- This topic is empty.
- Posts
My second plagiarism question. This time I’m wondering if anyone knows of works that Elfman has “plagiarized” from. I know of only one that I’ve heard so far, which is the motif that is fairly prominent in “The Return” track from Planet of the Apes (a good example is at about 4:36 on the track). It sounds like Gustav Holst’s “Mars” from The Planets, in which the motif starts at the tonic note, goes up a fifth, then down a minor second (I know I’m getting really technical here). Does anybody know of any others?
I’m not sure but if I heard Danny has plagiarized, I probably wouldn’t believe it.
But if he has, it wouldn’t bother me as much. Maybe he thought that tone would go well with Planet of the Apes? I don’t know…….In film music plagiarism is called inspiration. In other words. Who really cares?
Yeah….. he takes the “Powerhouse ‘A'” section from Raymond Scott and uses it about 15 times in “Beetlejuice”* once in Edward Scissorhands(“Castle on the Hill”) and does something REMARKABLEY close to “Powerhouse ‘B'” for “The Cookie Factory”…..of course, how else would you make the conveyor belt “music”?
*Warner Brothers owns this music, so he was able to use it, still, it is Raymond Scott.
Speaking of “The Planets” I KNEW I heard “Mars” somewhere before I actually heard it. I guess that’s what it was from!
KWashi – that Powerhouse A and B stuff – is that from “Honey I shrunk the kids”?
I’m thinking this because I know that James Horner (the KING of plagiarism!) was sued for plagiarising some of Raymond Scott’s music in his score to the sequel, Honey I blew up the kid! …oh, wait a sec… did Bruce Broughton score that one? Oh crap, anyway – someone plz correct me or whatever, hehe.>¦:o)
The JAbout POTA and Holst’s “The Planets”… I don’t like to see this as plagiarism. To me, this is either conscious quoting, or perhaps deliberate inspiration. Holst is such an obvious reference by now that you can’t speak af plagiarism anymore.
Think about it. “The Planets” is everywhere in filmmusic. Can you name just ONE composer who didn’t borrow something from it ? Elfman quoted it even before, somewhere in SLEEPY HOLLOW ; Poledouris heavily quoted Jupiter in CONAN (although the Orff and Ravel inspirations are even more ovious) ; Zimmer litteraly did a remix of Mars in GLADIATOR, and so forth.
“The Planets” is probably the single most influencial piece of classical music to film composers. It’s not surprising everybody uses it now and then.– Squeezir.
absolutely… then there’s the even more obvious Star Wars stuff, but that was for a kinda different reason…
>¦:o)
The JSandra’s Theme – Fauré’s Sicilienne
But again, it’s more inspiration than plagiarism.James Horner was actually sued by the family of Nino Rota for plagerising the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Theme.
James Horner should be sued by James Horner.
About Powerhouse – there are 2 parts to it : Part A and part B. Part B is usually associated with cartoon conveyor belts/mechanics etc. That was used in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! As soon as I heard “The Cookie Factory” from Edward Scissorhands, I knew that HAD to be a borrowing from Scott.
Part A is usually used in cartoons where one character is chasing another. This was sort of a theme in Beetlejuice(heard in the background, played by clarinets). However, since Beetlejuice was a WB movie(I’m pretty sure it was, I’ve never seen it, I own the soundtrack though), and Warner Brothers owns the rights to “Powerhouse”, I don’t know that it’s plagiarizing……exactly…
Now, that same “Powerhouse A” can be heard on “Castle on a Hill”, which of course, would be plagiarizing (it’s only a few notes!)
As far as Elfman himself, I think he’s plagiarized himself enough(but I always enjoy it)I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the Batman theme. Take a listen to the Mountain Top / Sunrise cues from Bernard Herrmann’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Elfman has said in several interviews how much he was influenced by Herrmann, and you can almost imagine the young composer “borrowing” the motif for one of his early movie scores.
(I have it on an album of Great Film Classics, I’m not sure where/if you can find it online, but I’ll send it out on mp3 if people have trouble believing me.)
Danny also mentions his “inspirations” for a lot of his scores: Forbidden Zone love theme = Eric Satie & Dick Tracy = Gershwin to name just a few. It is when you don’t give credit for where the inspiration came from that gets me. Horner’s Aliens score is still hard to listen to for me because I can hear a direct lift from Shostakovich, and it brings me out of the score because I think ‘I would rather be listening to Shostakovich’. Still I don’t think Horner warrants all this hatred heaped upon him, because he still serves the movie (his dramatic sense is hardly ever called into question) and filmscores, as a whole, is not very original because you have to genuflect to the larger needs of the film. Not everyone can be as original as Leonard Rosenmann or Danny Elfman.
