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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2019 12:32:17 GMT
As you can probably tell from some of my recent posting history, I'm going through a bit of a Merchant/Ivory phase right now. The work of the composer with whom they always collaborated, Richard Robbins, is criminally under-discussed - he produced such lush and evocative scores - some serene, others madly rococo. Just two that I can't stop listening to now - Please, share your choice!
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Post by stephen on Jun 14, 2019 12:33:57 GMT
Cliff Martinez should have two Oscars and a dozen nominations by now.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jun 14, 2019 12:40:46 GMT
Joe Hisaishi. No one seems to know this legend beyond in Japan.
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Post by jimmalone on Jun 14, 2019 12:55:33 GMT
Joe Hisaishi. No one seems to know this legend beyond in Japan. Really? I've got the feeling he is quite beloved everywhere. I agree though that he is a fantastic composer.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 14, 2019 13:47:58 GMT
I often do not get film scores - which is weird because I love music - like to me people praise stuff for being beautiful or something but I'm very rarely moved by a score and I feel there's a certain laziness or obviousness in how music is used in film too. It's almost like "sound design" where when I see a movie that really uses it brilliantly (The Witch or Roma) and I'm like "oh why don't other films even try that?"
But Alaric Jans - who is so obscure I can't even find a clip of him (wtf) would be one - he only scored David Mamet's films. When needed he can be dark and menacing (House of Games) or lovely and wistful (Things Change). In "Homicide" - Mamet's masterpiece - he incorporates a violin ingeniously tied to the character's Jewish background so when the film closes in on you and the character the music then also closes in too - it first represents, then signifies, but lastly sadly comments on the events - that particular violin is isolated (like him) and played as the character is played too.
Rarely do you ever see that thought and complexity in a score.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jun 14, 2019 14:16:35 GMT
Really? I've got the feeling he is quite beloved everywhere. I agree though that he is a fantastic composer.
I feel like people recognise his work when they hear it, but not necessarily the name, unlike Hans Zimmer or John Williams.
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Post by jimmalone on Jun 14, 2019 14:59:09 GMT
Really? I've got the feeling he is quite beloved everywhere. I agree though that he is a fantastic composer.
I feel like people recognise his work when they hear it, but not necessarily the name, unlike Hans Zimmer or John Williams. Well yes, if you compare him to Zimmer or Williams Hisaishi is underrated.
I'd personally like to mention Elmer Bernstein. I know he is regarded well, but still doesn't get the credit he deserves I feel.
Also I see Mychael Danna hardly ever mentioned, who did lots of very good scores like Little Miss Sunshine, The Ice Storm, Shattered Glass, Life of Pi.
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Post by themoviesinner on Jun 14, 2019 15:30:17 GMT
Goran Bregovic doesn't get the acclaim he deserves. His film score for Emir Kusturica's Underground is one of the best score's of all time:
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Post by pendragon on Jun 14, 2019 16:33:00 GMT
David Julyan (Memento, The Prestige, The Descent). His scores are more ambient and don't always stand out as much, but they always compliment the movies beautifully. I wish Nolan would work with him again.
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Post by TerryMontana on Jun 14, 2019 16:55:45 GMT
I love Bregovic and Bernstein but I don't think they are considered underrated. Anyway...
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 14, 2019 17:03:18 GMT
David Julyan (Memento, The Prestige, The Descent). His scores are more ambient and don't always stand out as much, but they always compliment the movies beautifully. I wish Nolan would work with him again. I can definitely see why he didn't use him for Batman or Interstellar (and to a lesser extend Inception), but he would have been a great choice for Dunkirk.
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Post by sirjeremy on Jun 14, 2019 17:56:40 GMT
Bruce Smeaton is my choice.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2019 18:44:25 GMT
Bruce Smeaton is my choice. I love this choice! OT, but has Meryl ever been more beautiful than she was in Plenty?
