Category Archives: music

Setter’s ‘Spectives: It’s the Met Orchestra, Once Again

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613No, this post doesn’t have anything to do with the movies. Instead, it concerns a great mystery: Why I keep seeing the Met Orchestra perform at New York City venues.

Yes, this is a fantastic group of musicians, and its conductor, the estimable James Levine, is one of the best out there today. But this is the umpth time I’ve attended concerts featuring this orchestra within only a few months, and I’m not even a subscriber to the Metropolitan Opera.

Don’t get me wrong … I don’t mind these concerts a bit. In fact, they’ve been terrific. For example, yesterday afternoon at Carnegie Hall, I saw and listened to wonderful renditions of Beethoven’s Second Symphony and Schumann’s Second, Dvorak and Strauss songs warbled by famed soprano Anna Netrebko, and some dreadfully noisy Elliott Carter “Illusions” that seemed quite out of place in the presence of such melodic masterpieces. In general, the afternoon was brilliant, and the sound produced was exciting, with Carnegie Hall’s renowned acoustics doing the great pieces justice.

I just wonder why I’ve been present so frequently at the Met Orchestra’s performances of late. Is it destiny? Fate? It’s like I’m in some Wagner opera dealing with predetermination.

At this juncture, it’s not clear when the next concert will be. I suspect, thought, that it’ll be sooner rather than later.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: The Time Has Come to Speak of ‘The Wicker Man’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Halloween’s a-comin’ … and you know what that means.

Quality horror movies should be watched. Including Robin Hardy’s 1973 creepy-fest The Wicker Man.

There’s something really satisfying about this eerie film, about a policeman’s encounters with paganism on a remote Scottish isle. It’s not pure horror – there’s very little blood or gore – yet there’s plenty of atmosphere, as well as a disturbing subtext that may lead viewers to ask questions about belief and the acceptance of others’ religions. The picture features terrific performances, including that of Edward Woodward as the cop aghast at the islanders’ practices and rituals, and offers a fine, wistful musical score by Paul Giovanni. Plus, there’s a great script by Anthony Shaffer that transcends the usually ghoulish genre with insightful dialogue and vivid characterizations.

This is a cult film that spawned the awful remake of the same name with Nicholas Cage, but it’s the original that should be seen. I like to watch it every now and then when it’s on, and Halloween seems like a good time to do so … though it’s by no means the only time that’s appropriate. I’ll be looking for it with particular interest this month, however, owing to the festivities of the season, and, of course, because I haven’t seen it in a while. It definitely merits watching multiple times; if you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend it. Be prepared for some unsettling scenes that may have more impact than the graphically violent sequences that seem so prevalent in horror today, as it’s a well-crafted picture that doesn’t rely on blood to keep itself going.

All the more reason to enjoy it, right? That’s my opinion, anyway.

Skip’s Quips: The Song Process Remains the Same

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Blog Sketch 082813If I had a dime for every movie that finishes up with some sort of awful song at the end, I’d be rich.

When did this trend in cinema start? It seems like every picture nowadays has some kind of rock tune playing over the final credits – and usually, they’re not that memorable. Once in a while, you get something along the lines of George Harrison’s “Dream Away,” which concluded Time Bandits. But it’s usually a noisy, guitar-heavy sound blast with screaming vocals. Not my cup of tea.

I like when filmmakers take the time to end their movies in interesting ways. A song can be appropriate, such as Simon & Garfunkel singing the “The Sound of Silence” in the remaining images of The Graduate. That ditty provided insight into the ways the main characters were feeling: lost and hopeful at the same time. I don’t see that kind of commentary, however, in most of the melodies ending films. And that should change. Directors can easily find songs that are germane. They don’t have to be just filler.

I don’t like watching filler onscreen. The credits can be just as much a part of a film as the dialogue; they can add something integral. Why can’t an ending song do the same?

Mundane melodies be damned. Let’s have topical tunes close more pictures … and more attention paid to these cinematic parts. A good, relevant ditty can keep fannies in the seats throughout the end of a movie. It would keep me in my place, for sure.

And that’s nothing to sneeze at. Or scream at, for that matter.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: ‘American Wine Story’ Almost Drives Me to Drink, Er, Think

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613I’ve seen so many good documentaries that sometimes it seems bad ones don’t exist.

