Do you separate between person and composer?
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Currently listening again to “schmalz-meister” Mark McKenzie’s Jesus propaganda score THE GREATEST MIRACLE, and kinda loving it (not on the level of DURANGO or BLIZZARD, but still). I have this weird attraction to religious propaganda scores – A.R. Rahman’s wonderful Islam propaganda film score MUHAMMAD: THE MESSENGER OF GOD is another example. I feel dirty for listening to them and also liking them, LOL. Suppose the same applies to PASSION OF THE CHRIST by devout Christian John Debney as well. But that’s a quality film as well, not just score.
But it reminded me of an interesting issue — do you separate between troublesome personalities/productions and the enjoyment of the work itself?
I do, up to a certain point. I can listen to Wagner and Herrmann and Michael Jackson and get immense pleasure out of that, despite the troublesome personalities that have created the music. Autonomy of the text and all that.
But then there’s a point where I pause. Whenever Gary Glitter’s “Another Rock and Roll Christmas” comes on on a Christmas album I own, I cringe. And I was pissed off when Dennis McCarthy – a composer I’ve always respected – scored a Trump propaganda film a few years ago. Made me want to boycott his entire work (although STAR TREK: GENERATIONS has remained in my digital collection).
How do you relate to this?
Interesting question… Quite some artists – especially those who don’t only work for hire – seem to be or have been complicated personalities. While I feel the same regarding your examples especially since I don’t know any composer personally, its hard to separate the artist from its work since the work transports a message. Maybe it is different on more “commerical” or work for hire artists.
I once read a book about film music on “famous” films from the dark NS times in Germany and lots of composers did work for propaganda movies. According to the book they even musically/technically actually quite good but of course the message they transported was not. Not sure if you can listen to that without context…
It’s always hard to judge if people “arrange” within a political environment. Regarding McCarthy and Trump. Maybe it was just a work of hire, he needed money and/or he believed in it to some extent, too. Don’t know. In general US americans seem to have a totally different relationship to their country and patriotism than Europeans. Hollywood movies and series certainly are full of that since for ever with more or less extend. And even Goldsmith scored Rambo 2 + 3… I somehow just take it as it is often…
I don’t check if a composer’s political, ethical, religious or philosophical believes align with my own. I mean, sometimes I know of course. Take Richard Wagner, by all means a “problematic” personality. Yet the problems are not manifest in his music, which is glorious.
The thin is we’re all flawed, all human, all fallible. You start purging art based on the sins of the artist, you end up with silence. There’d be no movies to watch and no film scores to be performed if everybody in cast and crew and orchestra needed to be sinless.
That doesn’t mean I would accept, support or tolerate everything, certainly not. If someone actively supports a cause that not only goes highly against my own convictions but even opposes them, and that even shows in the art, it’s less likely that person will find my support.
But Bernard Herrmann? He sure was a thorny, spiky personality, but I don’t remember anything he did that would make me appreciate his music less.Good points!
Yes, I meant Herrmann’s thorny (often rude) personality, but I realize that’s a different thing than having troublesome political or religious convictions. I suppose I basically meant all kinds of iffy personalities in general, and how that corresponds to your appreciation (or lack thereof) of their music.
Yes, I meant Herrmann’s thorny (often rude) personality, but I realize that’s a different thing than having troublesome political or religious convictions.
I think that are really two different things. If someone is just not an easy person like Herrmann I don’t care that much (Goldsmith is said not to be that easy at times, too). There is a saying that you should never meet your idols as you may be disappointed 😉
If I like a work by someone new I certainly read about that composer in general.
Take Richard Wagner, by all means a “problematic” personality. Yet the problems are not manifest in his music, which is glorious.
It seems the Wagner researcher in general have no agreement if or if not. I don’t know his work good enough. I basically can only listen to the instrumental parts which are glorious (as I am not a big fan of opera singing in general)
I would say yes. I separate that mostly.
