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Posted: |
Dec 10, 2014 - 12:49 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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Well, what can I say....to each their own. There are a couple of popular fan favourite composers I've never been able to connect to, like Desplat and Giacchino. Even though in both cases, there is a thing now and then that grabs my attention. I liked Desplat's GHOST WRITER, for exampe, but that had more to do with the spotting of the music in the film than the music itself. I stand by my hypothesis, however, that in order to do as many scores each year as Desplat does, he needs to have a few tricks up his sleeve as library or back catalogue -- and I think a lot of that has to with his heavy reliance on repeating ostinati, which isn't necessarily easier to do, but which he seems to favour as an immediate gut reaction to everything he does.
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Posted: |
Dec 10, 2014 - 1:02 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I stand by my hypothesis, however, that in order to do as many scores each year as Desplat does, he needs to have a few tricks up his sleeve as library or back catalogue -- and I think a lot of that has to with his heavy reliance on repeating ostinati, which isn't necessarily easier to do, but which he seems to favour as an immediate gut reaction to everything he does. Or he is just a very good composer like Morricone or Delerue - composers that averaged 5-10 films a year in their hey days (not to mention that they did their own orchestrations). Well, I would apply the same hypothesis to them. When Morricone was at his most active, there was certainly a dud among the good ones in a given year. And Delerue could frequently fall back on 'familiar tricks' over a series of several films. In both of these cases, however, I feel far closer to their musical styles, so it's not much of an issue. With Desplat, I'm simply not connecting on any level (as of yet -- my door is open).
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Posted: |
Dec 10, 2014 - 2:01 PM
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By: |
rjc
(Member)
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I think Desplat is no different from any composer, and so I don't begrudge him leaning on the skills and techniques at his disposal to get the job done, be it in three weeks or three months. I also don't doubt, again as with any composer, that regardless of the time constraints to complete a score, that Desplat has certain preferences, be it instrumentation, how he constructs a melody, the use of rhythm etc. But by just judging his output from this year alone, though I'd argue the point from his body of work, I certainly don't hear anything resembling a cut and paste approach. And thanks for the link, Thomas.
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Desplat never had any kind of copypaste techniques like Zimmer and other composers. Even his minor works have something that makes them more unique than other composers's big works (The marimba driven theme for Tamara Drewe or the carnivalesque motif for Philomena). If you compare his works from 2010 so far, with the last decade, there's a huge difference in terms of quality, memorability with orchestrations and themes. Also, this year alone, Desplat has made scores with more variation in genres, styles, than most of composers's works in the past 10 years. Which is something to say about someone who most of the people think he was only able to write waltzes. The fact that some people still doubts of the quality and effort of his works is insulting, especially when Desplat already wrote that kind of scores that old farts like it and got bashed because of it (Monuments Men). You lost me at "old farts" - young farts are much, MUCH worse, trust me, having formerly been a young fart. You yourself will be an old fart and when you are your karma points will be at 0.
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Yet despite the fact that he's able to write a score quickly, he's not doing 'The Little Prince' anymore even if the production team announced him earlier this year. He's replaced by...Hans Zimmer.
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Morricone wrote 22 scores in 1972, give or take a quibble over the odd release year. no duds in there. i agree with Henry Morricone- Desplat is one of the few "new" composers writing repeatedly original and memorable themes. unfortunately when composers have a style, a trademark sound, their detractors use this to accuse them of falling back on the same stuff. Any composer who writes the volume and breadth of scores like Ennio. and probably Desplat now, may have some revisits. Up to a point, if it works, these guys who do a lot of work cannot be expected to re-invent the wheel every theme they write, can they? an element of repeat has to remain because its the same composer.
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