Film Score Friday 1/14/00
by Lukas Kendall
The Sedona International Film Festival's fourth annual filmmaking workshop,
"What's the Score: Music for the Motion Picture," will be led
by Elmer Bernstein on Friday, March 3 and the morning of Saturday, March
4 at Sedona Red Rock High School, Arizona. A live scoring session of a
student film will be included; additional faculty to be announced. See
www.sedonaculturalpark.org
or call 520-203-4TIX.
Thursday morning NPR's Morning Edition program profiled composer Michael
Kamen, whose first symphony was premiered Thursday night at the Kennedy
Center, performed by Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra.
The
6-minute feature can be heard via RealAudio.
DVDFile.com reports that Pee-Wee's
Big Adventure, due on DVD from Warner in May, will have an isolated
score track.
Doctor Who
BBC Music and composer/producer Mark Ayres are embarking on two new
series of soundtrack CDs for Doctor Who. The first series will feature
the music and soundscapes of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the second
will present music by the various freelance composers who have contributed
to the show, such as Dudley Simpson, Tristam Cary and Ayres.
Due January 24: Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons & The Seeds
of Doom (Geoffrey Burgon).
Due in March: Doctor Who: Music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop,
Volume One: The Early Years and Volume Two: New Beginnings (music
and sound effects).
See http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mark_Ayres/NewStuff.htm.
More Stamps Mail Bag
See my
article and the recent
Mail Bag responses speculating on Hollywood Composers stamps of the
future.
From: Randall Derchan <DSPY007@aol.com>
The only composer of film that deserve stamps in opinion, the one
that counts is:
John Williams
Jerry Goldsmith
Alex North
Henry Mancini
Mayby Barry or Jarre
Barry is sort of a pop composer and very british
Jarre is famous but his music generally sucks
Leonard Rosenmann-Laurence Rosenthaul
George Delerue maybe
Ennio Morricone not my favorite American composer but has been around
for a while.
And of course- Miklos Rozsa - the best of all.
That's it.
From: Sinepman@aol.com
A Wonderful, entertaining and insightful article. I would agree
with the Silver age picks. Anyone who has a beef with any of those guys
must be off his cracker. The digital age is fun to speculate about because
we are smack in the middle of it. Two names should head the list: Hans
ZImmer and Danny Elfman. Any score you listen to today is derivative of
their early work. It seems that half of the film scoring jobs go to former
Zimmer associates looking for that "Zimmer" sound. Danny Elfman's
approach to music is so mysteriously intriguing. These two are the definite
influences of the 80's-90's. Adding to the list, I must say Eliot Goldenthal.
His music seems to be the freshest of any music being written. I also like
that he writes for the stage as well. Personal choices are James Newton
Howard and Howard Shore. Howard's use of the choir continues to add vibrance
and energy to a film and Howard Shore is a master at mood-driven, intense
scores. Only four. the others need to prove something to me. It'll be fun
to see what the response will be.
From: Steve Stromberg, Strombates@aol.com
Geez, these poor people aren't even dead yet, you guys. Here's what
went wrong with the whole thing. Friedhofer and Rozsa were left off. If
they were included in the first place--and damn the ten year dead rule
for Mr. Rozsa (who made that rule up?) the selection of stamps would have
been complete. I had a set framed with the caption, "Where's Miklos?"
See you on the wheel.
Sleepy Jonathan
From: Danny Potargent, "Dapo" <danny.potargent@ping.be>
This is the first time I write to FSM. I'm a big score-fan, my favorite
composer is John Williams, and I feel I have to react to your
posting of the Sleepy Hollow CD review by Jonathan Kaplan.
Here are a few key lines he wrote about the score after which of
course I ran to the nearest store :-)
"With Sleepy Hollow, Elfman does his best to re-define mythic
scoring.. Complementing this idea is the main Sleepy Hollow theme, which
is the best he's ever written... On CD, the music is phenomenal--no review
can do it justice...."
I have to admit, "Sleepy Hollow" is an extraordinary achievement,
but it really doesn't deserve the praise Kaplan gives it. Music appreciation
of course is highly subjective and I don't claim to be an Elfman expert,
but I do have his scores for BATMAN and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and both feature
far superior themes, especially EDWARD. "Sleepy Hollow" is never
boring and it is one of the loudest scores I heard in recent years but
isn't really thematically very rich. I listened to it 3 times before writing
this short message. On the whole, I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps the
review got my hopes up to high.
