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A may your next journey take you to a score called Ruby on Intrada records.
Or perhaps not. It's all a matter of personal taste of course, but I eagerly found a copy of Ruby, and it was the first Scott score that I didn't like. I traded it away. But, maybe someone else will like it more. I've since found a couple of his others I didn't care much for, but I still have about 20.
LOL ok, I fully understand. I got rid of A Scarlet Tunic very quickly also, and I never cared much for Final Countdown. But there are a good 25-30 scores I do like. Have you heard The Deceivers yet?
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Posted: |
Feb 2, 2013 - 8:37 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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Gorgeous score. Easily the best, IMHO, that Scott has written.
Too bad it accompanies such a stodgy, plodding movie. (You'd think, considering the subject matter, that the movie would have more of a sense of pace. Go figure. And there really doesn't seem to be that much chemistry between the leads. Heston is probably similar to the historical Antony, who was pretty blunt and ego-driven, and not remotely as clever as his former mentor, Julius Caesar, but Hildegard Neill is way out of her depth in Shakespeare. She has a kind of remote beauty, but none of the acting chops for the role, which is one of Shakespeare's most challenging.)
Heston actually contemplated re-filming the Cleopatra part a short while after the film's release. Clearly he knew he'd made the wrong choice with Hildegard Neill. Personally I'd like to see the film just to catch the extra footage from the Ben-Hur sea battle.
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Too bad it accompanies such a stodgy, plodding movie. (You'd think, considering the subject matter, that the movie would have more of a sense of pace. Go figure.) .......And there really doesn't seem to be that much chemistry between the leads. Heston is probably similar to the historical Antony, who was pretty blunt and ego-driven, and not remotely as clever as his former mentor, Julius Caesar, but Hildegard Neill is way out of her depth in Shakespeare. She has a kind of remote beauty, but none of the acting chops for the role, which is one of Shakespeare's most challenging.)
Peter Snell on the 'Julius Caesar' co-production: "I set out to make a very commercial 'Julius Caesar'. I was determined to make an entertaining 'Julius Caesar' that very critic would hate. How else could I cast Robards as Brutus, Chamberlain as Octavius and Robert Vaughan as Casca?"
Is that hindsight, or a tongue-in-cheek attitude to the film indeed?
I've never been keen on A&C as a Shakespeare play, mainly because it's about what? ... okay, woman as negative fate, the dangers for nations of politicians getting into personal hot water, and the inexorable eros.
But when you take the play in conjunction with JC, then it works a treat, because that play is about fate, and how various types of person end up. If you live by a certain attitude to fate, you die by a certain attitude to fate. Cassius is a 'man of action' who isn't supersticious, doesn't believe in astrology, but he dies in a welter of fatalism on his own birthday. Caesar is an inflated Messianic type who ends up a sacrificial meal. Brutus is a tragic ethical Greek hero, who goes the way that that choice leads, and can do no other, even though he knows the outcome from the start. Only Antony, the almost all-American 'winner' type ego rides the currents, comes out on top, partly because he watches plays! But then comes A&C and he too hits his downfall, this time at the hands of a woman, another fate. I dunno which play was written first.
But on its own, A&C isn't one of the bard's best, in my opinion, despite the language. There's no reason why the 'historical Anthony' should come into the mix at all. I wonder if old Bill was trying to say to Liz or whoever that she was right to avoid marrying foreign princes for the sake of her kingdom?
Maybe that's why it's one of the 'most challenging' .... because is she really that well drawn by Shakespeare? A bit 2D?
(Another good filmed version of the same material stars Richard Johnson, as Antony, and Janet Suzman, who have much more chemistry and skill. Not to mention STAR TREK's Patrick Stewart, back when he had hair, playing Enobarbus. Much better for the drama, though without that great score.)
Yep, they're old hands at it.
Scott's score is very good, but captures the 1970s as much as the bard or the ancients. In the final analysis, it's another production of Shakespeare, another take. I found the little sword&sandal asides (like John Castle meeting Anthony as Octavian with gladiators prancing in the background .... yawn ...) a bit naff.
