What are you listening to now?
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Maurice never had the synth chops of his son, but once in a while he succeeded. This is one of them — moody, dark, delicious. Along with DEAD POETS SOCIETY and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY his best work in an electronic idiom, and probably also my favourite Jarre score in general. Film is a trippy delight and a VHS fav from my formative years.
I thing I told that story before. I as well saw Jacob’s Ladder on VHS in a 4:3 format. But that format had the disturbing effect that very often a microphone was visible at the upper edge of the picture and I was wondering how it was possible that such flaw happens at such a highly professional production. Later I learned that in the movie version the microphone was not visible and that this was just an issue of the 4:3 frame for the VHS.
That was done back in the day of VHS quite often. Movies were shot for wide screens, like 2.20:1 or 2.39:1 ration. Depending on how the negative of the movie is, VHS movies could be shown “letterboxed” (the classic film format, on TV sets of the time then with black bars top and bottom), or “cropped” (meaning the image would be zoomed in until it filled the screen, but you’d lose the image right and/or left (“pan & scan”), or “open matte.
In case of JACOBS LADDER it was then apparently “open matte”, which means while the movie was shot for the wide screen, a larger part of the negative was used for the VHS copy (so top and/or bottom of the picture “opened”), which means that sometimes there are things visible that should not be visible (and were not visible on the film print). Directors and editor usually select what is shown in the frame, but when a copy for VHS is done, sometimes, the frame was just enlarged to fill the 4.3 screen, that’s when microphones or other stuff may enter the picture.
I’m so happy the days of this are over. 😀
I never like VHS pan & scan or open matte versions, but that’s the way movies were released back then.Edit:
A famous example of how different frames effect the experience is Stanley Kubrick’s SHINING. Kubrick shot the movie with an eye on BOTH widescreen (for the theatrical release) and the 4:3 format, which at that time was the format TV screens had. Which is why the 4:3 version of Shining was officially approved.Here’s an example of how Shining looks in either version (you can find these clips on YouTube):
This is matted widescreen and “open matte” TV image. Kubrick kept the microphones out of either. However, most directors who shot their films in wide screen never intended them to be shown “open matte”, which is why (as in case of Jacob’s Ladder), they did not mind microphones (or planes, or signs, or whatever) show up in a part of the frame they knew was not shown later on. Unless someone copied them to VHS “open matte”.
Thanks for the rundown, Nick. Yes, I do remember various VHS shenanigans (including TRACKING!), and don’t miss them either. But I miss the tactility of it all, and the ritual that went with it, from video store to home viewing. I never noticed that thing with visible microphones, though. Feel like I missed out.
Whereas a lot of Richter can feel a bit heavy and serious, this cute score is of the lighter kind. But still roughly within his style, of course.
It’s quite unusual in his canon. More traditional. But yes, I’d rather have hardcore Richter. Some of the cutesy cloppety-clop motifs (xylophones, woodwinds, what-have-you) do wear out their welcome after a while.
Sweet drama film, the feature debut of trailblazer Haifaa al-Mansour, the female South Arabian filmmaker who would later direct MARY SHELLEY (with a gorgeous Amelia Warner score). Richter taps into Arabic sensibilities, obviously, and some electronics as well, inbetween his usual PMR. I’ve always been a sucker for these east-west blends.
Korngold’s far superior THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER is the star of this album (that “Duel” track, man!), although it gets second billing. Meanwhile, Steiner’s jaunty TWAIN score is okay. I’ve never been a Steiner fan, but this is among the three I like and own (the other two being KING KONG and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE). Sadly, I sold off my actual CD years ago, before it went for big bucks on the secondary market due to relative rarity, but decided to keep the files.
PRINCE AND THE PAUPER is a great score as almost all Korngolds. I don’t know this album – isn’t this series a bit cursed by too much reverd on the recording? – but the later Tribute recording of Stromberg and Gerhardt recorded a nice suite on the Classic Film Score series, too.
Steiner can be a bit too routine but I like a lot scores of him. KING KONG and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE are also favorites of mine. I have even two recording of KING KONG: THe older Fred Steiner one and the newer complete Marco Polo one with Stromberg. This one I like in more complete form. Interestingly I prefer the Gerhardt suite of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE over the complete Stromberg recording. Steiner like often Waxman generally often works better in suites for I think.
Just realized that I have the Marco Polo recording of MARK TWAIN. Haven’t heard it for a while but remeber it as a nice score.
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