I must say, however, that no one ever said Goldsmith was "unsuitable" for WONDER BOYS. I believe Mr. InSanDiego (the former Sheriff Joe) pointed out that Christopher Young was chosen most likely because he was younger, and Hollywood remains a youth-oriented culture. I know Chris, and he would be horrified by the suggestion that he was "more suitable" than Goldsmith, whom he venerates. Was Goldsmith even available at the time this movie was being scored? Read again director Curtis Hanson's adulatory liner notes to the score album of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, and note Hanson's opinion of Goldsmith (his final quote compares Goldsmith's conducting baton to a magic wand.) I think I know who was the first choice, and an Oscar-winner like Hanson could have picked any composer he could have gotten. Note also the involvement of Michael Douglas, who specifically picked Goldsmith to score THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS. (Its director Stephen Hopkins, who had previously worked mainly with the estimable Alan Silvestri, liked the results so much, he sought Goldsmith for his next picture LOST IN SPACE, but that fell through for scheduling reasons, and Goldsmith instead referred Bruce Broughton, as he did when schedules forced him to leave TOMBSTONE.)

As for Goldsmith's leaving THE KID, that was probably the smartest thing he could have done. Its director Jon Turteltaub is notoriously tone-deaf as far as movie music is concerned -- Thomas Newman scored his PHENOMENON and all but apologized for the way it came out in at least one interview. As with Oliver Stone on WALL STREET (which I wish Goldsmith HAD stuck with), on THE KID, composer and director could not see eye-to-eye. After such personally disastrous collaborations as ALIEN, LEGEND and GLADIATOR (1992), Goldsmith has obviously lost patience with filmmakers he can't please, no matter what, and prefers to bail rather than bend endlessly and mar the art he does. Marc Shaiman, whose work I sometimes enjoy, and who likes to style himself as "the king of schmaltz," wrote the gloppy score Turteltaub wanted for THE KID -- and received horrendous reviews for it, even in the mainstream press. Goldsmith didn't feel like piling it on that way, is all I can figure. He has reached a level of success and achievement wherein he is able to, and DESERVES to do, simply the work he WANTS to do.

Thank you for voicing your alternative opinions so reasonably…..as you always do. However, it just goes to show how differently two people can interpret a similar set of facts – none of us can help it, our thinking is always coloured by our prejudices.

As far as Goldsmith’s unsuitability for WONDER BOYS is concerned, I believe the subsequent posting at this thread will explain where I am coming from.

I have read Curtis Hanson’s ‘adulatory’ liner notes with the album release of Goldsmith’s score to LA CONFIDENTIAL, and I believe it is such obsequiousness as comparing Goldsmith’s baton to a magic wand that does tend to undermine the value of this filmmaker’s plaudits. Most filmmakers are prone to sycophancy, particularly when bestowing praise upon the people they hired to serve their projects. For this reason I tend to take what the filmmaker has to say with a liberal pinch of salt, and rely on my own judgement, or at least on the opinions of those without a personal interest in the subject at hand.

I agree, Goldsmith has every right to pick and choose his projects if he is able, and if that is the reason he chose to leave THE KID (as it appears to be, by all accounts), I would not criticise him for doing so.

Part I – A DAMNING INDICTMENT

On March 10th 2000, Lukas Kendall gave this explanation for Goldsmith’s non-involvement with Hanson’s latest project.

“…….As for Wonder Boys, the filmmakers decided to go with a more groove-oriented, contemporary approach and decided to hire Christopher Young as a stylistic choice…….”

What other film composer is SO restricted by his outmoded stylistic limitations as is Goldsmith? It’s not as though Christopher Young is a ‘groove specialist’……but he IS a fine, versatile, broad-minded, and accomplished film composer……a composer RELEVANT to his time…..a composer willing to give his movies exactly what they require musically……a composer who embraces CMS.

Part 2 – GOLDSMITH AND STEINER

Part 3 - GOLDSMITH…COMPOSING OR DE-COMPOSING?

