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The narration/animation thing was interesting. Between that, NMBC and PROUD IZA, Elfman really has his “narrator” CV nailed down.
What he was doing at a friggin’ Billy Ray Cyrus concert, I don’t know.
I certainly think Elfman knows his way around a synth, and would have loved to see him do more work exclusively in that format. I think WISDOM is bloody brilliant, a cross between Jean Michel Jarre in his ZOOLOOK mode and the early Boingo stuff. And the main titles with John Wisdom in the bathtub has a definite Tangerine Dream vibe a la RISKY BUSINESS.
Yeah, I noticed that too. It’s pretty cool. It’s one of many signature elements which makes him the auteur that he is.
rkeaveney Wrote:
> >
> That’s Avril Lavigne (left, black dress), Mali
> Elfman (over Danny’s shoulder), Lili Fini Zanuck
> (white shall) and Richard Zanuck.
>
>Ha, ha…you’re right. How could I not recognize Lavigne?! I knew there was something familiar with her, though. By the way, your pic doesn’t show up.
Check out the video from the London premiere tonight:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5000187
Fastforward to 00:57:40 and then again at 00:58:50 to see a rather uncomfortable Elfman waiting for things to start. Are those his two daughters standing next to and behind him?
Curiously, the video ends BEFORE the royal party arrives. That’s a bit strange.
Descent Into Mystery Wrote:
> I’m not familiar with that actor
>
> You’ve never seen American Pie, The Rundown, or
> Role Models?Nope. Well, I THINK I may have seen AMERICAN PIE once, but I’ve pretty much forgotten everything about it, except the having-sex-with-a-pie scene.
I’m not familiar with that actor, but I remember having seen that face before.
That said, he certainly has a high opinion of his singing abilities (unless he’s being ironical)!
TenderLumpling Wrote:
> Yeah, but those scores have more than just 13
> minutes of the same 2 bars of music.Well, if it’s the repetitive aspect you don’t like, what about the minimalist music by Glass, Nyman et.al.?
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN called for a) a SMALL amount of music, since the relationship between the two speaks for itself and becomes more ambivalent without musical guidance and b) just that gentle guitar solo to insinuate the gentle, slightly melancholic relationship as put against an outdoors/playing-guitar-by-the-fire type of mood.
I thought it was absolutely perfect and a very deserved winner.
TenderLumpling Wrote:
A score just serving a film, without any variety
> or variance, should not be enough to win an
> academy award. That isn’t the criteria for any
> other aspect of filmmaking — to just solely be
> effective and that’s it.That’s one strange argument if I’ve ever seen one. Of course, you may have a more ambient, textural score with minimal melody and/or instruments that lifts the film to higher quality – TERMINATOR 2, CRASH (Isham’s version), BLADE RUNNER, SOLARIS (Martinez), ERASERHEAD, MOON and so on. It all depends on the type of movie and what they want to say with it. Thankfully, music is more than orchestral or thematic music, nice as that may be.
TenderLumpling Wrote:
> A score shouldn’t solely be effective. The music
> should also be good.I don’t think there’s any set “rules” about that. Not all film music needs to get the approvement stamp of the music critics. Film music that is more sound design, for example, is no less music than other expressions. Full-blown orchestral music isn’t inherently better than solo guitar music just because it uses more intstruments. Besides, “good” is in the eye of the beholder anyway.
> Do you really think that the music parodies are
> really a compliment to the music itself, or a
> comedic way to invoke the movie Brokeback
> Mountain?The music is intriniscally tied to the film, and is obviously used in other settings to reference that film. Just as other kinds of film music used in other contexts are used to reference THOSE films. The Indiana Jones theme in FAMILY GUY, for example. But it says something about its place in popular culture when it has been referenced that often. Also, it was quite influential in terms of approaching serious drama with minimal musical expressions.
In this case, I agree with Lumpling. It’s just a common figure, not a COMPOSITION. It would be like saying one blues song is a copy of another simply because it uses the same blues scale as basis.
TenderLumpling Wrote:
> It’s like the old argument, isn’t it? “When a
> soundtrack is used in a good movie, all
> traditional film score negatives become
> positives!”Uhm, what? I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.
