Can't stand hardly any of them. (Bottom of the list is that babe that howled all the way through GLADIATOR.) I am fond of MARIE DE NAZARETH however so Sister Marie gets a pass... I can't remember this score getting much of a mention around here, but it certainly deserves some consideration.
GLADIATOR is the pinnacle, IMO, but I basically love anything Lisa Gerrard does -- THE INSIDER, BLACK HAWK DOWN, VALLEY OF SHADOWS, her own score WHALERIDER and several more.
Didn't Mychael Danna do this ever so often before Zimmer popularized it with GLADIATOR?
I think it works well in Gladiator, and clearly others agreed, given the sudden wall-to-wall wailing women that followed in its wake. (Ditto the duduk, which was suddenly ubiquitous in any score based east of Calais.)
However my favourite wailing woman in a soundtrack context may well be Gianna Spagnolo in Moses the Lawgiver. Laments by definition aren’t a good thing but her work for Ennio is truly wondrous.
It is better than Gladiator, because in Gladiator she said that she more or less had to manipulate the audience, unlike in Samsara, where the wailing was more natural, without the goal of having to manipulate the audience in any particular direction. You can just sink into the film without feeling that you are getting manipulated (even if that's manipulative too - nothing isn't, but it is a more benign form of manipulation).
Samsara is probably her most honest work as soundtrack vocalist. Most of her other film stuff tends to have more "pointed" use of vocals, not that it is bad, but it is clear that she is trying to manipulate the audience in a more obvious way.
GLADIATOR is the pinnacle, IMO, but I basically love anything Lisa Gerrard does -- THE INSIDER, BLACK HAWK DOWN, VALLEY OF SHADOWS, her own score WHALERIDER and several more.
Fingernails on a blackboard to me, but to each his own...
He does 'clusters' more than he does 'wailing brass'. But yes, that's not my favourite part of his scores. 'Wailing brass', to me, is more what John Barry does in his "action" scenes.
GLADIATOR is the pinnacle, IMO, but I basically love anything Lisa Gerrard does -- THE INSIDER, BLACK HAWK DOWN, VALLEY OF SHADOWS, her own score WHALERIDER and several more.
Didn't Mychael Danna do this ever so often before Zimmer popularized it with GLADIATOR?
Thor we are in agreement here. Agree with Gladiator and love her in everything she lends her voice to.
I'll throw an odd choice out there: Maurice Jarre's JACOBS'S LADDER.
Filled with wailing men and women vocalists, mixed choir, synthetic combos thereof. Intoxicating and unique stuff when combined with the dark synths, saranghi, ethic woodwinds and other oddball ingredients. It's the most effective synth/orchestral hybrids he ever did (for me the ONLY effective one really) and of course the wailing vocalist thing was a much fresher and more interesting approach in 1990 than it is today. Wonderful film, too!
I prefer it more as a spice than an entree, so on that note I'd throw in a vote for the way Williams uses Lisbeth Scott in MUNICH. It's anything but subtle when her tortured lamentations appear, but I like the way Williams judiciously and specifically places them in the score rather than leaning on them to carry the mood throughout.
My favorite single use of Gerrard's work in film is my favorite single Gerrard work, which is the haunting effect of "Sacrifice" in THE INSIDER. As far as her work for film, GLADIATOR is fantastic on the whole but I really love the subtle, ghostly way she weaves in and out of MAN ON FIRE.
Also, does Maggie Boyle count? Her work with Horner, particularly PATRIOT GAMES which I caught on TV last weekend, is equal parts luminous and melancholy in a way that is utterly beguiling.