On a side note, did you know that John Williams dad was Raymond Scott’s drummer. Just a little fun FYI that’s all.
Nat
>> I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the Batman theme.
As Nat just wrote on the previous post, Danny Elfman has always been keen to say who his idols are, and where his inspiration comes from. Namely Herrmann and Rota for the most part. It gives a new meaning to the similarities that exist between his scores and Herrmann’s. In a beautiful interview, Elfman tried to explain once that he felt a kind of an inheritance from his former idols, and he’d felt the urge to show them as much hommage as he could (poor grammar here?).
If Elfman’s detractors still want to call Elfman’s hommages “plagiarism” despite it, well at least they should admit it’s plagiarism… in it most noble form.
– Squeezir, who hopes he’s been clear on this post.
I didn’t mean to incite Danny as a plagiarist. But for one of the most popular movie themes of all time (along with, sadly, almost everything by John Williams), I felt it deserved mention in the topic.
I understand that even Shostakovich parodies other melodies. Perhaps by putting borrowed in “quotes” I misled you. No sarcasm intended.
Just to let you know, I didn’t mean “plagiarism” in a bad way. I just meant the idea that Danny used certain ideas from other works. Plagiarism in writing is portrayed as a bad thing, but I really don’t think that it is necessarily a bad thing in music, as long as the motif or whatever is used with some respect to the original.
You can quote someone in a written work, but if you put your name on something this is not yours (or at least a large percentage not yours) then that is plagiarism; music or Literature, it doesn’t matter – a quote is one thing, but plagiarism is another beast altogether.
Nat
“On a side note, did you know that John Williams dad was Raymond Scott’s drummer. Just a little fun FYI that’s all.”
Yep. They put together some nice little liner notes on all of his [Raymond Scott’s] CDs.
Now I’m not putting down Elfman for using other people’s works, so don’t get any wrong ideas, I’m sure if I ever wrote music it would be hard for me to stay clear of things my personal favorite composers have written(like everyone says, you have to have influence from somewhere!), since I have so much music (in this case, Elfman, Scott, Chip Davis…) muddled around in my head, I’m sure I’d be called off for the same thing….somewhere along the way.
Anyways, Nat pointed out the difference between a quote and plagiarism and that conculsion seems good enough for me.Planet of the Apes remake:
Plagiarism is the extended, unaltered and uncredited reproduction of another’s work. The quotation from Mars is merely a thematic reference, almost certainly a purposeful nod to one of film music’s most fearsome influences. It is therefore not issued in the original’s context, certainly not extended, and the way in which it is so blatently used (perhaps in homage – another term which does not mean plagiarism), negates the need to credit it. If you stretch your imagination, you might agree with me that this theme also has similarities to that ominous main 3-note POTA motif (they both begin with the interval of a perfect fourth, for a start).
Hope this sets things straight and keeps us on-topic.
BluntSo back to the fun stuff, what other references have people noticed in Elfman’s music? Some are pretty obvious, but not to everyone it seems. Keep listing.
Thanks for getting us back on course, Pat.
There’s another little motif in PotA I know I’ve heard before, but don’t know what it’s from. It starts on a note, goes up an octave, then down a minor second. Sounds kinda jazzy, actually.
There are of course very obvious references to Howard Shore’s music in RED DRAGON.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is my favorite Shore score. I still find it better than R.D. for a variety of reasons, but the latter has its own strong points. Its main and end titles to begin with. What’s so touching in this score, however, is Danny’s ability to sort of mimic Shore’s style and blend it with his own. He does so with such talent and respect that it’s all the more awe-inspiring.– Squeezir.
There are so many compositions, composers, and films and so few notes. It can be difficult to avoid making your own piece sound similar to another one which exists already. I have encounterd this several times when I do the score for my animated films. Danny Elfman did NOT plagarise the MArs theme and has never plagarised before (at least it is highly unlikely). Sometimes music sounds similar by coincidence; other times it sounds similar due to deliberate inspiration or subconcious inspiration. Artists encounter this all the time. So give the guy a break, and enjoy his music (but I do applaud your upfront and brave approach. Everyoen learns by questioning things and asking questions).
i don’t know why I’m asking,,,, but did anyone notice danny simply took the theme he wrote for the show Perversions of Science and use it as the main theme of Mars Attacks?
Nope, I’ve never heard that theme, but I recognized the motif[Mars Attacks!] in “Batman Returns”(Birth of a Penguin) and “Nightbreed”(from MFDT). I think it was used some other places, but I’m not sure…..
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.