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Apparently JB walked away before he composed anything - according to the official story. I question that as he left the project pretty late...
Let's suppose that JB actually did compose some themes, maybe a complete score, and, maybe (mind you, this is pure speculation) he reused it later for other movies. Which themes could have been inspired by TRS that appeared in later movies JB scored? The first that comes into my mind is "Koskov Escapes" or "Air Bond" from "The Living Daylights", or some tracks from "A View To A Kill", like "Airship to Silicon Valley" or "Destroy Silicon Valley"? There are various other flying movies that JB scored in the 80's ("High Road To China" - "Octopussy" - "Out Of Africa"). Some people "in the know" should be able to reveal the true story behind this. It can't be that secret, can it?
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This came up in another thread.
John Barry walked before recording a score and, according to him, before writing any music. Now, was I there? Can I personally certify that's true? No. However, I have no reason to believe Barry is lying about this. (In cases where he did write music, he's said so.)
Bear in mind, just because Bill Conti said to an interviewer, "My agent called me and told me the score had been tossed" doesn't mean that's accurate. The person who talked to the agent could have got it wrong. The agent could have got it wrong. Bill Conti could have heard it wrong at the time. Or he might have a faulty memory about the content of that phone call after 25 years.
My guess is there was no tossed score, but this was chinese whispers resulting from John Barry's departure.
Cheers
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Phil Kaufman, the director, should know it, shouldn't he?
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Yes, I'd expect Phil Kaufman would know. As would Barry. Barry has said he didn't get as far as writing or recording a score. Has Kaufman said anything to the contrary?
Cheers
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Yes, I'd expect Phil Kaufman would know. As would Barry. Barry has said he didn't get as far as writing or recording a score. Has Kaufman said anything to the contrary?
Cheers
As far as I know, nobody ever interviewed Kaufman about the music in TRS.
Asking JB, is one thing. But you need to verify it, at least with a second source.
If Conti doesn't remember I'd suggest to go to the director or to the producers. I think they should know.
There's an article on Kaufman and TRS (no word about the score - which I find incredible as it's crucial to this movie):
http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/interviews/philkauf.shtml
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Bill Conti on Phil Kaufman:
He was tough. He didn't like what I did at all. He had hired a composer before, and it didn't work out for some reason. I don't know who it was.
[...]
He just didn't like my music. He wanted something small and personal.
[...]
Now the producers wanted what we're seeing on the screen, and Phil was afraid of it all the time.
[...]
He had Holst in there, and he says "I really like this." I said "Well so do I, it's great - buy it!" He says "No, no, no - try something." That's a six-minute cue, I did try something. When I did it, people were applauding - the musicians. The producers and Phil hated it. He says "It's not close enough, it's not the Holst." I say "I KNOW it's not. It's another way to do it." He wants me to go closer to Holst, so I wrote another six-minute cue that was closer to Holst. It's not close enough. Then I wrote a third one. I did the cue three times. For six minutes I wrote EIGHTEEN minutes of music. The third one that I did, I said "You have to credit Holst", because now this is called PLAGIARISM. The things I did before, in MY mind, were not. If you heard them back to back, it's really interesting.
Excerpts from SOUNDTRACK, (September 1992) Vol 11 No 43, p. 12-13.
So, in the end, the rejected score remains unconfirmed; "it just didn't work out with the other composer" - and all we know, the other composer was indeed John Barry, who, according to Iwin Winkler (see post above) did not write any music for the movie.
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Posted: |
Jul 29, 2009 - 12:59 PM
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By: |
peterproud
(Member)
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He had Holst in there, and he says "I really like this." I said "Well so do I, it's great - buy it!" He says "No, no, no - try something." That's a six-minute cue, I did try something. When I did it, people were applauding - the musicians. The producers and Phil hated it. He says "It's not close enough, it's not the Holst." I say "I KNOW it's not. It's another way to do it." He wants me to go closer to Holst, so I wrote another six-minute cue that was closer to Holst. It's not close enough. Then I wrote a third one. I did the cue three times. For six minutes I wrote EIGHTEEN minutes of music. The third one that I did, I said "You have to credit Holst", because now this is called PLAGIARISM. The things I did before, in MY mind, were not. If you heard them back to back, it's really interesting.
Excerpts from SOUNDTRACK, Vol 11 No 43, p. 12-13.
Wow, that's incredible that Conti had to rewrite something three times because his music didn't sound enough like somebody else's music! Ironic that he would win his only Oscar for a score that the director disliked so much....
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Apparently JB walked away before he composed anything - according to the official story. I question that as he left the project pretty late...
I think that's pretty accurate. Bantam Books released a paperback tie-in of Tom Wolfe's book. Inside, opposite the title page of the book, they had a page with the credits for the movie. John Barry was listed as composer on that credits page.
I'll add this to the mix..
I remember Bill Conti mentioning that when he had his first meeting with Phil Kaufman about scoring the film that he made some statement along the lines of "There were two people who I didn't want to score this film, you and John Williams and they want me to use you...."
And that was great way to start things off..
Also, it seems pretty clear from the notes that Conti worked with the producers on the score far more then he did with Kaufman.
Ford A. Thaxton
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What's interesting to me is that sometimes (note: sometimes) I think it's better to get a film on the rebound.
Conti's score was probably not a million miles away from the kind of score Barry would have written. Okay, Barry's would probably have been less busy, but I'm sure they both had quite traditional, rousing orchestral ideas in mind. But there was one key difference - when Barry was on board there was more time for 'direction'/'interference' (depending on your point of view) and disagreement. By the time Conti was on board the producers were probably more in control - and were certainly more desperate and more in need to make whatever / whomever they had work. That can be a factor on the composer's side.
(I remember someone once calling Barry "the score doctor". [And I believe he didn't like it too much.] It was just after Mike's Murder and Barry had had a few cases where he had written last-minute replacement scores. I think it plays into Barry's preferred way of working, i.e. "leave me to it".)
Just a thought.
Cheers
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Never cared for Phillip Kaufman's movies. Love it that Clint Eastwood stepped in and sacked him from Josey Walves because he was taking too much time on one shot. Directors who come in like that (the way he dealt with Barry and Conti) ought to be the ones getting sacked.
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