Film music

[Beef Oven!]

Ach, it was this 19th Century genius who started it all ...

http://lubbockonline.com/stories/030...05442394.shtml

Interesting item, thanks Scotty

P.S. You're looking fresher these days, special diet?

[MrGongGong]

So could we have an alternative list then ?

1: Paris, Texas
2: .............. ?

over to you

[Beef Oven!]

So could we have an alternative list then ?

1: Paris, Texas
2: .............. ?

over to you

2: Made (1972).

[Ruhevoll]

What a curious film that is. I at last acquired it on blu-ray not long ago... those vistas opening up are intoxicating, but Ryan O'Neal... However that's for another thread... yes, lush non-HIPP Handel to open and close and all sorts in between...

How was the Blu-Ray transfer? The film, lush as the cinematography was (only Kubrick could film by candlelight and get Carl Zeiss to create a special lens to do so!), always viewed a bit grainy on telly. I haven't had the chance to see it on the big screen.

As you say, a curious film. The tension in the final duel is wonderfully drawn out. I expect the child spanking scene, and father and son kissing on the lips, would prove more inflammatory in today's post-Savile world.

[scottycelt]

Interesting item, thanks Scotty

P.S. You're looking fresher these days, special diet?

Yes the one I'm on suits me just fine, Beefy ,,,,

hhttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...9QEwAw&dur=810

[french frank]

Also, with the Exception of The Third Man, this lists assumes that film music only began in 1960. Bespoke film music was being composed long before the development of the talkies.

I think the list has been made to focus on films that a 'broad public' - youngish to middle-aged - will be likely to have seen, and some, at least, will probably be voting for the film not the music.

[Stillhomewardbound]

There have been some excellent suggestions here. Ry Cooder's music weaving a whole texture around 'Paris, Texas'. Very atmospheric and influential as the device was all but grabbed by Michael Kamen with Eric Clapton for the brilliant 'Edge of Darkness'.

Someone else has mentioned The Go-Between with Michel Legrand's highly dramatic theme and Joseph Losey's eerie opening title sequence which is just the rain falling on an opaque car window. He also provided a brilliant through-composed score for The Thomas Crown Affair (much better than the actual film) and the fine and very poignant 'Summer of '42'.

On my list would have to be John Barry. The Bond Films aside, his score for The Ipcress File really places a stamp on that film (his instrumentation cannily tapping into the espionage atmosphere of The Third Man). Then there's Nic Roeg's Walkabout. Roeg's cinemaphotography provides for long stretches without dialogue or action so Barry's score comes very much to the fore, and there's my personal favourite, his scoring for 'Out of Africa'.

Not a sign of Henry Mancini who in his career provide many of the most entertaining film themes to be found: Pink Panther Theme, Breakfast At Tiffany's (Moon River), Hatari (Baby Elephant Walk), Charade, for example, but who could also colour a film darkly as in The Days of Wine & Roses and Touch of Evil.

To be honest, we'd have our own Henry Mancini today but film composers have been majorly downgraded in our times. This state of affairs came about as big corporations started buying into Hollywood. Say the likes of Sony who also owned big record labels wanted to marry the two together, breathing new life into their back catalogues and creating easy marketing hooks for their films.

The composer's job too often now is to fill in the gaps between back-catalogue hits.

In twenty, thirty years when they carry out such a retrospective again they'll find themselves with very lean pickings, indeed.

Of course, the great Stanley Kubrick could well be claimed as having blood on his hands in terms of the demise of the film composer. Largely from the point at which he rejected Alex North's score for '2001 - A Space Odyssey' and went with the 'Temp Track' he had already laid down for the first edit. One is inclined to forgive him that though given that he had such a superb knack for matching pre-existing recordings to his films. Richard Strauss, followed by Johann Strauss II and then Lygetti in an amazing fusion.

The same approach then for 'Barry Lyndon' where he's rarely bothered about anachronicity (eg. Franz Schubert). What counts is the fit. Does this sarabande go with that mis en scene and so forth; and while we are in this territory we'd have to recall Visconti's Death In Venice and the use of the Mahler.

But there still considerable composers out there such as Hans Zimmer (yes, I know he's on the list but for one of his lesser scores), Danny Elfmann (Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas) and Thomas Newman (American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption)

Radio 3 is supposedly a form of pure music network. It's daily remit is all about celebrating the work of the composer and yet this list is in praise of nothing more than novelty. Even Classic FM would have made a better fist of it.

[MrGongGong]

Someone else has mentioned The Go-Between with Michel Legrand's highly dramatic theme and Joseph Losey's eerie opening title sequence which is just the rain falling on an opaque car window.

I think Richard Rodney Bennett composed an electronic score for this as well (or it might have been Patrick Gowers ?) which was rejected by the director. I'm not sure if any survives ?

[Beef Oven!]

I think Richard Rodney Bennett composed an electronic score for this as well (or it might have been Patrick Gowers ?) which was rejected by the director. I'm not sure if any survives ?

I know that Patrick Gowers is still around.

[MrGongGong]

I know that Patrick Gowers is still around.

He was a great teacher, he collected interesting examples of things that "broke the rules", Bach Chorales which seemed to be atonal etc

[Stillhomewardbound]

That's news to me about RRB and The Go Between, but he did great things with John Schlesinger's Far From the Madding Crowd which is a near epic films and something of a forgotten masterpiece. I remember as a child being forced to sit through one Christmas night. It seemed to be like torture at the time and yet after all these years it is literally burned on the retina. A wonderful cast, splendidly cast: Peter Finch, Terence Stamp, Alan Bates and Julie Christie. Nicolas Roeg as cinemaphotographer before he turned his hand to directing.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

for one

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

for two

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and three

[Beef Oven!]

So could we have an alternative list then ?

1: Paris, Texas
2: .............. ?

over to you

Am I allowed another go?

4: Event Horizon