FILM SCORE FRIDAY 9/26/03

The following are this year's winners in the Emmy Awards' music categories:

MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A SPECIAL -- DRAMATIC UNDERSCORE

"Eloise at the Plaza" -- Bruce Broughton

MUSIC COMPOSITION FOR A SERIES -- DRAMATIC UNDERSCORE

"24" (10 p.m.-11 p.m.) -- Sean Callery

MAIN TITLE THEME MUSIC

"Monk" -- Jeff Beal

MUSIC DIRECTION

"75th Annual Academy Awards" -- Bill Conti, music supervisor and composer.

MUSIC AND LYRICS

"The Concert for World Children's Day" (song: "Aren't They All Our Children") --David Foster, music; Linda Thompson, lyrics.

The Human Stain - Rachel Portman - Lakeshore
Major Dundee - Daniele Amfitheatrof - DRG
Secondhand Lions - Patrick Doyle - New Line
Veronica Guerin - Harry Gregson-Williams - Hollywood

Duplex - David Newman
Luther - Richard Harvey
My Life Without Me - Alfonso Vilallonga
The Rundown - Harry Gregson-Williams - Score CD due Sep. 30 from Varese Sarabande
Under the Tuscan Sun - Christophe Beck - Score CD due Sep. 30 on Hollywood

September 30
The Event - Christophe Beck, various - Varese Sarabande
Matchstick Men - Hans Zimmer - Varese Sarabande
Out of Time - Graeme Revell - Varese Sarabande
The Rundown - Harry Gregson-Williams - Varese Sarabande
Under the Tuscan Sun - Christophe Beck - Hollywood
October 14
Poltergeist II: The Other Side: The Deluxe Edition - Jerry Goldsmith - Varese Sarabande
Underworld - Paul Haslinger - Lakeshore
October 21
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Steve Jablonsky - LaLa Land
October 28
Shattered Glass - Mychael Danna - Thrive
November 11
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - Christopher Gordon, Iva Davies, Richard Tognetti - Decca
Date Unknown
The Abominable Dr. Phibes - Basil Kirchin - Perseverance
Amerika - Basil Poledouris - Prometheus
Battle Cry - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
The CBS Years vol. 1: The Westerns - Bernard Herrmann - Prometheus
Dirty Harry - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal - various - La-La Land
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken - Vic Mizzy - Percepto
The Hellstrom Chronicle - Lalo Schifrin - Aleph
Mighty Joe Young, etc. - Roy Webb, et al - Monstrous Movie Music
Point of Origin - John Ottman - La-La Land
The Reluctant Astronaut - Vic Mizzy - Percepto
A Summer Place - Max Steiner - Screen Archives/BYU
This Island Earth, etc. - Herman Stein, et al - Monstrous Movie Music

September 26 - Edward Ward died (1971)
September 26 - Robert Emmett Dolan died (1972)
September 28 - Miles Davis died (1991)
September 28 - John Williams begins recording score to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
September 30 - Elmer Bernstein begins recording the score to The View From Pompey's Head (1955)
September 30 - Virgil Thomson died (1989)
October 1 - Irwin Kostal born (1911)
October 1 - Jerry Goldsmith begins recording the score to The Prize (1963)
October 1 - Ernst Toch died (1964)
October 2 - Bernard Herrmann marries his first wife, writer Lucille Fletcher (1939)

COLD CREEK MANOR - Mike Figgis

"Even after [Stephen] Dorff cranks up the menace and the soundtrack tells us with each shuddering note that he's a piece of nasty goods, [Sharon] Stone remains perfectly clueless."

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

"Figgis builds tension gradually, and his score hits just the right note of foreboding."

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

"Figgis' score hits the menacing notes right on the head, to no avail in the thrill department."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

IN THIS WORLD - Dario Marianelli

"Lit in available light, the scenes are often murky, but appropriately so. It's as if the movie is milked over by weary, dusty eyes. And Dario Marianelli's score haunts the picture with a penetrating mournfulness."

Desson Howe, Washington Post

"'In This World' is heart-rending at times, but it's mostly clear-eyed and unsentimental; only the intermittent symphonic score makes a play for our sympathies."

Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"The movie's staccato pacing, lent emphasis by Dario Marianeli's haunting score, evokes the cycles of tedium and terror that make the journey so unnerving."

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly

"Much of the movie is a series of images brought to life sonically by Dario Marianelli's sweeping score and by the honest sounds of tires on the road, clocks ticking and forks scraping on plates."

Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune

"In one respect, he is a little too emphatic. Dario Marianelli's orchestral score plays almost incessantly, and it both distracts from the rough, grim naturalism of the film and threatens to sentimentalize a story that hardly needs extraneous emotions tacked on."