Goldsmith’s style of music these days is unbelievably narrow. Rather than preferring a particular ‘type’ of music….such as jazz or classical…..Goldsmith has opted for the featureless wasteland of the unimaginatively deployed orchestra……banal flute-led slush, ponderous acoustic percussion and redundant brass almost its only constituents. This Goldsmith musical character that has emerged since 1992 is like the desiccated remains of a once rich and succulent peach. The smooth richness of the skin, and the bountiful flesh beneath the surface has been removed exposing the lifeless, inflexible and unattractive peach-stone. Yes, Goldsmith’s music has been stripped of it’s glossy veneer and its tender, life-affirming, and emotional substance. All that remains is the dried, sun-bleached stone……the mere musical building blocks. Perhaps though, deep inside the seemingly lifeless peach-stone new LIFE struggles to emerge…..and maybe, deep inside Goldsmith’s heart and mind…..new INSPIRATION struggles to emerge.

Goldsmith’s abilities, rather than continuing to evolve during the 90’s, appear to have degenerated at an alarming rate. The period 93-98, saw Goldsmith manipulate his orchestra as a three year old plays with a set of building blocks. Okay, so Goldsmith may have intended to place building block A in one position and building block C in another…..but no matter, the apparently haphazard building-block fumblings of the three year old, and the apparently planned orchestral manipulations of the veteran composer, amount to the same thing…… creations of childlike simplicity and unimportance. Goldsmith’s baby-music main theme for MR BASEBALL was a mere taster for what was to follow in such humdrum and infantile compositions as his scores to ANGIE, BAD GIRLS, and THE RIVER WILD.

Goldsmith’s musical language has diminished to the equivalent of a vocabulary of just a few dozen words and a half dozen oft-repeated phrases. Where as Williams, Horner and Zimmer’s music speaks to us fluently and intelligently in numerous languages, complete with regional accents and dialects, Goldsmith’s music communicates with the same sophistication and depth as a few Neanderthal grunts and gestures.

Goldsmith’s scores, especially 93-98, are almost completely devoid of imagination and character. A wishy-washy namby-pamby featureless odour clings to Goldsmith’s compositions like perspiration to a bloated hog. Goldsmith’s musical eunuchism is confirmed by his avoidance of any distinctive musical character……his scores consist of flat and uninspired orchestra and the most minimal use of electronics and soloists surely possible. Goldsmith could have composed many of his 90’s scores on a pennywhistle, and then have his orchestrator expand such simplistic material to fit a full orchestra…..that’s what it sounds like. There is such little development and complexity in Goldsmith’s scores since 1992 that one has to question whether these works were composed or are merely the regurgitated and partially digested remains of each score that preceded it…..and with each new score a little more sophistication, character, depth, and complexity was removed and digested in the inspirational gut…..until nothing of musical interest was left to remove. That point was reached with US MARSHALS…..no composition that I have ever heard, for film or otherwise, has been as wretchedly spiritless and pointless as this shameful non-event.

Part 4 – THE ARTLESS GOLDSMITH

At this stage I will state….I LOVE MUSIC, I LOVE MOVIES…..music and movies provide an opportunity to ‘escape’ the mediocrity of the real world….at least for a small portion of the day. However, Goldsmith’s music, especially during the period 1993-98, merely REINFORCES all of the redundant and monotonous aspects of everyday life.

Goldsmith has been remarkable in his CONSISTENCY…..his music, especially 93-98, has been CONSISTENTLY spiritless, sexless, ponderous, banal, pointless, redundant, and uninspired.

I should say that NO music can be boring….it can’t be….such is music’s emotional nature….it’s just some music is more interesting than other music. Goldsmith’s music, especially 93-98, has been about as uninteresting as music CAN be…..no mean feat….as I say, it’s almost as if Goldsmith has TRIED to compose the most dire, simplistic, redundant and moribund music possible…..if that was his aim, he has almost succeeded.

