Nicolai P. Zwar
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I’m a cynic by nature, I don’t expect anything from human beings, however, I am willing to create a bit more leeway to those who create great art. I personally clearly prefer a person who is an idiot but creates great art over one who is merely an idiot. 🙂
Yes, sure, it’s all on a case-by-case basis. Agreed. It’s individual, and it depends on the artist and what he or she is saying and doing and espousing and the way these ideas are expressed, and even the historic context of the time they’ve said these things.
Let’s take Mel Gibson as an example. He is an extraordinary filmmaker. I consider APOCALYPTO one of the greatest films of the century, it’s among the best things I have ever seen. Totally daring, original, and powerful filmmaking… takes guts to even consider making such a movie, let alone pulling it off.
Yet Gibson has obviously has a lot of demons he’s grappling with, he’s done unpleasant anti-semitic rants, racist threats and rants against a former girlfriend, etc., so lots of stuff that is not just “problematic” but what I consider totally unacceptable behavior. However, that does not change that he is a great artist, a great filmmaker, and I find none of the sentiments from his tirades in his creative art. (Also, Gibson at least knows that he has these demons and actively tried to keep them in check, so that’s something that speaks for him.)Both scores suffer a bit from Morricone’s general repetition habit the same theme with minor changes only (at least LE PROFESSIONAL does for sure)
Yeah, THE PROFESSIONAL on album suffers more from that than LE MARGINAL, which features an additional theme, some pop songs, and more “varied” variations than THE PROFESSIONAL.
The original LP for LE MARGINAL had three major variants of the same idea, fully played out in 6 minute tracks, with some interesting differences (that I really found very interesting).
“Le Marginal” (6:23)
That’s basically the “primary” variant, what is usually on compilations (usually shortened by two and a half minutes). It has a determined, but up-beat pop flair to it.Le Marginal (La DroguĂ©e Et Le Garçon) (6:32)
This follows mainly the same basic construction as the first variant, but switches the two melodies: what is played on strings is now played on winds and what was played on winds is now played on strings. So it’s basically some switched orchestration; the effect is that this second variant sounds more elegiac and relaxed, softer compared to the more up-beat “Le Marginal”.And Le Marginal (Conclusion) (6:23)
This one among other things changes the 16th notes of the string theme to 8ths (or something like it, don’t have the score, just guessing from memory), and the theme sounds much more grim, edgier and darker, even though it is the same melody. It drops the lighter instrumentation and leans into a tense, sweeping orchestral arrangement that matches the grim, inevitable climax of the movie.I found these three variants very exciting back in the day, because these were showcases how with minimal adjustments to the same basic music construct you could express very different musical moods.
If composers/artists merely have different religious/political views from my own, I don’t give a damn really. I mean, lots of people have different views. It’s ludicrous to expect other people to have the same views and opinions.
For me, the most important thing is freedom of speech. Freedom of speech and freedom of thought and freedom of opinion are the foundations of any free society. You topple that, and you topple freedom and democracy, simple as that.
So I grant people a lot of leeway whith artist’s views before it becomes a relevant factor when assessing their art.If someone turns out to be an actual serial rapist, child molester, etc., that might be different, so that might probably taint my enjoyment of their work, but mere different viewpoints? No, that that does not factor in. Everybody thinks their point of view is good and right obviously. Even extremely different viewpoints politically, ethically, philosophically, morally, religiously, whatever, are unlikely to have any major effect on my enjoyment or assessment of their art.
my argument is against assumptions of inevitability in any of these matters!
As is mine obviously. So we’re on the same page.
ENIGMA was good, typical late style Barry… if you like that, you’ll like it, if not, not.
I think John Barry’s last truly “great” score was his penultimate film score, PLAYING BY HEART (1998), which is just a great album on its own, so much so that the album cover even downplays its soundtrack origin and features the primary musicians instead.
What I don’t see is any reason to think that we have a “hardwired” predisposition to like a specific musical feature, like a plagal cadence, or the tune to “Danny Boy”.
Who knows… we sure don’t.
Of course, we’re not all hardwired to like anything. Yet nevertheless we all don’t learn to like something either. It’s not evident or clear why some people react deeply to music, while others don’t. There are some hypotheses, but none are remotely conclusive.My scepticism kicks in when it comes to more specific components of music (intervals, chords, cadences, melodies, keys/modes…) and higher level structures built out of them. I don’t see any reason to postulate innate (rather than learned) aesthetic responses to these.
Well, I definitely do. In fact, I would venture out there and say that without an innate pre-disposition to music, mankind probably wouldn’t have bothered with it in the first place. There is both a learned and an instinctive appreciation of music, but it’s difficult to draw the line, may not even be the same for everyone. Some people with practically zero musical education may be seized by the emotional impact of a piece of music, while others may have had even formal musical education but don’t actually appreciate music much at all.