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jun 14, 2019 19:31:41 GMT
I often do not get film scores - which is weird because I love music - like to me people praise stuff for being beautiful or something but I'm very rarely moved by a score and I feel there's a certain laziness or obviousness in how music is used in film too. It's almost like "sound design" where when I see a movie that really uses it brilliantly (The Witch or Roma) and I'm like "oh why don't other films even try that?" But Alaric Jans - who is so obscure I can't even find a clip of him (wtf) would be one - he only scored David Mamet's films. When needed he can be dark and menacing (House of Games) or lovely and wistful (Things Change). In "Homicide" - Mamet's masterpiece - he incorporates a violin ingeniously tied to the character's Jewish background so when the film closes in on you and the character the music then also closes in too - it first represents, then signifies, but lastly sadly comments on the events - that particular violin is isolated (like him) and played as the character is played too. Rarely do you ever see that thought and complexity in a score. I see where you're coming from, but I'm wondering if you feel this way in particular about more recent scores or just film music general? I ask because I think it's worth noting how contemporary film music is often described as placing less emphasis on traditional thematic scoring and is often dismissed as more generically "affective"... more concerned with texture and mood setting than classical Hollywood-era film-spanning themes that are more tied to narrative in how they transform in various ways and cue character development. If you take someone like Zimmer, who is often accused of laziness/obviousness, his recent scores often lack identifiable melody and are actually more rhythmically and timbrally driven. This may not be what you were referring to, so this isn't necessarily a response to how you were using the term, but I think it's easy to privilege more melodic scoring as "non-lazy" because melody (and its recognizable transformations) is something audiences can more easily latch onto, symbolically interpret, and "track" throughout a film than any other process in instrumental music because we can clearly hear the thought put into it. But I think that does a disservice to other kinds of subtle musical processes that may not be immediately obvious on the surface because it might just seem affective in function (and therefore lazy), but can actually host rich symbolic resonances when examined more closely. Zimmer's music for Nolan's Batman trilogy, for instance, is infamous for how it jettisons the overtly thematic scoring of previous Batman films, but he actually cleverly uses other parameters like harmony over the course of the franchise to comment on themes of empowerment through displaced identity and moral ambivalence. Rob Simonsen's score for Foxcatcher (completely different) is extremely sparse and can be easily described as merely affective in function, but there's actually a complex relationship between the harmonic structures during the piano passages in the score and the character dynamics... several cues feature triangular networks of harmonies that transform and can be mapped onto the transformative relationships among the three central characters - the harmonic relationships thus serve a symbolic function, commenting on the precariousness of bonds and how bonds can shift (this musical relationship is absolutely not obvious on one or even two viewings of the film... it really requires a close examination of the score). These are just a couple of cases where a score's "commentary" is not necessarily immediately evident from just viewing the film. What you find value in of course really depends on how you choose to engage with music in film. The example you gave from Homicide is a great example of how to use texture (isolated violin) and cultural association to comment on character, and what's great about it is that anyone can pick up on its siginificance while watching the film in the moment. We all have opinions on how well film music works for us in the moment, but for me, I tend to not pass judgment on the level of thought put into a composed score based on viewing the film alone because there may always be a level of complexity or commentary that I could be missing on a deeper level.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 14, 2019 20:04:27 GMT
That was a great post Cake - lots to think about. I think in the most basic sense that if I get hit by a truck today and people say "what was pacinoyes "about"? Well, I hope I'm remembered for my bad punctuation and rambling on and on about theater actors .......but only slightly behind that I hope that it's my relationship to film was is always how "readable" it was. In every aspect when I look at a film either in its totality or in components its how it furthers my ability to read it first and foremost. That's why I go a little nutty reading __________is a great director or actor etc. I never want to take part in adjective parties like that - if you can't tell me why they are great to you then it won't resonate with me at all. So with that in mind I will say I can appreciate a score that thematically is far better than the actual film it accompanies (the example I give here is Philip Glass in The Illusionist) - ie the score is a component that overrides every other piece in readability (script, direction, acting, etc) - I do love the score to The Illusionist. But I love in some ways Johnny Greenwood's TWBB score "more" or think about it more at least because I get excited that there are multiple pieces of the film functioning simultaneously that enhance my "reading" of the film and my involvement each of them as well. Now, having said that, I totally agree with your post and after all music works on us mysteriously and emotionally and is maybe not as easy to read too......since it, itself is subtle (and words/lyrics are absent and those serve as a "cue" in pop music) and has multiple components related to choices made in composition, instrumentation, counterpoint then certainly pieces of a score can easily be misjudged in and of itself far more than other (more concrete) components of the film's readability. I think I'm actually more likely to look past a score because of the way I watch films..........not always.........but often.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 14, 2019 21:57:38 GMT
Too many to name, so I'll go with the first person that comes to mind. Basil Poledouris, I'm quite amazed his score for Conan was never nominated, it literally makes the movie.