I can’t think of another person connected with the music industry or the film industry, or another single element of the music industry or the film industry, that has been quite so resolutely unintelligent, unflamboyant, listless, tired, and artless as Goldsmith has been over the past decade.

You see…..it doesn’t take much to please me…..I’m a simple sort of fellow. I’ll enjoy REMAINS OF THE DAY….but I’ll also enjoy a Chuck Norris movie…..I’ll enjoy SHADOWLANDS, but I’ll also enjoy THE GLIMMER MAN. Basically, if a movie, or music for that matter, maintains my attention…..I’ll usually enjoy the product….be it a film or symphony….be it good or bad…..just so long as it isn’t boring.

Goldsmith’s film scoring is the only element of music and film that consistently leaves me cold.

Part 5 – THE BRITISH MEDIA….PURVEYORS OF SLEAZE

Subsection A – HOOD-WINKING THE PUBLIC

The UK's censorship rules seem nearly as draconian as those in the US, and equally arbitrary, although in different ways. And at the same time, the UK manages to produce far more daring television than has been possible Stateside until very recently. Japan is the same way. Never been able to reconcile this, myself.

Yes, in my experience, British television, and British movies do come across as more daring. I believe this to be the case because they tend to reflect real life more realistically than American television and cinema. British television and movie productions tend to be earthier, more down-to-Earth, more ‘slice-of-life’, and more authentic in their portrayal of human nature.

I haven’t read "Lies, Damned Lies", but I know of it by reputation. Although I am a great proponent of the ‘free press’, it’s great that the ‘defenders of free speech’ are themselves the subject of scathing comment from time to time…..but that is the beauty of democracy, nobody is above exposure and ridicule.

At the ‘? for PETER K’ I have been attempting to defend Bill Clinton’s position following criticism of his presidency from JJH and John Dunham, and this leads me on to consider the newspapers’ involvement in the various scandals surrounding the former president.

Whether Clinton’s presidency has been a ‘debacle’ or not, you will often find that the journalist is at least as reprehensible as the object of his ‘investigations’.

It is only natural, to my mind, that in today’s free and sophisticated society the journalist is often regarded with disdain, when once he was seen as a public hero….democracy has been won, the free press is not perceived by many to be the sole guardian of justice any longer. The reporter was once a favourite hero of the movies of the Golden Age, and even as recently as ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, the journalist was portrayed as a crusading freedom-fighter. Now things are quite the reverse at the cinema, though Stone’s jaw-droppingly and unintentially hilarious farrago NATURAL BORN KILLERS, an attempt to satirize the media and society’s voyeurism, completely failed in its aims. Indeed, I believe today’s increasingly sophisticated society is increasingly less inclined to voyeurism….but the media seems slow to pick up on this.

Having said all of that, I believe the interfering journalist is a worthwhile price to pay for a free press….though individuals may get hurt, it is for the greater good. Privacy laws are the thin end of a damagingly anti-democratic wedge. If the French press had the freedoms that the British and American press enjoys, then some of their politicians would be exposed for the corrupt, corrupting, and overtly self-serving individuals that they are.

At least we get to hear about corruption in high places (some of it at least). The fear of media exposure is a potent deterrent to the would-be crooked politician. For all of Clinton’s faults, he is an extremely popular leader…..a massive boon to the nation, and to the free world. Any straying from the straight and narrow I see as a simple admission of the human frailties that bedevil even the most powerful man in the world. Clinton is an extraordinary politician, but he is also just a human being, and as such, he has my greatest respect.

Part 5 – THE BRITISH MEDIA….PURVEYORS OF SLEAZE

Subsection B – THE POLITICALLY CORRECT ‘REBEL’

Take an old-fashioned and ultra-conformist, mega-politically correct movie like RED CORNER. A fairly entertaining movie with a typically, and seemingly effortlessly excellent score from the superb Thomas Newman…..rich in colour and CMS. Here, it was the establishment again, the American embassy officials this time, who were just as much slime-balls as the corrupt elements of the Chinese authorities. This tiresomely pseudo-cynical attitude, if it’s anti-establishment it’s cool, is gradually being replaced by a far more mature and broad-minded attitude from film makers these days - an attitude that more accurately reflects society’s ever maturing sensibilities.