An other way around example. From everything I know and hear from articles, interviews and so on, I think that Hnas Zimmer is a really nice person. Highly creative and respectable business man who also contributes a lot to the industry and community and his fans. And I would really like to like what he does.
And I mean, he comes from my home country.
But actually, he stands more or less for a movie music that I despise with heart and soul. If you collected all the flaws from all soundtracks that I ever heard, take everything that I find defective, boring and sloppy in film scores and try to distil it into an own musical figure it pretty much is 80 to 90% of his work, at least the parts, that I know.
It breaks my heart. But that’s how it is.
How many films I felt were really pulled down by his music.
And the best I can expect is, that in movie context I find his music somehow ok and not too disturbing.
And I know, that’s more my problem than his.
But that’s how I feel.
Still I think, he is a nice guy and Hollywood is probably a better place with him than without him.Interesting twist on the premise, Geratewohl, but it’s true — I have it the same way with Giacchino. Seems like a super nice guy; I just can’t stand his music. So definitely a person/music separation going on there.
(of course, it always pains my heart a bit when you and Sigbjørn and others are so hard on Zimmer, who is my second favourite film composer of all time — I often feel like you’ve just heard his music in the last 20 years, and not so much of the more musical, accessible stuff in the 90s and earlier…but hey, to each their own and all that).
I do enjoy some of his scores, but more 20-30 years ago than now. For example The Rock, The Lion King, The Gladiator (co-composed with Holst and Prokofiev), and The DaVinci Code. Undeniably catchy music. But also annoying.
I am much more lenient about composers for hire and the distant past. I’m happy to listen to Wagner and composers from the 1930s with dubious political association, just from an “historian” perspective. I guess the same for the 1960s, 1980s, and I’ve never deleted an artist from my collection; i do trace a line between this (my existing collection = the past) and the future. However, I’ve stopped following or bought new albums by many artists because of their behaviour. Sexual predators are an instant no, and political statements can lead to a no, but film score composers have some leniency if they just indirectly support a cause by being hired to score a questionable film.
There was once a video game composer – I don’t name here on purpose – who completely vanished because of some misbehaviour. Still like some of his scores from years ago.
(…) just indirectly support a cause by being hired to score a questionable film.
You could say a bit opportunistic and even thoughtless maybe depending on what it is and perhaps sometimes you don’t know when being hire how a films turns out… At least someone supporting a questionable film because he actually believes in it is technically consequent…
I see that BSX just reissued Jack Nitzsche’s RAZOR’S EDGE, a score I have yet to check out.
But it reminded me of this thread, since Nitzsche has some controversial elements in his personal life – like attacking his own wife in 1979 (the wife was the late Carrie Snodgrass, who – incidentally – I saw on TV just last night, as I’ve started watching X-FILES again; she appeared in an early episode there). More details on his Wiki page.
That still doesn’t make me like things like STARMAN or ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST any less, though.
As a bit of an art appréciateur, in all its mediums, I have a kind of multi-step process for dealing with problematic artists. The first, being related to the second, is the issue of time. How long ago was the artist alive? While I believe morality does not have a temporal dimension (we were telling people to be kind to one another thousands of years ago), the cultural mores of a time period can at least explain the context of what we would now consider difficult behavior.
The sieve of time sifts all art, which is related to my second point: is the art worth keeping such that I can live with the artist’s problems? Will people still care about this in 100 years? A thousand years? Who knows, but when I look at something like Harry Potter, and see the way people still talk about Mallory, or Shelly, or Baum, I think, sure, Harry Potter will outlive its author. Will people still care about The Cosby Show then? I’m not sure. Comedy often ages like meat.