In case you think I'm a John Williams addict who can't appreciate
other composers, I'm not. I think very highly of Goldsmith, Silvestri and
yes ... Elfman (SCISSORHANDS is my favorite non-Williams score).
Not everything Williams does is great by the way. I think his score
for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is quite overrated. His 9 minute CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-suite
keeps popping up on most of his collections and I think it's 9 minutes
wasted CD space....
Jonathan isn't at the office right now to defend himself. Either he'll
see this and want to write a follow-up, or he won't see it, or he will
see it and not want to write a follow up.
Academy Griping
From: "charlene torrisi" <tcmj@mediaone.net>
The omission of any South Park songs is a travesty. The creativity
and sheer musicianship of the musical numbers in the film are fantastic,
not to mention ridiculously funny. I'm curious...if the lyrical content
had been more appropriate to publicize, would they have recieved the kind
of attention that is usually bestowed, sometimes undeservedly so, upon
animated musicals? Regardless, I would just like to go on record as saying
that none of the nominees this year hold a candle to the amazing work of
Mr. Shaiman and his partners in crime.
From: Jeff Commings, Jeffswim@aol.com
Just one more rant before my hatred of the Academy turns to excitement
as awards season starts: With the addition of the rule that no score is
eligible if diminished by the use of songs, wouldn't that give the Academy
the right to deny "Full Monty"-like scores from competition,
enabling them to keep the Musical/Comedy Score category and be able to
recognize original musicals, songs and all (wasn't that the reason the
categories split in 1995)? If the rule is changed to "No score is
eligible if diminished by the use of songs not original to the film,"
it keeps musicals eligible. I don't think many scores are diminished by
the song score; in fact, the songs help the underscore. If you don't believe
me, listen to any Alan Menken score and see how it complements (and in
the case of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," even exceeds) the
song score.
To the Academy Music Branch, don't kill off one the longest living,
if not most profitable, film genre, the musical!
Deep Marco
From: silard.cernus from Germany, Musikstudio.Nandor@t-online.de (Nandor
Csernus)
hi, a couple of days ago a german/denmark co-production called DEEP
WATER was shown on german television.I did not care much about it until
i saw the main title sequence which had some very cool music.The composer
was Marco Beltrami.Yes the guy who scored the Scream movies!I was very
surprised to find an american composer doing an european t.v. production.Kinda
weird,although I assume it has to do with the fact, that Beltrami worked
with the director Ole Bornedal before.(he wrote additional music for the
U.S.Remake of Nightwatch).Anyway, I just wanted to say,that the music is
absolutely terrific.Forget all those Trevor Rabins and Nick-Glennies,this
guy is DEFINITELY the most talented out there!Does anybody know about a
possible release?
Intrada will press a Deep Water promotional CD on Beltrami's behalf
in the near future.
1999 in Review... It Begins!
From: MHazotte@aol.com
1999 was a great year for movie score: the return in great shape
of Jerry Goldsmith and Danny Elfman, the consecration of Don Davis and
eventually the international recognition of japanese composer Joe Hisaishi.
1999 was also marked by the absence of Hans Zimmer and John Barry and the
new orientation of Basil Poledouris who, obviously, doesn't want to compose
epic scores anymore (for the moment, I hope). Here is my top ten :
1-Sleepy Hollow (Danny Elfman)
2-Summer of Kikujiro (Joe Hisaishi)
3-Angela's ashes (John Williams)
4-The world is not enough (David Arnold)
5-Star wars episode 1 (John Williams)
6-The 13th warrior (Jerry Goldsmith)
7-The minus man (Marco Beltrami)
8-The matrix (Don Davis)
9-The talented Mr. Ripley (Gabriel Yared)
10-Goodbye lover (John Ottman)/For love of the game (Basil Poledouris)
Of course, there are many other great scores for 1999 but these
are my favorite. I also wanted to include Princess Mononoke, but this is
a 1997 score.
2000 seems to be another great year : it's beginning with Goldenthal's
Titus, AndrÈa Morricone's Liberty Heights. 2000 will be the year
of directorial debut of John Ottman (Urban Legends, also composer so he
has to say farewell to X-men), the reteam of De Palma-Morricone and of
Verhoeven-Goldsmith, the finale of the Scream trilogy (and the end of the
slasher movies wave). And many more surprises, for sure!
That's right, it's time: send us your 1999 retrospectives! We have columns
to fill, you know...
Best wishes,
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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