Nick Zwar
Forumsvar Lagt Inn
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Innlegg
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According to iTunes I have 18 different versions of “Jingle Bells” in my collection, including two by John Williams.
Oh yeah, Species by Christopher Young is great, absolutely excellent score.
I’m playing:
It’s November going on December, so I can listen to Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Concertos, which is aligned with Christmas season for me. Tonight it is this recording.
“Super Trouper” by ABBA and Brahms’ Requiem are both tied to a very personal event that happend Christmas years ago.
And I’ve got a very profane one: when I first listened to Danny Elfman’s EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, it was Christmas and I had some chocolate covered caramels. To this day I think of chocolate covered caramels when I listen to that score. (Not the worst association, I still like chocolate covered caramels.)
Ennio Morricone’s scores for the Italian Western could be quirky or idiosyncratic, but this one, The Guns for San Sebastian, is among his more conventional, but also simply beautiful. This is a lush, romantic and epic score by the Maestro.
Or course, one may rightly point out that it is neither really a western (it takes place in Mexico in the 18th century, so time an place are slightly off) nor Italian (it’s actually a French film), but who cares, it’s often on Morricone Italian Western compilations. At least parts of it. But the whole score is beautiful worth listening to.Yes, I know. Soundtrackcollector.com is a great resource. I have never met Ton Werkman and don’t think I had ever even any conversation with him, but the site is an invaluable resource. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I hope someone will pick up the ball and continue the site. Who knows…
Did Forbidden Planet have a theremin? I don’t think it did, and I don’t recall a theremin sound in the score. But in any case Miklós Rózsa’s score for Spellbound (1945) precedes Forbidden Planet by over a decade, so Spellbound may have been the first Hollywood score to use it. I was unaware Shostakovich used the instrument in a film score even earlier.
Depends on your perspective. In my experience, it usually comes off as reductive. I remember discussing Alex Garland’s EX MACHINA, for example, a film I consider one of the best of the 2010s, super rich with layers of meaning – expressed both via dialogue and visuals.
I agree; IIRC, I considered it the best film of that year.
Oh, I see, yeah, though that’s why sometimes it’s so important to define terms, because that’s not reductive for me at all… that’s just basically a vague expression of disliking a movie that some may have found entertaining…
Or what I call the Ratatouille rule: not everything is great art, but great art can come from anywhere.
Oh, I love that, great. Ratatouille is one of my favorite movies, one of the all time best animated movies. I’ll definitely quote that Ratatouille rule from now on.
I have more than once been called a “reductionist”, so who knows, maybe I am. (It’s true that I need to get to the smallest building blocks and core assumptions first, because the foundation is what enables deeper discussions in the first place.)
However, I’d say this: to work on a surface level at all, it has to work on deeper levels. Because while the surface is what shines, without layered foundation, surface is just like thin coat of paint that flakes off at the slightest scratch.
I think one of the greatest directors ever was William Wyler, who was at least skeptical of the “auteur” notion. He said once: “I could hardly call myself an auteur – although I’m one of the few American directors who can pronounce the word correctly”. Yet he was a deeply involved and serious filmmaker, striving to do the best possible movie he could make. Wyler was also critical of too many people in the movies for the wrong reason: “The trouble with Hollywood is that too many of the top people responsible for pictures are too comfortable and don’t give a damn about what goes up on the screen so long as it gets by at the box office. How can you expect people with that kind of attitude to make the kind of great pictures that the world will want to see?”
In the end, Wyler was a “reductionist” who believed that a good film needs a good script and good actors and that a director should put himself in the service of these things. And he did some great movies, not doubt.Wyler was a highly accomplished filmmaker who believed getting himself “out of the picture” (figuratively), by approaching each movie and genre on its own terms. So an artist who put himself at the service of art.
There is a type of art “connoisseur” (as they might call themselves) that is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. They use the art to elevate themselves and put themselves up there. You’ll find them among the audience of all kinds of art (paintings, literature, music, movies), and you recognize them almost as soon as you talk to them. You quickly perceive that they don’t talk so much about the movies themselves, but their “observations” about a movie serve primarily to display their own (implied to be refined and superior) tastes and discriminating observations. Unlike Wyler, who made movies by getting himself out of the way, they discuss movies to put themselves in the way. We’ve probably all met these kinds of people at various times in our life. Sometimes, I find it fun to poke a needle in their bubble. Most of the time I have other interests these days though. 🙂I’m reminded of something sorta related. When I’ve discussed with colleagues, and they’ve been disparaging about a film, they’ve sometimes ended their argument with “but it’s got great entertainment value, I suppose”. A sort of reductive, faint praise when all else is lost. That’s often irritated me a little bit, especially if I love that same film for many other reasons than just its sheer entertainment value.
Hmm… isn’t “great entertainment” value the entrance card? If a movie is “entertaining”, can it be bad? If a movie is not “entertaining”, can it be good? Of course, it depends on what definition of “entertaining” one might use, and also of course, a movie may be “entertaining” for reasons totally different from the original intent. I consider Irwin Allen’s THE SWARM a highly entertaining movie, but probably not for the reasons Allen intended it to be. Perhaps some people use the term to simply say “I liked the movie”. Now just about all people watch or have watched movies, but not all people — probably not most people — are inclined to analyze what they like and why.
