 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
https://www.fmrev.com/best-of-the-year-2021/
From Roger Hall and the Editors of Film Music Review, here is our annual New Year's list of The Best Film Score Recordings and Releases of 2021, as compiled by Founder Roger Hall, Steven Kennedy, and myself.
Steve Vertlieb
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Film Music Review" is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art, remembrance, and preservation of significant motion picture music, and is, for its endurance and perpetuation, wholly dependent upon the generous contributions of listeners like yourself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The sometimes controversial subject of melodious scores and hummable themes in current Hollywood and international films is discussed within this recap of the year's best film scores and recordings from "Film Music Review.".
Steve
|
|
|
|
|
|
I enjoyed reading the picks from both Steves, so thanks for sharing.
I will stubbornly still push against this bit about Max Steiner, because every time it is repeated uncritically and without pushback it just becomes that much more "accepted fact" when it is anything but fact: "the astonishingly gifted, pioneering composer who quite literally invented the symphonic motion picture score with, perhaps, the first, and most important film score of the sound era, “King Kong” in 1933."
Why does everyone who claims Max Steiner "invented the symphonic motion picture score" feel the need to go even further and put "literally" in front of that phrase? It just boggles my mind because it quite literally is 100% *false*, and when it gets repeated over and over by apparently knowledgeable people, it quite tragically ERASES the rich tradition of original symphonic film scoring pre-Steiner. Surely at least Metropolis by Gottfried Huppertz is well known enough by now to dispel this notion?
As for King Kong specifically, "most important" is certainly arguable. At least you put "perhaps" before "the first" because it most certainly wasn't even Steiner's first symphonic motion picture score, being pre-dated by (at least) The Most Dangerous Game and Symphony of Six Million in 1932.
And before I hear, "oh, silent films are different"... I'll just head that off at the pass by mentioning Arthur Honegger's 1931 score to La Fin du monde, an early sound film that was also an early example of the sci-fi and disaster genre. And of course, just on the cusp of films having "soundtracks"...we have this great score by Dmitri Shostakovich (his second ever I believe) which is symphonic, 80 minutes long, incorporates both diegetic and non-diegetic music, and was also the first film score ever to use the theremin!
Please Steve, explore some of this great pre-King Kong film music and stop repeating that tired "accepted wisdom" of Steiner inventing the symphonic film score. He was important and influential no doubt, but he didn't invent it. And he can be celebrated without erasing so many of his predecessors by declaring he was "first" in an attempt to prop him up further.
Yavar
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