I don’t have Disney+, but I’ll grab the 4k Bluray when it comes out, as I have the other two movies in that format as well.
My default assumption is that our notions of consonance come from certain culturally constructed expectations and habits, and are not intrinsically determined by mathematical or physical properties, but that the mathematical properties of certain intervals can give rise to physiological features which make them more easily recognisable to our perceptual faculties, and that this in turn gives them a much greater chance of becoming important players in any culturally constructed musical language, and hence of sounding “pleasant” to the people steeped in that culture.
That seems to be in any case at least part of it; as I noted higher up, one could argue that actual “dissonance” can be found only in tonal music, because dissonance usually refers to harmonic tension. A single “note” or “chord” is neither consonant nor dissonant, it can become dissonant within context. Any chord, any frequency sound can become “dissonant” in the “right” context.
There is definitely a “learned” component when it comes to listening to music, as you said “culturally constructed expectations and habits”. I just have to look at myself, I remember my “listening history” quite well, from my first encounter with music, to the many composers and types of music I branched out to over the years (and decades). There was music that I could not penetrate when I was younger, like Beethoven’s String Quartets or Bach’s Keyboard works, and now I think they are among the greatest compositions ever, so I have definitely “learned” how to listen to them.
On the other hand, there is also a visceral component, and immediate “gut reaction” to music, that seems to be more “universal”. In fact, it is onto that “visceral” component that over centuries, Western Classical music has built the “learned” architecture for complex compositions, but it is practically impossible to draw the line between a “learned” and an “instinctive” reaction to music, even though no doubt both exist.
It is quite interesting when you look at some studies as to why people listen to music in the first place, and why and how some music affects some people deeply and leaves others cold. In the end, while there are some theories, we don’t even really know. And perhaps that “mystery” is something that can never be fully and truly be “solved”, because what and if music affects us is at least partly highly personal.
Doesn’t really sound like a “horror score”, in fact, this could be a nice, dark-ambient album, were it not for the fact that some tracks just end very abruptly, that you wonder if they were cut off? That takes aways some of the listening experience.
This could have used the sort of re-working Hans Zimmer has successfully done on some of his albums were the tracks flow into each other, and it would be a relaxed moody listen.LE PROFESSIONAL is probably the most famous of the Belmondo/Morricone collaborations.
LE MARGINAL was the next Belmondo film Morricone scored, and the music is a darker, edgier take within the same vocabulary of the former film.
I’ve always even preferred LE MARGINAL, it’s a more varied album, and the theme is just as great as Le Vent, Le Cri (or Chi Mai).
Yet the theme from LE MARGINAL is much rarer found on compilations, and when it is, it’s often just an abbreviated version.The first 10 tracks of this Music Box release are the original soundtrack LP tracks, then there’s 15 tracks of additional music. Tonight, I put up my LP on display and listen to those LP tracks (with a good Bourbon, cheers).
A shame that he lost or a shame that he took it to court?
Just asking, because I am not at all familiar with the case beyond a rudimentary awareness that it happened.
It’s of course always a grievance such things.I have by far most of the scores in that collection, so I never picked it up the Elfman box, but it looks nice.
The single most expensive CD I ever bought was probably Harold Faltermeyer’s RUNNING MAN… which must have cost me somewhere between 70 and 80 Euros just for that one CD, as there were complications with the order.
Definitely a nice ambient album. I sometimes wish they would really play this Eno album at airports. Then again, would not be the same if I heard this every time I’m at an airport. It’s a calm down mood setting album.
Now playing:
One of my favorite works is Pierre Boulez “Sur Incices”.
Awesome! Sur incises is my favourite piece ever.
Now that’s the kind of dialog you don’t come across every day.
arte will broadcast it tomorrow evening and it is already available online for those who can access it
Yeah, I just watched it. Holds up quite well, excellent cinematography and an original, unusual and highly effective film music.
I forgot Lino Ventura was in it (haven’t seen the movie in decades) and was surprised when I read his “and-credit” in the opening titles.Aperol Spritz, yes, though that’s Nicole’s, mine was the beer.
Didn’t I posts this elsewhere? Seems to fit in here fine though.No, that’s just the way the cover looks like. There’s a white frame around it that invisibly blends with the forum background. It’s a square cover.
The definition of these periods is fine but I am not able to rank them. I love them all in their own way.
It would be like ranking your children. Doesn’t work.John Williams has done consistently high-quality work, and I would probably find favorite scores in any periods.
The way Thor divided the periods, I suppose that the “golden period” from 1975-1986 may be my favorite. It contains 1975-1986 the most of my all time favorite scores, like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, STAR WARS TRILOGY, JAWS, SUPERMAN, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE TEMPLE OF DOOM…But yeah, all the other periods are great too. Williams is one of the greats for sure.
