Category Archives: classical music

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Love’s Got No Strings Attached in ‘Humoresque’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613OMG … I actually liked a movie with Joan Crawford in it!

That film was Humoresque, which I watched for the first time on TV last night. Quite a fun, if melodramatic ride, centering on the love affair an egocentric though brilliant violinist (played by John Garfield) has with a married socialite (Crawford). Normally, I don’t care for pictures with Joan in it, but this one had a good script co-written by Clifford Odets and able direction from Jean Negulesco. Plus, simply glorious violin playing by the incomparable Isaac Stern, who did the virtuoso performances attributed to Garfield’s musician character.

So does that mean, all of a sudden, that I’m a big Crawford fan? Not at all. This film rose above the usual sordid plotlines her flicks so often seemed to encapsulate, making it altogether a more interesting work. I frequently find her acting overdone, but in this case, she kept her portrayal in check. Whether that’s due more to the direction or her own ability, I don’t know.

Certainly, any film that features snippets from Bizet’s Carmen and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde has got to be good, right?

Well … the jury’s still out on that.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Musical Lines, Non-Parallel

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613We’re allowed to like great scores to mediocre movies, right?

I’m thinking about this as I ruminate on The Red Pony, Lewis Milestone’s 1949 film of John Steinbeck’s sad tale concerning a boy and his steed. The music, by Aaron Copland, is one of the American composer’s greatest compositions, yet it accompanies a picture that’s unfortunately just so-so.

I wish it were better.

Usually, it seems that the quality of a score reflects that of its film, but in The Red Pony‘s case, it doesn’t hold true. Frankly, I have no desire to see the film again … yet I often find myself humming the glorious, playful melodies and mulling the vibrant orchestration. Am I allowed to do this? I ask myself, half-serious. Am I able to like only one component of a full movie?

I have to answer yes, though I’m hesitant to do so. The cinema runs alongside music, and they’re often inextricable. Great directors generally know how to apply great scores by composers to celluloid, and many great composers have written for the screen. So what happened with The Red Pony? With a cast including Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy, as well as Steinbeck’s writing chops, plus Copland’s lovely tunes, it should be a masterpiece.

It’s plodding, however, and the music is basically what saves it. Maybe this is one of the exceptions in the world of film: a picture that isn’t very good when all of the parts are added, despite one component being transcendent. At any rate, I’m glad we have this anomaly. I just hope I don’t encounter too many more.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Integrity? Don’t Make Me Hum

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613So I’m watching Frances Ha. All of a sudden, this lilting music tickles the soundtrack.

“Hey,” I say. “That sounds like something from King of Hearts.”

Sure enough, it was. Snatched directly from the Philippe de Broca movie. In fact, the film’s main melody popped up numerous times during the proceedings.

Needless to say, it didn’t help me enjoy this rather tiresome Noah Baumbach flick any more than I already did. But there was another issue: It was distracting. I kept thinking about Hearts and how good it was. How much I wanted to see it.

Is this what Baumbach wanted when he was making Frances?

Unfortunately, this problem isn’t relegated to one movie. The Artist used a passage from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo, and I was confused about that, too. Started thinking about the latter flick as I was watching the former.

Bad, bad strategy for any filmmaker.

This goes past un hommage. It’s irrelevant. It’s sampling music from scores past and using it in other contexts. When a great score is applied to a film, it’s associated with it. You can’t pull the two apart. If you try, you bring up connotations that shouldn’t be there. Do directors want to do that?

I’d think they wouldn’t. Would Wagner want you thinking about Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro while you were watching Parsifal at Bayreuth? If you admitted that to him, he’d probably get all 19th century on you. (He was mean enough as it was.)

Unless it’s parody, a film should focus on itself. Otherwise, a movie loses its credibility. It breaks that fourth wall of sound, and the audience becomes aware of it. Directors shouldn’t want that. It’s jarring, not immersing.

I say unto filmmakers: Let’s keep-eth old scores where they are-eth. And commission new ones for your movies … or use tunes by a great composer that lack cinematic context. Something borrowed just makes me blue. Something different, however, may well be music to my ears.

Little-Known Operas That Should Never Be Filmed

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Pitching the Prowess of Classical Music

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613The best thing The King’s Speech ever did was remind people that Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is a brilliant piece of music.

Yes, it’s a good movie. Well-scripted, well-acted. But without that majestic second movement boosting the oratory at the end, it’s just another serviceable biopic.

Which leads me to wonder why filmmakers don’t use the strains of the immortal Ludwig van—or, for that matter, any great classical composer—more often.

Sure, that second from the Seventh had a precedent—John Boorman’s confused and often frustrating sci-fier Zardoz. And there’s no shortage of Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange.

But there’s a host of cinematically appropriate works out there by classical masters, and it’s a marvel that Hollywood hasn’t mined this trove thoroughly.

Schubert lieder. Stravinsky ballets. Brahms symphonies.

Boorman at least had the right idea, and his use of Wagner’s Parsifal and Götterdämmerung in his Arthurian epic Excalibur made up for his Zardozian miscues. Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola also hit the mark with their application of Cavalleria Rusticana in Raging Bull and The Godfather Part III, respectively. Even Woody Allen rang true with all that heady S. Prokofiev in Love and Death—though it assuredly was in homage to the master musician’s collaborations with Eisenstein.

I want to see more directors do this. There’s plenty of classical pieces out there that can have a symbiotic effect: enhancing a motion picture considerably while renewing interest in the music. It would be deserved interest, too, and perhaps save these works from being confined solely to connoisseurs’ quarters. Plus, it would expose more folks to these compositions, sell more soundtracks and prevent people from thinking Alex North’s scores should’ve replaced the tunes in films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Would every film have the impact The King’s Speech had? No. But it would be a smart beginning, and the potential benefits are significant.

As long as Hollywood doesn’t get its hands on any Mahler symphonies, that is.