The Man Can't Bust Our Music
June 5, 2003, 6:22am
I don't like to encourage any new categories for the AFI top-100 lists because I never like the results. (Atticus Finch—who cares?) But it seems to me the film institute is at the same time too abstract and too conservative. Where's the list of best mind-fucks? Best ugly duckling makeovers? Best cop-out endings? Best homosexual subtexts in a guy movie? Best "I'm sick of zis damn var" Nazi with a conscience?
And here's one that isn't even hard: Why is there no list of best musical soundtracks? It's obvious, everybody can have an opinion, and it's a sale of both a DVD and a CD. I've already got my top three: Max Steiner's King Kong, Carter Burwell's Raising Arizona, and if adaptations are allowed, Walter Carlos Wendy's A Clockwork Orange. (If not, then Bob Harris and Nelson Riddle's Lolita.)
Wirkman Virkkala | June 6, 2003, 1:25am | #
"Musical soundtracks" is a bit wide, isn't it? "2001: A Space Odyssey" doesn't have an original soundtrack, but makes do (and does very well) with music appropriated from the scores of Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss, Jr., and the Wondrous Ligeti. Appropriately, Mr. Cavanaugh mentions W. Carlos's adapted score for "A Clockwork Orange," but he/she didn't do all the music: some of it was lifted directly from standard recordings of classical repertoire, without benefit of synthesizer; and then there's that unforgettable artifact, "I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper." But I agree that Carlos's arrangements and performances (and a few totally original contributions) upstage the rest.
On the other end of the spectrum, there's Leo Kottke's great score for the great "Days of Heaven" - which is upstaged by one segment featuring Camille Saint-Saens's "Aquarium."
Bernard Herrman's best scores are better than any mentioned by Cavanaugh: "Psycho," "Vertigo," and his music for the Harryhausen fantasies are great. Nothing else in film history compares. His never-used score for "Torn Curtain" (for which Hitchcock fired him) is also arguably better than anything on Cavanaugh's list, and suggests another category entirely: Best Score Not Used by Hollywood Idiots, which class of idiots, I'm sad to say, Hitchcock himself finally belonged. (I understand that "Legend" had a good non-Tangerine-Dream score for the European version; I'll have to check this out. Perhaps the film is watchable!)
I'm glad Cavanaugh mentions Carter Burwell; Burwell's scores for a number of Coen films are superb. Cavanaugh mentions "Raising Arizona" (great film, fine music), but other Burwell scores for Coen films impressed me as much if not more, especially "Fargo." I also remember being moved by the score for "Miller's Crossing," though here, too, a bit of appropriated music - a singing performance of "Danny Boy," ostensibly played on a Victrola - upstages Burwell's contribution.
I like the score (Franz Waxman?) for "The Bride of Frankenstein." I think it's much better than the movie, actually; I'd put it in the Top Ten.
One of the best and most original scores for a film was the dual (schizoid?) approach of Ken Russell's "The Devils": Peter Maxwell Davies supplied very good avant-gardish stuff, while David Munro supplied great Renaissance hits; the mix was perfect for this fascinating political dystopian story set in Richelieu's France.
A number of movies have effectively used original avant-gardish scores, perhaps most successfully John Corigliano's "Altered States"; I think it may be his best work for any medium. Even the old thriller "Lady in a Cage" used an extremely dissonant score to unsettle the audience (it may be the movie's only saving grace). The willingness to "assault" the audience with music they would otherwise not hear should be more often indulged in. Though not always successful, it is easier to take than the millionth usage of mediocre (or worse) rock-n-roll scores, which too often horribly date a movie.
The limited tropes of popular music are often quite deadly to a movie. The other night I began watching "LadyHawke" again. I stopped, though: the score is so terrible - its appropriation of rock cliches so out-of-place - that I couldn't re-watch what otherwise would have been an enjoyable film. On the other hand, the solo electric guitar score for "Dead Man" is brilliant and perfectly done. But if the rocker who's responsible had added the usual drum set and bass guitar, the effect would have been ruined, and the movie along with it.
And of course we should not forget John Williams. We may rightly despise him for such terrible dreck as "Amistad," and for getting stuck in one groove after "Star Wars," but remember, he's capable of fine work: listen again to the score for "Catch Me If You Can," a nice little film with a neat little score. Maybe not AFI Top Ten material, but not worth hating, either.
tim | June 7, 2003, 1:59am | #
I'd concur on putting in a couple of John Williams scores—with
Jaws leading the pack, not only for the shark theme but for the stirring high seas adventure music in the movie's third act—but not nearly as many as his supersized reputation would indicate.
But allow me to venture another opinion in which I suspect I'll be alone: John Williams couldn't hold Jerry Goldsmith's jockstrap. In a lot of ways Goldsmith is Williams's b-side, and in fact in some cases Goldsmith would do the music for the less prestigious of back-to-back Spielberg productions (
Poltergeist, for example, while Williams got
E.T.) He's been tarred by doing a lot of work on bad films—often a Goldsmith score is the only reason to see a movie—and is not unreasonably considered a hack.
Since I admire hacks, I'll make the case for Goldsmith. He's produced countless memorable scores in every style imaginable: waltz (
The Boys From Brazil), march (
Patton), tango (
Six Degrees of Separation), avant-garde suite (
Planet of the Apes), Ravel/DeBussy-type fantasia (incidental music in
Poltergeist), ersatz church chant (
The Omen), innumerable variations on Richard Rodgers's
Victory at Sea music (he's the go-to man for commando/special forces pictures), novelty/merry-go-round music (
Gremlins) and so on. Even when he clips a score, as he did in taking Leonard Bernstein's
On the Waterfront for
L.A. Confidential, he makes sure to steal a good one.
Make mine Jerry!