A. O. Scott, New York Times

"Dario Marianelli's broad, anthemic score is also a big assist throughout."

Derek Elley, Variety

SECONDHAND LIONS - Patrick Doyle

"Patrick Doyle's sweetly imperialistic score is an acquired taste."

Ronnie Scheib, Variety

UNDERWORLD - Paul Haslinger

"This is not to say that the movie lacks shortcomings. [Director Len] Wiseman is overly infatuated with the atmospherics of excitement. Breathless music swells and pounds when the only thing happening on the screen is somebody strolling down a hall or looking through a window."

Charles Savage, Miami Herald

FROM: "Ross Amico"

Jesse Hopkins ("Wasted Opportunities," 9/17) is flaying a straw man. If his article had been written in the 1950s, his dismissive attitude toward conservatories and contemporary composers may have carried some validity, but the fact of the matter is, at a time when Ned Rorem, Richard Danielpour, and Jennifer Higdon -- all extremely tonal and ridiculously expressive composers -- hold teaching positions at the Curtis Institute of Music -- arguably the most prestigious conservatory in the United States, if not the world -- it's obvious Hopkins is arguing against his own constructed stereotype of what goes on behind the austere walls of the supposed "ivory towery."

When the brightest names of contemporary classical music have all-but-turned their backs on serialism and cacophony-for-cacophony's sake; when John Adams and John Corigliano are counted among the major American composers of the day; when a recording of Henryk Gorecki's embarrassingly tonal (and mid-'70s) Symphony No. 3 can sell a bazillion copies; when former serialists like Arvo Part have adopted a more serene, almost New Agey-style; when concert music in general begins to sound more and more like film music; when even Krzysztof Penderecki has begun to soften around the edges, it's obvious the orchestral zeitgeist, if not downright neo-romantic, is at least neo-tonal.

Take it from one who has attended his share of premieres over the last two decades. I can say with some degree of authority that the Ralph Shapeys of the world are on the wane. And so what if they were not? These are pluralistic times, my friends, and composers are encouraged to write in a language most comfortable to their individual dispositions. (See the February US edition of Gramophone for an article in which Higdon describes her philosophy of teaching -- to say nothing of composition.)

Alas, blanket sentiments of the sort expressed in this article are all-too-prevalent among film score lovers. It proves that many listeners, while they no doubt care passionately about music, need to expand their listening habits before passing definitive judgments. Hopkins needs to be locked in a room for a few days with John Adams' "El Nino."

I read Jesse Hopkins' article entitled "Wasted Opportunities" with some dismay. Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams are lauded as "outshining the rest" when it comes to writing film music. What utter nonsense. Both composers are able to write sweeping melodies that are memorable and enjoyable. But one forgets that they are not composers in the classical tradition. They are writing for the screen. There are others far more attuned to this skill than the big melodists. In any event, even superficial analysis exposes Williams as thoroughly derivative in his style.
 
Williams' greatest tunes (Star Wars, Superman, ET, Indiana Jones) are all based on triadic melody. They are all extremely similar harmonically with all having second themes in the subdominant (for example, if you sing the second themes of Star Wars and Superman you will see they are interchangeable). In other words, Williams hit upon a formula in the 80s, and a very successful one at that. But turn to music within the films. Williams' use of an extended harmonic palette in scenes such as the C3P0 and R2D2 on Tatooine is remarkably similar to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. In fact it uses the same sorts of techniques that Stravinsky and Prokofiev were experimenting with in the early 20th Century. It certainly isn't original and it isn't particularly innovative. Williams draws on classical music knowledge to achieve his effects, but he still relies on the unifying Big Theme to get him through. I don't believe the use of the turn in a melody is either particularly characteristic of Williams any more than other composers or a feature worthy of praise.
 
Williams' work is a far cry from film composers who use much subtler effects to achieve emotional response from an audience. Just because they don't come up with a Big Tune with standard and uninteresting orchestration Jesse Hopkins labels them "textural".
 
But when Williams later strayed away from his formula, he lost his way: who hums the theme from Jurassic Park? He has been unable to drag himself out of the same orchestral rut where everything is scored exactly the same way. Even Harry Potter is just re-hashed Star Wars. (There is one great exception, pre-dating the Star Wars formula, and that is his excellent music for The Missouri Breaks). Rudimentary analysis demonstrates that Williams' skill at film scoring since 1977 has been limited to tugging at the heartstrings with a lush melody and a bit of chromatic harmony. Relying on a formula goes against the very effect a film composer is trying to achieve: complement the moving picture with music that reflects the vision of the director's/actors etc.
 