Well, it’s not true. Case in point: American Wine Story, a tedious, unfocused attempt to look at a number of American winemakers who left unrelated jobs to pursue their dream of crafting vino. Written and directed by David Baker, this film features unnecessary animation, stilted narration and some of the worst incidental music I’ve ever heard in a documentary – a droning, repetitious sequence of sonorities that doesn’t belong anywhere near a movie reel.

Yeah. I think it’s clear that I didn’t like this picture.

The subject itself can be intriguing, and the flick tries to show how fascinating the talking heads onscreen are, but it doesn’t succeed. At one point, if I recall correctly, one of them even indicates that she has never had an uninteresting conversation with a person in winemaking … at which I suggested to the television that she should watch this movie. When you hear about five people recount the best wine they’ve ever tasted in wistful tones, you know you’re in for a dreary hour-plus of film watching.

So, in sum: not a well-done documentary. Which is an anomaly in a month during which I’ve viewed more compelling pictures such as Tabloid and Searching for Sugar Man. I guess every time period is bound to have its cinematic disappointments. The only thing to do is watch a better movie to clear my mind of the worse one.

That I can easily do.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: What Happened to All Those Great Opera Movies?

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Remember Franco Zeffirelli’s excellent film of Verdi’s Otello? Lush production, sexy direction, terrific acting, and of course, the great Placido Domingo as the titular Moor.

Why can’t we get more movies like that today?

It seems like there isn’t as much of an impetus to develop cinematic spectaculars based on classic operas as there was three decades ago, and I think that’s a shame. Once upon a time, you had Ingmar Bergman doing Mozart’s The Magic Flute, too. But now, it appears that directors of a certain stature are more content to craft large-scale pictures out of popular contemporary musicals than operatic standards. It makes sense from a commercial standpoint, as the latter have a more limited audience. From an artistic perspective, however, it’s lamentable.

I want to see a great celluloid version of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, darn it! And not the nonsense that is Tristan + Isolde, see?

Today, with New York’s Metropolitan Opera doing HD films of various productions, it’s easy to think that we’ve come to an era where the genre is made accessible to everyone. I don’t think that’s the case, though. Movies of productions aren’t the same as cinematic iterations that aren’t confined to one stage; Zeffirelli’s Otello is proof of that. It was an actual film, not a filmed opera. That’s one of the reasons why it worked so well onscreen. Editing, cinematography, music, art direction – everything combined to make a powerful whole. It became a motion picture.

I don’t think opera is a dying art, nor do I believe it should be relegated to the upper class. It’s for everyone, and the great works deserve to be viewed and listened to by all. That’s why I’d like to see more of the type of thing that Zeffirelli has done in the theaters – not just HD versions. Many of these stories are quite cinematic, with fanciful plots and engaging characters. Shouldn’t they be put onscreen where they belong?

I think so. And I hope one day, we’ll see opera once again take its rightful place in the cinema.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Altman’s ‘3 Women’ Plus Busby, Too

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613I’m not a huge fan of Robert Altman’s movies, so I admit I went with trepidation to see his film 3 Women at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts last night. Fortunately, the evening was bolstered by the presence of composer Gerald Busby, who wrote the score to the picture and was slated to speak about it after the showing.

It was a good thing he did, because the film was very peculiar and not all that successful. The tale of a California nursing-home worker (Sissy Spacek) obsessed with her quirky colleague (Shelley Duvall), 3 Women at times was like watching the most intriguing, bizarrely colored paint dry. It had an off-the-cuff feeling that gave the impression it was made up as the shooting went along, and the characters’ motivations weren’t always believable. Busby’s score was the best thing about it: a dissonant, modern chamber piece replete with mournful, dread-filled horns and winds. Following the screening, he took the podium to talk a little about the movie, and it was quite a treat to listen to this dapper, elderly gentleman.

Busby spoke about Altman being “a Gershwin man” yet wanting something different and abstract for his film, as well as the process of showcasing his music to a room full of Altman staff and regulars stoned on marijuana. (According to Busby, he was one of a few composers to be considered for the film, and as part of the process, the compositions were played in the room to see how long people could go without speaking about them; people listened to his work the longest without saying something, which helped solidify the choice.)

All in all, it was quite a lovely evening, and I got to meet Busby as well, who lived in the same building as a good friend of ours. Plus, it was free, so that made watching the film all the more palatable. A not-so-typical New York night out, but a memorable one, nonetheless.

