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I know some of the folks on this board are really gonna let me have it for suggesting this, but I recently received the Legend 2 DVD set and watched both cuts of the film side by side...
...and while I enjoy the Director's Cut of the film more than the eviscerated American edition, I must offer up an (probably) incendiary opinion...
...I like Tangerine Dream's score better than Goldsmith's.
No, wait... that's not entirely accurate. I think, as an album to be listened to away from the film, Goldsmith runs circles around the Dream. And certainly his "Dress Waltz" is leagues ahead of the circus calliope crap in the U.S. version. But on top of such a sumptuous film, Goldsmith's score seems on occasion to be too much frosting overpowering an otherwise richly flavorful cake.
There is a simplicity and directness to Tangerine Dream's score that, in my opinion, just suits Scott's fantasy textures better within the film. No, I don't really like the electric guitars much... and yes, I think it rather forces its overt "accessibility" at points. But on the whole, I think it serves the film better.
Now I think I am going to duck under my desk while all the Goldsmith fanatics sharpen their knives.
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...looks apprehensively up from under desk... sees no one is interested in topic... beleaguredly continues flame war with resident zygote.
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Yes - it's eerily calm. Oh well, no one must have minded what you said, so let me just add that the thing I don't like about Goldmith is-- (sound of a hundred arrows) AAARRGGGHH! (thud)
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Goldsmith hands down. However, it is not bad to like Tangerine Dream.
See, I didn't get mad! 
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However, it is not bad to like Tangerine Dream.
That's the thing... I don't like them. Well, not typically. Even moreso, I think the Varese CD of their LEGEND score is horribly dull. I'd much prefer listening to Goldsmith's balletic work away from the film.
And yeah, there is something to be said about the score's presentation in the film. It might have helped things if Scott had left the music alone, but probably not enough for me to change my initial thoughts on both scores.
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Hardly any wonder it might sound unimpressive.
Oh, but it is impressive. It's big, and grand, and just a little too sickly sweet and overbearing... not really keeping in tone with the typically cold and detached Scott.
A better mix, and sound editing job would have helped... but as I had said before, not enough to win me over to preferring Goldsmith's work in the context of the film.
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The problem with the Dream's score is that it doesn't respond intuitively to the picture like Goldsmith's does. During the "forgive me" scene, they just play their unicorn theme at obnoxiously high volume, while Goldsmith responded to the scene's changing undercurrents. Look also at the scoring of the climatic battle; Goldsmith acknowledges the shifts in scene and emotional emphasis, while the Dream just pounds its way through with that dull, conventional rock thing. I did like their scoring of the elves and the room of columns, though.
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To evaluate a score based on its tone is like evaluating a speech based on the perceived quality of the speaker's voice as opposed to the message of his words.
To me, film scores should be judged on both such subjective and objective criteria. The effectiveness of music is undeniably reliant (though not solely) on an individual's emotional reaction to it.
In short, there really is no such thing as objectivity in the arts... the eyes and ears of the subject will always color perception one way or the other. Not that it's even a bad thing... in fact, I think it's what makes us human.
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I apologize for a delay in reply.
Much of what you write is quite true, Big Bear. However, film music is decidedly different from opera music or concert hall music, etc.
There are factors to consider when evaluating it. What is the purpose of film music in general? What does it do? What does a given film require musically?
One needs to answer these questions and perhaps others in judging the effectiveness of a score. In this way, there is indeed objectivity in the arts; it's certainly present in this genre.
Dan
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Goldsmith: Masterpiece.
Tan. Dream: Drivel.
Other than that, I agree with you.
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Posted: |
Jun 9, 2002 - 2:06 PM
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By: |
Cooper
(Member)
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The problem with the Dream's score is that it doesn't respond intuitively to the picture like Goldsmith's does. During the "forgive me" scene, they just play their unicorn theme at obnoxiously high volume, while Goldsmith responded to the scene's changing undercurrents. Look also at the scoring of the climatic battle; Goldsmith acknowledges the shifts in scene and emotional emphasis, while the Dream just pounds its way through with that dull, conventional rock thing. I did like their scoring of the elves and the room of columns, though.
Bill, you nailed it.
This is my chief complaint with TD's work for Legend. Seems like their music aimed to gloss over Scott's visuals or smooth over a severely cut down film. So many scenes are just blanketed. I find it ironic that some described Goldsmith's score--which allowed each scene to have its own dramatic life--as too much frosting.
And the new-agey approach of doing an unabashed synth score for a fairy tale seemed wrong headed, as if Scott's whole enterprise was disingenous and through Dream's music he was sort of winking at the audience, saying "...you can't think I'm actually serious with this tripe!" And, well, maybe that's exactly what Scott was looking to say by junking Goldsmith for the American release, since he himself began to feel that his visuals and Goldsmith's score were too sweet. I don't think they were ever too much for him, but that these fears were all audience centered; i.e., "LEGEND" wasn't hip enough for the reefer tokin' hipster set back in '85. Goldsmith's score came closer to Scott's original concept, and Dream tracked his second-guessing, damage control extravaganza: the mainstreamed, self-consciously hipped-up version of the film. There's the rub; can--and should--one attempt to hip-up what began as a an EARNEST fairy story? Isn't that an ageless genre which transcends notions of contemporary "hipness"?
Having read a number of impressions of LEGEND since its release in the director's cut form, I think Scott made the right decision in re-cutting and re-scoring it from a business standpoint; teenagers do like the American cut better. But artistically, I'm for the director's cut. It's a LEGEND that can breathe, a film which doesn't make me feel like Ridley Scott was cowering in a corner, shame-faced while making it (even if he might've been [cowering] while showing his original version to audiences).
Besides, isn't Dream just a little bit cloying from time to time? Their stuff for the Unicorns was simplistic, condescending--to the horses even!--and schmaltzy. Goldsmith achieved some subtle majesty for these sequences, as though these were real creatures...in a real world. Sounds like dream was writing music for stuffed or plastic Unicorns on a little girl's bed or dresser. That's what Scott did with Dream, decided LEGEND was just a hunk of plastic. Little wonder the American version was compared to a shampoo commercial on its release.
It's also pretty telling when the most common criticism I've read--mostly from kids (so as not to attribute this gripe to anyone here)--of the Director's Cut is that people don't like Lily's singing. Well, why not? Isn't this appropriate for a fairy story, that the princess in the tale would sing to herself while prancing through the enchanted forest? Guess some hipsters don't want to be confronted with a "...Dude, what are you watching!" when their buddy walks into the room while this dvd's cued up. Sue me, I thought Mia Sara was pretty cute in this film. By the way, does she do all her own vocals here? In some scenes, I thought those were her pipes.
--Cooper
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