The deleted stuff from B-H and Cleo isn't significant, we're talking seconds, and actually alternative takes, and it's not a great help to the film.
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Posted: |
Feb 3, 2013 - 1:06 PM
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By: |
betenoir
(Member)
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A may your next journey take you to a score called Ruby on Intrada records.
Or perhaps not. It's all a matter of personal taste of course, but I eagerly found a copy of Ruby, and it was the first Scott score that I didn't like. I traded it away. But, maybe someone else will like it more. I've since found a couple of his others I didn't care much for, but I still have about 20.
LOL ok, I fully understand. I got rid of A Scarlet Tunic very quickly also, and I never cared much for Final Countdown. But there are a good 25-30 scores I do like. Have you heard The Deceivers yet?
Yup, we just have different tastes. Final Countdown is my favorite Scott along with Shogun Mayeda. :-)
I have only heard samples from Scarlet Tunic and Deceivers, and decided not to get them. Two others I had and traded away were Red King White Knight and Cousteau's Papua New Guinea Journey (but I like all the other Cousteau music).
I searched a long time and finally found Lionheart, then discovered I didn't like it very much either. Sorry Kevin, but it's already gone, sold on eBay for enough to buy several other CDs I wanted.
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A may your next journey take you to a score called Ruby on Intrada records.
Or perhaps not. It's all a matter of personal taste of course, but I eagerly found a copy of Ruby, and it was the first Scott score that I didn't like. I traded it away. But, maybe someone else will like it more. I've since found a couple of his others I didn't care much for, but I still have about 20.
LOL ok, I fully understand. I got rid of A Scarlet Tunic very quickly also, and I never cared much for Final Countdown. But there are a good 25-30 scores I do like. Have you heard The Deceivers yet?
Yup, we just have different tastes. Final Countdown is my favorite Scott along with Shogun Mayeda. :-)
I have only heard samples from Scarlet Tunic and Deceivers, and decided not to get them. Two others I had and traded away were Red King White Knight and Cousteau's Papua New Guinea Journey (but I like all the other Cousteau music).
I searched a long time and finally found Lionheart, then discovered I didn't like it very much either. Sorry Kevin, but it's already gone, sold on eBay for enough to buy several other CDs I wanted.
Whaaaat? Ok I like Shogun Mayeda too.
But what about Far From Home, Anthony & Cleopstra, Jules Vern Expedition, Becoming Colette, Wicker Tree? Scott's music is too simular for us to be complete opposites.
I suggest giving Deceivers another try, its starts slowly but builds in intensity as it goes along. I'm not sure if clips can do it justice.
Maybe I could put some of it on youtube.
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Gorgeous score. Easily the best, IMHO, that Scott has written.
Too bad it accompanies such a stodgy, plodding movie. (You'd think, considering the subject matter, that the movie would have more of a sense of pace. Go figure. And there really doesn't seem to be that much chemistry between the leads. Heston is probably similar to the historical Antony, who was pretty blunt and ego-driven, and not remotely as clever as his former mentor, Julius Caesar, but Hildegard Neill is way out of her depth in Shakespeare. She has a kind of remote beauty, but none of the acting chops for the role, which is one of Shakespeare's most challenging.)
Heston actually contemplated re-filming the Cleopatra part a short while after the film's release. Clearly he knew he'd made the wrong choice with Hildegard Neill. Personally I'd like to see the film just to catch the extra footage from the Ben-Hur sea battle.
I was listening to the Varese release of North's CLEOPATRA score, and Jeff Bond says in the notes that Heston used footage from that film, not BEN-HUR. (I don't recall it, but then I don't recall much about the Heston A&C..., apart from the sparse sets and wooden pacing...)
But that score is gorgeous....
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Both B-H and Cleopatra were used. The footage turns up in a swirling montage against the 'Actium' cue. We're talking seconds here, not minutes, and actually only alternative takes of things already known. There's a clip of rowers in the galley from B-H and a few shots of the soldier with the grappling irons facing the beak of an attacking ship from Cleo. Just misty montage shots spliced with the new material, nothing significant. Many costumes were recycled from FotRE.
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Here's a scan of the reverse side of one of the JOS CDs:
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