On the other hand, take someone like Danny Elfman, who is bestowed with the faintly damning praise that he contributes "textural content" to the film music debate. To some degree I understand the point. His music is characteristically rhythmic and often introduces some delicious humour that fully fits the film he's scoring for. But at the same time he adapts his scores to suit the mood of the film. The music for Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes is certainly by the same composer but the moods perfectly suit the two films. Elfman is adaptable and consistently steps successfully into the music shoes of a director.
 
The discussion on romanticism in music highlights the flaw of the article as a whole. Film music must be written to accommodate the moving picture and to help realize the director's vision. It does not serve to write pseudo-classical music in the late Romantic style. As a result, film music rarely works (and it shouldn't have to work) as stand-alone classical music. Some of the finest films in cinematic history are blessed with scores so appropriate to the picture that you forget they're there. You certainly can't criticize the composer for not coming up with a great tune. Reference is made to AI and Close Encounters. But this is precisely the sort of incidental music that you would expect from a Hollywood film. It is presented in the same tedious formulaic way that every Hollywood film is. Much like the scripts, there's no originality. Far more interesting examples come from directors like David Lynch, who collaborates closely on the music of his all films -- and it really shows: Lost Highway, for example, is film scoring at its very best. Preisner's scoring on Kieslowski's films (The Double Life of Veronique springs to mind) and Pino Donaggio's fabulously evocative music in Don't Look Now are far more emotionally subtle than the heavy handed approach of Goldsmith and Williams.
 
If there is to be a new raft of film composers, one hopes they will not be in the Williams/Goldsmith mould. Surely we've moved beyond those days of heart-on-sleeve effects. In fact, I believe that such composers are out there, but all too often they don't attract the praise they deserve because they haven't come up with the Big Tune.

FROM: "Ronald Zabor"

Regarding today's new poll, my favorite score by Georges Delerue is "The Pumpkin Eater", with "The Soft Skin" close in second place. Neither film title is listed in your poll.

FROM: "Roman Deppe"

SUBJECT: Horner and LOTR
 
Very funny your comment about your skepticism about Horner not doing LOTR and Harry Potter. Well, I doubt Horner being asked, too, as John Williams has that long relationship with Chris Columbus, so he for sure was asked first. With LOTR it may be true that he was asked, but as I understood comments from Peter Jackson the issue was that they wanted a composer who was willing to work for 3 years on this project and do a lot of research and not just write a score he would usually come up with -- which Horner surely would have (not spending more than a day on finding themes (in his cellar)). So, none of the Top A-List Composers would have had that time really for that project I think. Still, Shore wrote some scores in-between, but Panic Room and The Score were for sure not scores which took him very long to work on. Horner and Co. get asked way to often for blockbusters, which they have to accept from time to time I guess, though after TITANIC Horner surely doesn't need any money for paying any bills anymore.

Anyhow -- Cliff Eidelman for MASTER AND COMMANDER sounds for me like typecasting! "Hm, who could write a score for a big ship some centuries ago in trouble and such -- hm, take Eidelman, he did that Columbus movie, he knows how to score a ship in a storm!!!" I guess, that's usually the way decision are made in Hollywood -- the people now scoring MASTER AND COMMANDER sound interesting and not the usual route!

My choice for LOTR by the way would have been Graeme Revell, after hearing his wonderful rejected 13th Warrior I am sure he would have been capable of this project (just with the note to bring in some big themes!).

Over and out.

Even if Eidelman had been hired for Master and Commander (I wish!), scoring two seagoing films eleven years apart would not quite count as composer typecasting. Anyway, Christopher Gordon, one of Master's trio of composers, scored the recent versions of Moby Dick and On the Beach which would make him seem like a specialist in seagoing stories, at least for the moment.

FROM: "Patrick Wilson"

SUBJECT: Dreamcatcher trailer
 
Just curious if anybody knew the music played in the Dreamcatcher trailer (The Lawrence Kasdan bomb from a while back). It's not on the soundtrack of course, and the usually reliable Soundtrack.Net doesn't have it listed on their "Trailer Music List."
 
The music sounds like a James Newton Howard composition, but I have yet to locate what recording it actually is.
 
Thanks for any help.

FROM: "Nick Haysom"

SUBJECT: Ace "Eli"
 
I am writing to complain about your CD release ACE ELI AND RODGER OF THE SKIES. Don't get me wrong, it's a charming score and superbly well represented by your disc. You were absolutely right to pair it with ROOM 222 as the two hail from the same sound world. However, I'm afraid you made a grave error in placing the TV score first on the disc. The theme is a good one and I enjoy all the variations on it but after hearing it 222 times (or thereabouts) I simply cannot then listen to ACE ELI without wondering, when is that theme going to return? So next time, do me a favour and put the really catchy music at the end of the disc, huh?