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Posted: |
Aug 30, 2015 - 1:06 PM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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Due to this thread's prominence I did some reading of the FSM volume entry for JJ. The name John Rubinstein came up and described him as an actor/composer. Then, when I later watched some TV at my host's address, an old Spielberg TV movie, Something Evil, just happened to be starting. As the credits rolled the name of John Rubinstein appeared. Could this be the same Rubinstein involved with Jeremiah Johnson? Having watched the TV movie I thought I'd check with IMDB and sure enough, it's the same guy. In fact, I didn't know his name but I knew his face, which appeared many times on TV over my childhood but remained nameless - until now.
If you didn't already know of him, here he is. In Something Evil, he appears at Sandy Dennis' door, all the while making oblique references to his uncle, a neighbor of Dennis in the movie and played by Ralph Bellamy. I'd seen this movie before a long time ago. It's just a little weird I only made the connection today, as the crow flies.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0748270/?ref_=tt_cl_t6
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No wonder the film composer Arthur B. Rubinstein (FSM's "Whose Life Is It Anyway?") uses the B.!
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Well, although it's all down to personal opinion, I think Goldsmith's taste in films generally stunk.
He picked some absolute whoppers to score down the years. Far too many for it to be considered
bad luck.
I don't think it was luck either, but it could have been a number of things, chief among them, "What's left after John Williams has had his pick?" A composer's gotta eat, too, so I think it's safe to assume there were some job offers over the years that were up to Goldsmith's price tag, if not necessarily worthy of his talents.
Wasn't Goldsmith one of the "go-to guys" for a last-minute replacement score in his day?
I prefer to believe that the number of misfires he wound up scoring are more of a tribute to his adventurousness in selecting projects, and there's the occasional opportunity for a great score to "rescue" an "almost-good" movie, too.
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Much of this “Goldsmith scored a lot of stinkers” is purely a view made in hindsight, and is a matter of personal taste—just as Goldsmith's view of “Jeremiah Johnson” was. “The Omen” was considered by many as a film trying to capitalize on the popularity of “The Exorcist.” It very easily could have failed at the box office and fallen into the hindsight “stinker” category.
I must say, this concept bandied about that Goldsmith was following around picking up Williams' table scraps is utter nonsense. John Williams (whom I enjoy and respect) scored his fair share of “stinkers” in his day; but somehow, he always seems to get a pass on that. I wonder why that is? Hmmmmmm...
No filmmaker sets out to make a bad movie, lots of things can happen to derail a great concept for a film (too many here to list). It's important to remember that Williams got involved with “Star Wars” as a favor to Spielberg. Just about everybody involved (except Williams, to his credit) thought “Star Wars” would turn out to be a “stinker.” And Lucas himself made the comment about “Star Wars”: “It just has to do with people happening to like dumb movies.” (pg. 183 of "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas")
As consummate professionals, both Goldsmith and Williams wrote superlative scores for films that wound up on both ends of the quality and popularity scales. Not everything is an instant classic or appeals to everyone's tastes.
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There's something to be said for Lucas' and (others') "dumb movies," though, and that is that they often present a composer a terrific "palette" upon which to create. Even James Horner was given the extraordinarily silly "Krull" to score and the result is, IMHO, one of his masterpeices. The "Omen" series gave Goldsmith, not only his only Oscar win, but also a SW trilogy-sized-chance to flex his muscles and create a multi-film "magnum opus" of sorts. The hindsight question of whether a film was a "stinker" is often determined by box-office performance.
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