Graham Watt
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
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Innlegg
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I would say that, in general, C n’ C presentations don’t work as well as a carefully thought out “reduction”. And why should they? It’s actually amazing to me to find so many C n’ Cs that work at all. Not all films follow a traditional story arc, and even when they do, no matter how great an “architect” the composer is, a climax (if there is one) may be left unscored. That’s just one of many examples. There are really too many variables to mention.
But just to cite one example, I don’t think that the complete THE EIGER SANCTION works anywhere near as well as the re-recorded LP from the time. The last few tracks are suspense mostly, with Clint Eastwood hanging on a rope. Then the End Titles kick in. I could list a dozen more.
I don’t do playlists either. I want a good record producer, preferably the original composer, to put the album together for me. I wouldn’t buy a DVD/Blu-Ray of a film and edit all the bits I like into a personalised mini-film. And if it’s a 6-hour presentation of the film including all the outtakes and alternate edits, well I wouldn’t watch that either.
I think that in many ways Morricone was a true genius, but I’m by no means a fan of all his work.
Perhaps other Brits of a certain vintage will remember that the BBC screened the DOLLARS movies around the mid-1970s (but not THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY – that one was too long for the regular time slot), and they were a kind of “rite of passage” for young teen boys. Some of my friends and I had the LP (on the cheap Pickwick label I think – it cost about 1 pound 50) of highlights from the first two films. That was a gateway release for many.
I’m fairly selective when it comes to buying his soundtracks. In general they’re all too long, with a lot of repetition of perhaps two or three themes which go through various subtle changes in instrumentaion. Main Theme 1, Love Theme 1, Dissonant Hell Theme 1, Main Theme 2, Love Theme 2, Dissonant Hell Theme 2, Main Theme 3…. but I have a (how did Thor put it?) high pain threshold with much of that stuff.
Perhaps my favourite Morricones are not even full scores. Those compilations (“Psychedelic Morricone” and so on) are mostly a joy, although there’s ALWAYS at least one very silly track on then, just to annoy Onyabirri I’m sure.
Chill out, Thor. Don’t get exasperated. Enjoy the wine. As the great Sir Christopher Lee once said to me when I was assistant makeup artist on THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, “Don’t sweat it”. You see, Lee was bald but wanted people to think that Billy Wilder had asked him to shave his head for the role of Mycroft. As I was taking off his wig (“No cameras, no cameras!” bellowed Lee), he then patted me on the hand (I was only nine years old) and said gently, “Don’t sweat it”. And I rarely have done since.
[I screwed up, Graham…please reinstate your post]
Does not compute. Files unavailable. Science eyes only. No override.
I have enough room for all my stuff in our fairly modest flat, Thor. In fact we have more room than ever now that our son has moved out into his own place. No special media room as such. I have books in nearly all the rooms. My CDs are in another room which kind of acts as a spare room, but the music centre as such is in the bedroom. So no, nothing’s really “on show”.
I think I have amassed around 1,000 film scores on CD. I don’t know how to back them up. When I want to listen to something, I put the CD in the CD player, sit down and listen. If I want to simply sample something, I’ll find it online somehow. But my CD collection has many hidden treasures within, and very often when I go back to a score I “thought I knew”, it turns out that I hardly “knew it” at all. I think I would be quite happy if no more music releases ever happened, no more films ever made, no more books ever written. The past is where I belong. It’s a foreign country. They do things differently there.
Hi all! I “think I know” quite a few of you here, from your FSM Board posts. Some of you will thus “think you know” a bit about me, for better or worse. But in case you don’t, a short introduction –
I’ve been into film scores since my early teens. Now in my sixth decade I feel comfortable as a kind of archaeologist, delving into so much material from my favourite time period (very roughly from around 1955 until about 1985). I have very little connection with the present. I am a man out of time, a bookish, serious old fellow with a beard and glasses, and very little patience for modern fads.
I’d say that my favourite composers are Goldsmith and Williams, but I also love Rózsa, (some) Herrmann, Alfred Newman, Leonard Rosenman, Jerry Fielding, Lalo Schifrin, Alex North, Hugo Friedhofer, Basil Poledouris – and of course I have an unhealthy fascination with mavericks from the world of jazz, especially the amazing output of Gil Mellé and Basil Kirchin. And Oliver Nelson too, but he seemed to be more human than both Mellé and Kirchin, who actually came from another planet.
