Tag Archives: film scores

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.

Skip’s Quips: Spreading the Love for Gilliam’s ‘Munchausen’

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Blog Sketch 082813I’m still sad about the fact that Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen flopped when it debuted about 25 years ago.

I’m sadder, however, that it seems to be overlooked when people talk about overlooked classics. They might mention Gilliam’s other great film, Time Bandits, but Munchausen? Pshaw! That one flies under the radar of the everything else flying under the radar.

It’s too bad, too, because Munchausen is a terrific movie. There’s hilarious, Monty Pythonesque comedy. Rollicking adventure. Fine (for the most part) acting. A lovely score. And gorgeous art direction, exemplified by a brilliant set piece involving Robin Williams as a truly loony King of the Moon whose head detaches from his body in search of metaphysical pleasures.

That’s wild stuff. And I love it. If you like Time Bandits (which I do as well) and haven’t seen Munchausen, I encourage you to do so. It’s hardly shown on TV for some reason, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find. Plus, you can play “Spot the Famous Actor/Actress” while watching it, so that should provide added value. Enjoy.

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.

Skip’s Quips: Top Little-Known Scores That Make Their Movies Sing

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Sometimes I read my colleague Setter’s movie reviews and think: “This dude’s truly Mr. Overanalysis.”

But his last post on film scores made me wonder if I take movie music for granted. It’s so ingrained in our cinema lexicon that we almost start when watching a flick without it.

I look at a score as a flavor enhancer–like salt or pepper. A bit too much, and a movie’s unpalatable. Too little, and it feels like you’re missing something.

Just the right amount, however, and you’ve got a tasty meal. And it could be one you never thought you’d like.

The following is a short list of unsung films that are bolstered greatly by their sumptuous scores…and wouldn’t have been first choice for my cinema viewing otherwise. (Order not included.)

Far from the Madding Crowd

Cartouche

Odd Man Out

Watership Down

Kwaidan

The Devil and Daniel Webster

Time Bandits

I Know Where I’m Going!

A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven

Setter’s ‘Spective: What a Piece of Work Is a Score

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Can lousy music ruin a perfectly decent film?

I asked myself this question during a recent viewing of The Unsaid, a 2001 Andy Garcia vehicle featuring a particularly tiresome original score. Mind you, I wasn’t mulling this idea because the movie was any good. Actually, it was dreadful: a dreary, overacted drama starring the usually reliable Garcia as a depressed, single-dad psychiatrist trying to help a disturbed youth (played by Mad Men stalwart Vincent Kartheiser, in an early role) who reminds him of his own, late son. The flick’s minimal interest value, however, ensured the presence of numerous lulls–enough time to think about the role of music and its interplay with onscreen action. If The Unsaid were a better movie, would the score have affected its quality?

Trying to think of great films with not-so-great soundscapes is difficult. Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha comes to mind immediately, but that obvious, brass-infused music, with all of its bombast, is surprisingly effective in certain scenes–particularly the end, where the destruction of the Takeda clan on the battlefield is shown in all of its waste. The truth is, most good movies are enjoyable because all of their parts work together; you can’t extract one from another and say it could’ve been better with a different piece. Maybe Fumio Hayasaka’s music for The Seven Samurai isn’t as magnificent as Sergei Prokofiev’s score for Alexander Nevsky, but I can’t imagine how TSS would be without it. These aren’t contemporary artworks where perception can change with the components. They’re completed, set in stone…and you either like them or you don’t.

So I guess I’ve answered my own question, though I wonder if I should keep asking it. Because if a movie like The Unsaid has me thinking along these lines, how can I be sure my cinematic tastes aren’t unsound?