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Posted: |
Apr 17, 2016 - 1:22 PM
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By: |
Heath
(Member)
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Mr Thor (what IS your real name by the way?), there's a thing about arts appreciation, and it can resemble "special pleading" by "interested parties", and it's this: you HAVE TO BE in on the game to know just how well the game is being played.
The finished article, the game/artwork/score, is presented to the public as a fait accompli - all done, all decisions made, here it is. That's what the public sees/hears and judges from. BUT it's the well informed external artist who can appreciate just how much of a risk has been taken... or not... to achieve success. It's as much about what the artist DOESN'T do as does.
That's the thing. When I listen to a Goldsmith, even a late 90s bread-and-butter piece, I can tell he's making certain unique choices, harmonically etc, that literally no one else would dare to do, even his many imitators. He, even for brief, stolen musical moments, pushed the envelop a fraction further while staying within the commercial environment he operated in. His practical judgement in that regard was superb.
I could go on and on.... but the bottom line is this: I can barely think of half a dozen other composers who could do this and get another gig to do it again, decade after decade.... in ALL of film music history.
Today we still have John Williams and Ennio. The last geniuses in their twilight. Everyone else today is either a great contemporary craftsperson or a clever crowd-pleaser.... or both. There is no other kind of genius at work.
I'm afraid I see/hear no one on the horizon that will ever enjoy the kind creative latitude that Goldsmith enjoyed. It's almost as much a matter of generational culture as anything else.
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Posted: |
Apr 17, 2016 - 1:36 PM
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By: |
Morricone
(Member)
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Dictionary:
GENIUS
1. an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.
How do you show this? I would take as an example an early assignment THE MAN FROM UNCLE. Being a blatant rip-off of James Bond the assignment seems clear. Most good composers would do their take of what John Barry does as in THE LIQUIDATOR (Lalo Schifrin) or I SPY (Earl Hagen). Jerry seemingly would be incapable of this. It would be deadly boring for him. He immediately hooked on to the fact this American version had a decidedly military bent and incorporated that. Then he would lean toward more big band jazz rather than Barry’s bluesy style. If this wasn’t enough he would push the envelope by having the first main theme with the unusual 5/4 beat. Many came after this. When he got his second James Bond type show he kept on his stubborn ways by giving it a latin groove and a rock vibe aided by a Hammond organ OUR MAN FLINT. It was evident he was going out of his way to avoid getting into Barry territory. He would only approach it later on the appropriately London based SEBASTIAN. His whole career was based on challenging himself constantly and not on figuring out what would make him popular.
As for Williams I actually thought he was going to be a driven artist like Goldsmith. But his wife’s death changed all that and with the prodding of Andre Previn he got into conducting. When you play the past greats all the time your own music becomes more traditional. Steven Allen Fox, whose favorite composer since childhood is Williams, explained that his range and variety is more inward. It is on the page more than it is audible. Indeed John’s latter genius is in what he does within his music, with dazzling ornamentation, rather than the music itself. I do hear this in spades.
For me, rather than going to someone to get a type of music, I prefer a composer who takes a musical journey and I follow him to places I would not otherwise have gone. Goldsmith would surprise me and that is what I live for musically. There is something about Jerry following his STAR TREK film, which put him back on top of the musical map, with a cheesy Casablanca rip-off (so he could do his first Spanish flavored score), a bad love story (because it revolved around tennis), a war epic sponsored by the Moonies, an offbeat European thriller and then back to commercial territory with his final OMEN film (which somehow became his most inspired). This “journey” he took was more about finding things he hadn’t scored yet than keeping the big bucks coming in. Right down to near his death writing an operatic aria for a terrorist film.
Does all this artistic challenge necessarily make his music better than the others? No, but when you get past the 100th listen of a piece I find it helps enormously.
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I'm not arguing with anyone who believes Goldsmith to be among the best film composers ever because I'm in the same camp.
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Mr Thor (what IS your real name by the way?),
That IS my real name. 
I'm wondering how someone who's been around this board since at least 2001 could not know this.
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