I also love his first collaboration with Verhoeven pre-Robocop, Fresh & Blood, which is never brought-up outside of film score forums. Wonderful symphonic stuff, that sounds like it could have come from the 1600s, had they been able to record music then. They really don't make em like they used to.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jun 15, 2019 3:54:06 GMT
More people are paying attention to him, but outside of HTTYD (which SHOULD have won the Oscar), not enough people give John Powell the credit he deserves.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jun 15, 2019 4:30:48 GMT
how bout Michael Small, the musical voice of the 70s thriller? Klute, The Parallax View, The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, The Driver, The China Syndrome, and not a single Oscar nomination between them.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 15, 2019 5:47:13 GMT
More people are paying attention to him, but outside of HTTYD (which SHOULD have won the Oscar), not enough people give John Powell the credit he deserves. Oh most definitely. Aside from HTTYD, there's his other great animated scores, Chicken Run, Kung-Fu Panda 1 and 2 with Hans, Ice Age: The Meltdown, more recently Ferdinand, not to mention Paycheck, Evolution, The Bourne films, and Solo which is brilliant, just to name a few. He's one of my favorite composers currently work, and I love to listen to his work, especially when I'm writing. He knows how to write a great tune, and construct a score around it. Also listening to Zimmer's Dark Phoenix, it reminded me just good and brilliant his X3 score really is. Still the best in the series. His own Phoenix theme, epic!
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 15, 2019 6:01:25 GMT
how bout Michael Small, the musical voice of the 70s thriller? Klute, The Parallax View, The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, The Driver, The China Syndrome, and not a single Oscar nomination between them. Small is great, and a recent watch of Marathon Man reminded me of just how effective the music is in it. It really helps to build the escalating tension. One small note though, his music for The China Syndrome was rejected, that movie famously doesn't even have a score. It's unfortunate that he's not even talked about much, even in film fan score circles. I'm a bigger fan of his non-thriller scores however, the few there are, they really show off his versatility, Comes A Horseman is excellent as is Mountains of The Moon, and his score for Jaws: The Revenge is the best thing about that disaster. On the same token as Small, David Shire's another 70s composer who was often associated involved with thrillers, and doesn't get enough love. His credits include The Conversation, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, Farewell My Lovely, All The President's Men, The Hindenburg, 2010, and my personal favorite, his one big symphonic effort, the brilliant Return to Oz.
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Post by jakob on Jun 16, 2019 6:29:29 GMT
Christopher Young. The dude gave us one of the most memorable horror movie theme melodies in the last decade with Drag Me to Hell and never gets mentioned when discussing great music in horror. He also brilliantly and seamlessly carried over Elfman’s work and added a handful of great new themes to the Spider-Man series. He’s unfortunately done A LOT of scores for SO MANY bad films, which has really dampened his career, but he works non stop and given a good film, his scores really pop.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2019 20:15:59 GMT
I'd like to add a mention for Mark Isham - I think his Golden Globe-nominated work on Nell is really quite beautiful.
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Post by Pavan on Jun 16, 2019 20:20:57 GMT
Abel Korzeniowski
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 17:02:02 GMT
Mark Isham again... The theme from Mrs. Soffel is stunning.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 17:27:37 GMT
Joe Hisaishi. No one seems to know this legend beyond in Japan. Agreed. His score for Kikujiro is one of my favourites , particularly these two tracks:
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