"OK, before we get a hundred letters: of course Jerry still cares! That's like saying an athelete plays for the money -- they are driven, competitive people. Same with Goldsmith. I'm sure he cares about every note or else he would have up and quit a long time ago.

I think the problem is simply that movies have changed to the point where they demand music less interesting and complex than Goldsmith used to provide. He can't do the score for The Illustrated Man in Along Came a Spider. Which is a shame. But not Goldsmith's fault."

Always making excuses.....
If it's not the film's fault, it's the director's fault. If it's not the industry's fault, it's anything else's fault.
It seems to me that Goldsmith is only responsible for the GREAT scores....very convenient. I think I remember Lukas using this excuse on a Horner score....yeah right.

Can a Horner fan ever expect a soundtrack release on the FSM label? I guess not.

Tired of it.
Rot

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/biggrin.gif">

quote:

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Originally posted by Pumpkinrot:
Can a Horner fan ever expect a soundtrack release on the FSM label? I guess not.

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In fairness to FSM, they do entirely older scores; I don't think they've done any works that came out after 1974, ever, for a variety of reasons. Since Horner didn't even begin scoring films until 1980 or so, I think he's automatically out of consideration for a standard FSM release regardless of whether the people at FSM think he's good or not.

- JE

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“There it stuck fast, and would move no more...”

Rot

quote:

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Originally posted by Pumpkinrot:
I think I remember Lukas using this excuse on a Horner score....yeah right.

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But Goldsmith is a great composer, while Horner is just a hack.

Why bother? http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/rolleyes.gif">

Goldsmith fans might just have to admit that Jerry isn't as good as he used to be. To use Lukas sports analogy, Jerry is like an athlete who has stayed in the game too long, after his skills have deterated to the point where he can no longer give 100% http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/mad.gif">.

And before all you Goldsmith nuts blast me from here to kingdom come, remember this is just my opinion not gospel truth. You like what Goldsmith is putting out now? Great, enjoy yourself, but don't start calling names because you disagree with my opinion.

K-9 http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/wink.gif">

Why settle for CHEAP IMITATIONS when you've got the real deal -- actual scores by Jerry Goldsmith to release.

"Rot," if you're such a huge Horner fan, why don't you start a CD label and contract for Horner's "unreleased gems."

I have absolutely NO idea who those might be (well, all right, "House of Cards" IS one of them).

Outside of "Cocoon" and its sequel, what has Horner done at 20th Century-Fox? That's the studio who has given Lukas access to its vaults.

No Horner oldies is NO LOSS in my book. I don't play the ones I bought new anymore. Have heard those themes so many times on each CD and in subsequent movies.

If you want to compare Horner and Goldsmith -- do something totally fair: Find out how many times Horner has re-used an old theme as the major motif in a different film score (including how many different themes from different scores he has reworked into one score). Then see if you can find any instances of Goldsmith doing the same.

You won't like the truth.

Ron

My bone was with Lukas' dripping partiality when it comes to someone like Goldsmith.

Rot

* Insert plagerized composer's name here.
** Insert film title from which music was lifted here.

quote:

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Originally posted by Pumpkinrot:
My bone was with Lukas' dripping partiality when it comes to someone like Goldsmith.

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I fear I suffer from that same "dripping partiality". In film music, I have a dripping partiality for Goldsmith, North, Rozsa, Williams, Waxman, Korngold, Steiner, Herrmann, etc. In opera, it's for Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, Strauss, etc. In symphonic music its for Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, etc. In art, its for Degas, Rodin, Rembrandt, Picasso, Chagall, etc.
Yes, I have a "dripping partiality" for the original, the best.
Get the point? No, probably not.

Rot

quote:

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Originally posted by Pumpkinrot:
Especially when it's someone like Lukas who loves to sling the insults.
And you as well. You seem to be the easily fired-up type. I was merely posing a question: Was Lukas making excuses for Goldsmith? My opinion was 'yes.'

Rot

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"Easily fired-up type". Well, I will ignore your feeble attempt to catagorize me into some little slot you can relate too. However, if, by "fired-up type", you mean someone who passionately loves music and does not suffer fools gladly, then I must confess you are correct.

