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I've only seen the film once so far. What scene(s) does Convergence go with?
It's the layered percussion piece that played over the scene where the well caught fire.
Ahhhhhh yes. Loved that. Is the music that accompanies the opening shots included on the soundtrack (the music that's reminiscent of The Shining)? I dug that. A lot.
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I finally saw THERE WILL BE BLOOD this past weekend.
Ugly, and relentlessly downbeat, with a score that gave me a big-ass headache. It was too long, and the same actor in two roles thing only works if you're Peter Sellers (or Johnathan Winters in THE LOVED ONE).
Certainly well-acted. But well-acted doesn't necessarily translate into a meaningful motion picture experience.
Did I mention that the score gave me a headache?
Oh, I see I did. Jarring and abrasive and inappropriate and annoying. I have nothing against atonality in music (I love composers like Webern, Varese, Schoenberg and Berg), and it often works well in film music, but it's just unpleasant here.
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Kinda funny, actually.
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I'm glad nutsscore has taken up the mantle of trying to support this score for all the reasons outlined above.
The folks who dislike it vehemently reveal something about the perception of music. It would seem that there is an intrinsic link between aesthetic pleasure and listening to music. Or perhaps, in the case of TWBB, how music is married to visuals. If the music is overtly tonal and melodic, it can be as loud as possible. If it is abrasive, unappealing, dissonance, than it is reviled. I'm sure that PT Anderson and Greenwood delight in these kinds of responses because that appears to be the reaction they were after with this score.
Plainview is a monster- a polarized amped up version of everything bad about capitalism. A monster. A fascinating one mind you as portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis but a monster nonetheless.
It's a memorable score and one that I like quite a lot. It's also not overtly electronic. The "synth:" sound is an e-bow which allows the guitar player a more gradual attack transient when strumming the strings on the guitar. It gives a similar sound to that of a bowed violin. The guitar player in the band I played in used it quite a bit for atmosphere.
As for programming, Greenwood actually writes his own sequencer programs. But the sudden drop in the acoustic space in Future Markets is more the recording engineer. Those strings are as real as you can get. Trust me. I own practically every sampled string library on the market and I know what real ones sound like (I have written pieces played by real strings too).
Anyhow, this should not devolve into a flame war. If Haines and other dislike the score, no problem. To summarily dismiss it as crap, well, it does not tarnish my appreciation of what Greenwood was doing. It's my favorite score of 2007.
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... and the same actor in two roles thing only works if you're Peter Sellers (or Johnathan Winters in THE LOVED ONE).
Never seen Dead Ringers? Or perhaps considered the concept of identical twins? Radical stuff, really!
I just saw Bob Culp perform a remarkable dual role in an episode of I SPY. The ability to play multiple characters effectively and distinctly is a great talent, and certainly plausible when performed by the right thespian. Kevin Kline often does it very well along with a host of others.
In regard to the music in THERE WILL BE BLOOD...funny, but when I think of it, I just don't think of it as atonal. The first pieces that usually come to mind are very rhythmic and defined, not the least bit abrasive or irritating. There is a great deal of beauty in the music to this film.
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It's my favorite score of 2007.
Hear, hear!
Sometimes music is best when it challenges our senses and pre-conceptions. In the case of Greenwood, he was not doing anything that Penderecki, or Crumb or Bartok had not done decades before. But the application of his music to this particular story and setting was innovative. Some didn't care for it because, I believe, they were constrained by strong expectations and associations of what they were conditioned by having heard many pandiatonic Americana themes from similar film settings. This style of music challenges the audience and thrusts them out of their world of warmer string sonorities that oft accompany films set in that time period.
Whether the credit goes to Greenwood or PT Anderson is the only question I have. I suspect both had a hand in it though.
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Performance live this week in London:
http://www.lcorchestra.co.uk/perfomances/upcoming/
JG was interviewed tonight on BBC Radio 4, re the film, its technique of composition, etc.. When asked if he felt cheated, he remarked that he cherished his Kermode award!
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