Skip’s Quips: ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ a Glorious Tale of Failure and Success

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Blog Sketch 082813It turns out that I didn’t watch Searching for Sugar Man at dinnertime tonight, as I originally predicted.

I watched it before that, in the early afternoon.

And what a film it is. The story of the hunt for 1970s musician Sixto Rodriguez – who made a huge impression in South Africa but hardly any commercial impact in the United States – Searching for Sugar Man is a terrific documentary about failure and success … about a man who seemingly doesn’t crave glory or riches, but is content to live a generally quiet life despite his fame across the pond. This movie is directed superbly by Malik Bendjelloul and is packed with classic Rodriguez tunes, all of which I hadn’t heard before. They lend themselves well to the film, which features plenty of fascinating interviews with Rodriguez’s colleagues, fans and family, as well as the man himself.

I felt that this was a sad picture, despite the fact that it has a happy ending. But then my wife asked me why I should feel that way, and I started to think differently. So what if Rodriguez doesn’t revel in the trappings of fame and fortune, like many other celebrities? Is it a fault to live so simply, to – seemingly – want so little? Perhaps it’s just an indication of what kind of man Rodriguez is: a person who doesn’t gravitate to the same things most of us do. Does that make him a tragic figure?

I guess it doesn’t. It actually makes him triumphant. Which the film is as well. I’m happy to have seen it, heard the songs. And I’m happy there are people out there like Rodriguez. He really made this Searching worthwhile.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Just Say ‘Ewww’ to ‘The V.I.P.s’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Normally, I don’t care for movies with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. So I wasn’t surprised to find that The V.I.P.s, their 1963 film under Anthony Asquith’s direction, was awful. And I mean awful.

Soapy, too. In a bad way, not in an I, Claudius fun way. This was soap without a lot of bubbles. Deadly dull, unperfumed, lather-free soap.

And trashy. The tale of a group of high-end passengers who get stuck in a London airport due to fog, The V.I.P.s went from one dreary relationship to another, from Burton and Taylor’s married-couple-on-the-outs to Rod Taylor’s nice-guy businessman whose secretary, played by Maggie Smith, has fallen in love with him. I didn’t find any of these situations credible, and they just got more tedious as the film rolled along. Plus, the cinematography didn’t help, either. Strange compositions seemed to include lamps or some kind of bizarre light fixture in many shots, leading them to be jarring. And the score by the normally reliable Miklós Rózsa was awfully syrupy. Not good, Miklós. Not good.

So what are the takeaways from this? Well, I still don’t like Burton-Taylor movies. I also don’t like bad movies. And I love I, Claudius.

If you can find meaning in that, you’re a better man (or woman) than I.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Boy, Was ‘A Late Quartet’ Disappointing

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YSetter Drawing for Blog 082613ou know a movie about classical music’s in trouble when you want to turn it off to listen to the tunes.

I felt that way about A Late Quartet, Yaron Zilberman’s should’ve-been-good film about the trials and tribulations of a long-standing string ensemble. Not that the actors, who included Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, weren’t up to the task; they were. It’s just that the script was really a problem. It broadcast like Chamber Music 101, with all-too-much expository material taking up some of the scenes, which often attempted to convey how quartets work, the roles of the performers, etc.

So in other words, viewers of the movie aren’t coming in to a conflict that’s already happening. They’re just at the introductory stages, and that was a problem for me … especially considering the fact that this ensemble was supposed to have been together for about 25 years. The credibility of the screenplay was further strained by the actions of Hoffman’s character, who suddenly wants to play first violin. That seemed strange to me; members of great ensembles should be comfortable with their roles — they work as a team, after all — and the idea that he now wants to shift to a more lead-type role after playing together for so long seemed off.

I always liked Hoffman as an actor, and this issue wasn’t his fault. Indeed, the actors tried their hardest. It’s just that the script seemed simplistic, and a movie about Beethoven’s quartets shouldn’t be. A film such as Un Coeur en Hiver treated the conflicts of musicians much more adroitly while including brilliant music (in that case, Ravel). In A Late Quartet, the music seemed to play second fiddle to the issues of the characters, and they weren’t interesting enough to warrant that.

If only they had the definition of a Beethoven quartet. If only.

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.