Although the scores to Hollow Man, The Haunting and Along Came a Spider are no Mozart's Requiem there is no need for them to be. And I'm not sure that Goldsmith isn't the more interesting composer. They are certainly in the same league if there is a way to compare such diverse talents.

There is an imputation that because the musical effect in Along Came a Spider is not as potent as say, The Wind and the Lion, that an equivalent attention to craft is not there. I don't see it that way at all. It is always possible to find a powerfully affecting center to Jerry Goldsmith's music, even Mr. Baseball. (In this context, the most problematical of all Goldsmith scores. We'll save that discussion for later.) This is not the case with some other composers. When it gets down to the nitty and the gritty, there is all too often a irreducible core of cheapness. A failure to have something to say.

And so it simply, once again, comes down to personal taste. My irreducible core of cheapness is someone else's precious nugget of brilliance. It cannot be demonstrated that either one impression is wrong, although there are constant attempts to do just that. So eventually we find ourselves tussling over statistical analyses of 'this motif has been used in x movies that made n dollars, therefore my taste is more defensible' which are less than pointless.

There is no reason not to praise the work that you like (which is all that Lukas has done). There's no harm in it; there's always more love to go around. A stance like Pumpkinrot's, that his favorite composer somehow deserves the love of FSM, is corrosive if understandable. Even composing scores that have only ICoC, is a mighty labor and we should have the patience and humility to admit that it might, in fact, be a PNoB.

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http://www.geocities.com/Kyle_Beatty" TARGET=_blank> np: See it live! (Mostly!)
[This message has been edited by Beatty (edited 27 April 2001).]

No need for me to categorize. You're already in there...looking up.

Rot

quote:

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Originally posted by Pumpkinrot:
Brian,
From the point of you asking me if I got your point and then telling me that you assumed I didn't....

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Interesting that you seem to feel my post was speaking directly to you. Wonder what that means?

NP: Runaway (guess who?)

First, Goldsmith complains there's too much of his stuff out there, he hates FSM and FSM has access to Goldsmith's unreleased scores at Fox which Goldsmith does not control and FSM presses them to piss Goldsmith off.

That's also less probable than..

Second, GOLDSMITH CDs SELL MORE than other CDs. If you like CD releases by other composers, the Goldsmith CD sales help make those "other" releases possible. I think this is the most probably reason you get a lot of Goldsmith. Horner was never "at" Fox and was not working in the 60s and 70s in Hollywood (to my knowledge). Unless Lukas goes looking for special dealings with other studios specifically to release Horner, you probably won't see any Horner on the FSM label.

Lukas is not sitting on top of some grant from the National Endowment for the Arts...he doesn't have a huge bankroll that can be a tax writeoff when CDs don't make money. He's got to balance better-selling CDs with those he knows probably won't sell well.

R

I liked your sports analogy. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/smile.gif"> If Goldsmith was a rookie composer, I'm sure his current work would be praised to the high heavens.
It is an impossible dilemma not to compare a composer's previous works with his current output. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/frown.gif"> I have more Goldsmith scores in my collection than any other composer, but I find myself going back again and again to the older scores, instead of listening to anything of his in the last 5 or 6 years, with the possible exception of THE THIRTEEN
WARRIOR which I like to listen to in the car on long trips. http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/biggrin.gif">

K-9 http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/wink.gif">

quote:

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Originally posted by K-9:
[I find myself going back again and again to the older scores, instead of listening to anything of his in the last 5 or 6 years,

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Interesting. To make a direct correlation to the movies themselves I find that I would rather watch the earlier movies too.

If Patton comes on I just want to stop and watch it. Same with Chinatown, Sand Pebbles, Wind and the Lion, Great Train Robbery, Boys from Brazil, Night Crossing, Planet of the Apes, Under Fire, Hoosiers, ST:TMP and almost anything pre-90's.

Those movies just had an attraction to them that is lacking in most post 90's films that Goldsmith has scored.

Just imagine yourself as a composer and being presented with those films as blank canvases with no music and then imagine being faced with an Executive Decision or a Malice or a The Vanishing or... I think you get the idea.