> You might be right, but personally, I have never
> heard that music parodied anywhere. However, on
> Mad TV, I’ve heard Elfman’s music parodied with
> “Gay Hulk,” funny enough.Well, then you haven’t seen much TV – from talk shows to comedy shows, both in the US and internationally. Not to mention the occasional nod in film parodies. Do a search on youtube and look for yourself.
TenderLumpling Wrote:
> Hey! I can strum 2 bars of music on an acoustic
> guitar… give me an Oscar! The score is 13
> minutes long and the theme is still repetitive.It’s like that old Columbus criticism, isn’t it? “Hey, anyone can discover America. Just give me a boat”. The point is not how simple or not the music is. First of all, musical quality isn’t decided by complexity alone or by how many instruments you use. Second, this is not the Grammys. It’s the Oscars. The question is only how it WORKED in context with the film, and in this case it became the soul and heart of it. It was exactly the simplicity AND repetitive nature that made it so good.
> Quite a short-lived phenomenon, I would say.
Not really. It popped up (and still do) in parodies, tributes, satires, anything about gay stuff in unusual surroundings. It’s a cornerstone soundtrack, whatever you personally feel about it.
As for BABEL, that was even more brilliant in its musical (and sound) use, but I can understand the criticism more here because much of the music was composed beforehand and consequently not as original as the award says it should be.
TenderLumpling Wrote:
> …as for the best… who knows.
>
> Well, the best scores are determined by the
> Academy, and they gave the Oscar to Brokeback
> Mountain, which, obviously, is the best score of
> that year.
>
> I really love Deep Sea 3D, X-Men 3, Soul of the
> Ultimate Nation, and The Good German.Actually, yes, I can think of few other scores that year that were as fitting for the film as BROKEBACK and that become such a phenomenon in pop culture afterwards. One of the most deserving Oscars in recent years.
sajrocks Wrote:
> “The Wolfman …is however only one of several
> examples of party trips that sits loosely in
> nervous motion.”
>
> Well said, er, Google translated!
>
> sajLOL! I noticed that too. It’s one of my favourite Google translations ever, almost “signature”-worthy!
What that sentence really says is, “However, THE WOLFMAN is but one of several examples of scores that sits loosely with nervous film companies”. Or something like that. It’s a sentence that doesn’t translate very well from Norwegian.
This is preposterous!! Haslinger out, that hack Elfman in?? And here I was thinking they finally got their act together and threw that damn Danny “Ompa Lompa” music outta there, and then….
…oh sorry, thought I was at the Haslinger messageboard for a minute.
True, but you could just make a very ambitious, low-fi project with strong artistic ambitions. Elfman has been known to take such assignments on occasion, with a low fee and sometimes hardly anything at all.
No, I would obviously not give him free reign. I would try – in as laymen terms as possible – to communicate my ideas, feelings and intentions for the scene and film in general, and only THEN let him run with it. LIke most directors, I guess.
I’m quite indifferent to this, to be honest. SPIDERMAN was never really my thang in the first place. Good entertainment, that’s about it. If they’ll go with a Zimmer approach, that’s fine by me. I like Zimmer.
The whole counting down thing is a bit odd to me, so here are my top 10, from most favourite to 10th favourite:
1. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
2. S.O.P.
3. PLANET OF THE APES
4. SERENADA SCHIZOPHRANA
5. BIG FISH
6. THE KINGDOM
7. FAMILY MAN
8. THE CORPSE BRIDE
9. MILK
10. TAKING WOODSTOCK…or something like that.
Yes, I’m not denying there were elements of “something to come” in the mentioned scores during the mid 90’s, but it was really M:I that was THE consistent break from start to finish; especially regarding the whole contrapuntal writing wherein he “messes up” the homophony by juxtaposing two constrasting melodic lines and all kinds of harsh harmonies and dissonance, which would be one of the main trademarks of his style to this day.
Descent Into Mystery Wrote:
In 1995, Elfman
> celebrated his 10th anniversary by composing three
> movies that would signal a change in his style:
> “Dolores Claiborne”, “To Die For”, and “Dead
> Presidents”.Well, that’s somewhat of a subjective assessment. I personally put MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE as THE defining moment in his change of style, even though there were hints of it in stuff like DOLORES too. M:I just seemed like the first score that was almost through-the-core radical compared to much of his earlier output.
Still, thanks for pointing out the anniversaries. There’s always an anniversary.
