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" As for the fake columns on non-existent composers, I thought they were amusing and harmless..."
Page Cook was the Max Bellochio of his time!
LOL! Thank God there was no Internet back then. People might have really bought the crap.
No offense intended to Mr B. You sir, know how to peddle fiction.
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I think we should raise a fund for Max to get some top people to engineer enough evidence for him to write the first retrospective book on the ALAN FIVEHOUSE franchise. Clearly no-one else is more qualified.
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A very odd duck, any way you look at him. His glowing liner notes for the Gerhardt Alfred Newman release and his subsequent scathing pan of the album in FIR certainly fit the pattern.
Every time a "Page Cook" FSM thread is posted, and I learn more details about him, my disgust for this delusional idiot increases exponentially.
His "reviews" largely consisted of juvenile insults ("meandering droolings" was a tiresome favorite), and all evidence suggests the guy was in genuine need of mental help.
-- Jon
He was definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal. In retrospect though, who gives a damn what his opinions about anything were?
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" As for the fake columns on non-existent composers, I thought they were amusing and harmless..."
Page Cook was the Max Bellochio of his time!
LOL! Thank God there was no Internet back then. People might have really bought the crap.
No offense intended to Mr B. You sir, know how to peddle fiction.
Thank God there WAS no internet back then: people would have destroyed him with half-baked misinterpretations. When I read Cook, I see a chap with his tongue in his cheek, ADOPTING a stance that is Wildean and ironic.
I think some of you chaps are a bit like the folk who go to public court hearings and hiss at the defense lawyers from the balcony! They are only doing their job, and, like in a 2-party government system, you have to have people who PUT THE CASE for a certain argument, especially if that argument is under-represented.
Cook knew that others would disagree, and it was the debate that he relished. You all act as though he were maligning your ancestors or defending Hitler. He put a point, enjoyed doing it and knew he was part of a DEBATE. When something goes into print it is concretised, 'The letter kills', but I'm sure he was more than that. It was a feeler, a 'throw it out and see' approach. How many realised he was so young? I never did, and I find that fun. He WANTED to be hated as much as loved. And if he never was paid, he could pretty much say as he liked! At least he could use words: many reviewers today can't even spell.
Joe Caps has said he seems to have been very generous in real life. Maybe the persona was a compensation, but he was probably a person who FELT a great deal, hence both the vitriol AND the generosity. At least he said something, and worried where film-music was going. And he was just as hard on the old traditionalists when they were bombastic or superfluous or cliched.
Th clue is in the non de plume ... he 'cooked' the pages. With spices and heat.
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Posted: |
Jan 22, 2008 - 2:31 PM
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By: |
philip*eric
(Member)
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" As for the fake columns on non-existent composers, I thought they were amusing and harmless..."
Page Cook was the Max Bellochio of his time!
LOL! Thank God there was no Internet back then. People might have really bought the crap.
No offense intended to Mr B. You sir, know how to peddle fiction.
Thank God there WAS no internet back then: people would have destroyed him with half-baked misinterpretations. When I read Cook, I see a chap with his tongue in his cheek, ADOPTING a stance that is Wildean and ironic.
I think some of you chaps are a bit like the folk who go to public court hearings and hiss at the defense lawyers from the balcony! They are only doing their job, and, like in a 2-party government system, you have to have people who PUT THE CASE for a certain argument, especially if that argument is under-represented.
Cook knew that others would disagree, and it was the debate that he relished. You all act as though he were maligning your ancestors or defending Hitler. He put a point, enjoyed doing it and knew he was part of a DEBATE. When something goes into print it is concretised, 'The letter kills', but I'm sure he was more than that. It was a feeler, a 'throw it out and see' approach. How many realised he was so young? I never did, and I find that fun. He WANTED to be hated as much as loved. And if he never was paid, he could pretty much say as he liked! At least he could use words: many reviewers today can't even spell.
Joe Caps has said he seems to have been very generous in real life. Maybe the persona was a compensation, but he was probably a person who FELT a great deal, hence both the vitriol AND the generosity. At least he said something, and worried where film-music was going. And he was just as hard on the old traditionalists when they were bombastic or superfluous or cliched.
Th clue is in the non de plume ... he 'cooked' the pages. With spices and heat.
Well said Mr Crum - some on here can not grasp how important PC's columns were to us in the 60s through the early 90s - one of the only sources for information and critical coverage of film soundtracks. I am personally glad that he was there for "us".
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Posted: |
Jan 23, 2008 - 10:12 AM
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By: |
Ron Pulliam
(Member)
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And let us not forget Cook's famous "about-faces" -- most specifically the year of "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan".
Cook raked John Scott over the coals and accused him of lifting great chunks of Elgar instead of writing original music. This was in his review, and then later in his column on the best and worst of the year, Scott's score taking some special scorn in that column.
Then, another column came along in which Cook indicated he had been forced to reexamine his stance on the score, admitted the great bulk of the score was truly original, and he then said it was brilliant and declared it to have been the best score of its year. It never appeared on any list that way, of course.
In the 1980s, a far more mature Cook abandoned, for the most part, reviewing scores on CD and turned his attention to scores preserved with the movies on laserdiscs. During this time, he "discovered" masterpieces. One was Kaper's "Mutiny on the Bounty." He had "originally" been very dismissive of the score, but the laserdisc opened his eyes and he proclaimed it magnificent.
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I recall Page Cook writing about ongoing correspondence with Miklos Rozsa during the era Rozsa was writing EYE OF THE NEEDLE, LAST EMBRACE, FEDORA, and DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID. I wonder if this claim of ongoing correspondence with Rozsa was also one of his fabrications? I really enjoyed his columns, but I'm increasingly disturbed with the man's rationality given all the stuff presented as bogus journalism he seems to have involved himself in, and the extremes in both directions he exhibited in his personality.
SCOTT
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