian ancestors for American tourists. One day a man came in revealing himself to be Alf Clausen. Of course, this friend of mine nearly fell of his chair him being a film score and Simpsons fan. Nice story, don't you think?
 
I have watched this site for a few years now, and I would like to comment a bit one what I think is a rather strange phenomenon. I agree there has never been a greater composer than John Williams in Hollywood. His track record speaks for itself. Although I think his abilities have somewhat decreased. Lately he has been less successful I think in making timeless scores. His emphasis on melody has been replaced by self-copying and non-melodic scores, more in the vein of Goldsmith and Horner. I am tempted to think he has pulled a "spielberg"! This often happens to talented and successful people. Their success has been so obvious for so many years that it has somehow been "publicly acknowledged" that they are geniuses. I have not enjoyed a Spielberg film since Schindler and the original Jurassic. AI was frankly crap, as well as Amistad and to some degree Saving Private Ryan. Somehow Maestro Williams has followed an identical path. His scores for all these movies have been bland and totally unmemorable. One can of course understand that these, among the public, so highly acclaimed men, also after all these years want some critical acclaim.
 
I think these are opinions many of you have, but I notice a tendency to not give criticism were it is due. Even though, as far as I am concerned, John Williams is the god of movie music, we should all be able to be dissatisfied with his latest efforts. So my fellow scorelovers, don't be sheep.
 
And another thing: Jerry Goldsmith! What is it with you and this guy! In the same way as Williams you all seem to praise his every note. He has indeed made some good scores, but the sheer volume of his trackrecord should be evidence enough of his bland, boring and self-copying music. His music is solid, but not of the quality one gets goosebumps from.

I hardly think it fair to say that Goldsmith has written "some good scores" -- many of his scores are widely considered to be some of the finest ever written. On the other hand, he's written a few truly terrible ones. In fact, I'm planning an upcoming poll around the question "What is Jerry Goldsmith's worst score?", and I'd appreciate suggestions from our readers. And yes, I'm already familiar with Mr. Baseball. But have you ever heard S*P*Y*S? Yow!

Certainly Goldsmith has been subject to his share of criticism in our magazine, so much so that he won't even speak to us, which hardly suggests we "praise his every note."

And while Williams is a strong contender for Greatest Film Composer Of All Time (personally, my vote goes to Herrmann), his work, like Goldsmith's, has received plenty of criticism in our pages. But his A.I. score is hardly "bland and unmemorable."

I'll leave you readers to fight it out amongst yourselves. Let the flame war begin!
 

From: Andre Dursin <dursina@att.net>

Kamen definitely wrote at least one score for THE AVENGERS -- in fact he spent a great deal of time scoring the movie. Obviously there's some truth in the politically correct response that time was running out, etc. so he moved on to another project (LETHAL WEAPON 4). I think what really happened was that they didn't like his themes, and he didn't like their movie. Here are quotes from http://www.soundtrackmag.com/m_kamen.html

"The movie was still in formation. It took a long time for them to make agreements about what they were trying to show. Never at any real, cohesive point was I presented with a film that was finished, for me to start scoring. I had made five or six different attempts at scoring the film, but the film kept changing. It was like aiming at a moving target. And you can't really finish the score until the film is finished."

And in this interview from http://www.shef.ac.uk/~cm1jwb/kamenint.htm

"Q:So how much stuff did you actually write for THE AVENGERS?

A:Buckets. Buckets and buckets and buckets, and I'll probably use it all at some point. It was good music, interesting, funny. God knows, I don't think there'll be an Avengers 2. (laughs)"

A lot of folks have speculated his X-MEN score is what THE AVENGERS would have sounded like -- which would, if I was the director, make me want to move on to another composer as well.

At any rate, I think it was a mutual decision.

From: Jeff Commings <Jeffswim@aol.com >

Subject: Oscar part 2

Scott, as I said before, talking Oscar in July is always a pleasure! Your article was of great insight to me, because of the listing of the five scores each year that were the also-rans. Many times, I agreed with the final five choices. Other times, I didn't ("Silent Movie" is a fun movie and score!).

Can't wait for part three!