Which brings me to my final point. How much of the author’s problems are present in the work? For Potter, I read only the good things Rowling wishes to see in the world, and find its basic morality strong and defendable. When Cosby gets pedantic on The Cosby Show, I can no longer hand wave away its respectability politics by thinking “at least he practiced what he preached.” There’s not enough antisemitism in Wagner for me to write off his work only for that reason (I have other reasons lol). This is the most subjective part of the process. Pharos were inherently immoral, but the pyramids still stand. I can appreciate the immense skill that went into making them, even if they were built under duress. The lesser works disappear in the sand, and no one cares.
I find it highly problematic to put Rowling and Cosby into one pot. One was in court for rape, the other one just has a controversial point of view and stands in for it. The one thing is legally relevant and handled by court, the other one is handled by the cancel mob. You might not like both. But the degree of “being problematic” is veeery different.
I think that point was kind of inherent to my argument, but I also think it’s a little sketchy to bring legality into the discussion, as if it’s not really a problem unless you can serve jail time for it. Abuse is doing something to another we wouldn’t want done to us. I know of plenty of laws in my country, now and in the past, that violate that bit of wisdom. Obviously, there’s a scale to abuse, and that should factor in to whether or not we keep a problematic person’s art around.
Her opinion (more a falsehood), her opening and funding an exclusionary women’s center, her donations to anti-trans causes, yes, it was abusive. It is not, however, present in Harry Potter, which was my point.
It’s definitely possible to construct a broad range here, from straight-up criminals judged in a court of law to people with just some problematic personality issues, statements or actions. Too broad a range, perhaps, but everything comes into play when meeting a work of art, and in our case a composition.
As Dr. Jacoby succinctly put it earlier, “if you have records by only nice people, you will have a boring record collection.”
There’s nothing I want to boycott or cancel in the history of mankind (it all says something about the time and place that should not be censored), but I’ve found that there are SOME instances where I get more uncomfortable than usual. Like listening to a Gary Glitter song, or seeing that scene in JURASSIC PARK with Cameron Thor as Dodgson in the beginning of the film. And, as I said, everything I felt about Dennis McCarthy changed when he did that Trump film. In cases like these, it becomes an exercise in distanciation, in order to maintain one’s love of a person or work.
This is the point I’m trying to make. You can defend Gary Glitter’s song because it is about Christmas. It is not about how much he loves teen girls, or more accurately to the Cosby example, how much absolutely can’t stand people who do. That’s fine and understandable, and what I do with Rowling. My next thought, however, is if Gary Glitter is worth keeping around at all. Is a pop tune ever worth the trouble? It’s not for me, but that’s an actual opinion.
Sometimes, sometimes not, I guess.
Gary Glitter is a relative parenthesis in the scheme of things, thank God. Yes, he was a big part of the glam rock scene in the 70s, but that was never for me in the first place. No big loss there. So his sole survival in my life is that track on the Christmas album I listen to every season, which – as you say – has nothing to do with teenage girls.
I suppose the bigger the name, or the closer to your own circle of precious affections, the greater the challenge. I might be annoyed that Dennis McCarthy scored a Trump propaganda film, but outside STAR TREK: GENERATIONS and possibly some episodes of MACGYVER, he plays no major part in my life. So no big loss there either. When I listen to GENERATIONS, I exercise that distanciation mechanism I mentioned, and enjoy it for what it is. As much as I can, anyway. The autonomy of the text, as the old Frankfurt School purported.
I find it highly problematic to put Rowling and Cosby into one pot. One was in court for rape, the other one just has a controversial point of view and stands in for it. The one thing is legally relevant and handled by court, the other one is handled by the cancel mob. You might not like both. But the degree of “being problematic” is veeery different.
AGREED
Now I’m encountering this “problem” again. Currently listening to Simon Chylinski’s superb, moody, electronic score for the 2018 videogame SUBNAUTICA (never played it, just dig the music), whittled down to a smokin’ 46 minutes. But then I read all these comments about him being a racist, transphobic asshole – at least judging by his Twitter comments. So it once again becomes an exercise in distanciation.
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