Of course, a certain amount of cynicism is a necessary and important element of today’s cinema and society….and SHOULD always be…..but filmmakers are beginning to realize that any ATTEMPT at striking an anti-establishment attitude just for the sake of it, comes across too often as a simple CONTRIVANCE….a TOO obvious attempt to manipulate the audience, and today’s increasingly sophisticated audiences are wise to this….just like they are wise to misplaced media-hype about a movie’s supposed sex and violence content. As I said in Part 5 Subsection A above, how many times have we read newspaper articles promising unprecedented and uncompromising scenes of sex and violence in an upcoming movie in an attempt to sell their newspapers and sell the movie….and then you see the movie…..be it the comical GOODFELLAS or lame SHOWGIRLS…..and you wonder what all the fuss was about.

When will the media realize that the public KNOW that mainstream cinema doesn’t provide titillation (unless you’ve led a very sheltered life). Anyone who has watched NATURAL BORN KILLERS and says they admired it is probably saying that just because everyone else is saying they liked it, because it is SEEN as being ‘cool’…. in actual fact, all these misguided souls are doing is conforming to convention. If people want pornography, they won’t find it at the multiplex, but they can find it with very little effort ‘under the counter’ at their local video rental outlet. If people want sex they just have to drive down City Road (Bristol), stop at some traffic lights and your car (or dustcart) will soon be surrounded by prostitutes. If people want drugs they’ve only got to ask at their local bar or public house. If people want violence they can ‘pick a fight’ in a Bristol public house on a Saturday night. The media seems to think that their entire readership wanders through life pining for titillation and yet unable to satisfy their carnal lustings, when in actual fact, most people have easy access to all of the ‘forbidden vices’, but aren’t that bothered about them anyway.

Subsection C – ’JOURNALISTIC’ NONSENSE

I was just looking at some discarded copies of THE DAILY MIRROR… a formerly left-wing British newspaper…...blowing about the windy alleys of Bristol like ghostly apparitions engaged in a melancholy waltz.

The first one I picked off of the sidewalk……the front page was all about teenage sex……more SUPPOSED titillation for its middle-aged, middle-brow, middle-class, middle-England readership…….and the next copy, I found it trapped in some iron railings outside of the Corn Exchange, was headlined ‘Winslet UNCOVERED’.

And they call this a newspaper?

The secondary headline – ‘I WATCHED MY NEW FILM: OH MY GOD IT’S PORN’.

The paper goes on to say, I quote – “It is by her own admission, a risky career move. And when Kate Winslet went to a screening of her EROTIC new film even she was shocked”.

Later…….”HOLY SMOKE is the story of a cult member and the man sent to save her. But Kate says it was the intensity of the sex scenes rather than the sight of herself walking around naked in the desert that made her blush”.

A little later………”The hardest challenge the Reading-born (Royal Berkshire, England) actress faced, was having to pee while standing naked in front of the film crew”.

Pulllleasssseeeee.

Who do these newspapers think they are kidding?

Anyway, you can read Ebert’s typically reasoned and dispassionate destruction of this tired ‘wannabe-shocking’ ultra-politically correct movie…..a movie that whole-heartedly failed at the box office…..despite the attempted media manipulation of today’s society with promises of titillation….perhaps newspapers, magazines and television will begin to realize that today’s sophisticated society has evolved beyond such infantile reasonings.

Here is an unfortunate viewer’s reaction to watching this movie – “One gets the feeling that the writers' only goal was to shock as many of us viewers as possible in one big swoop down. Walking out of the theater made me feel like a cute, innocent rabbit (Ahem!) who was suddenly been plucked out of some idyllic field by a terrible eagle on it's way to being fed to the eaglets. Oh! And seeing Keitel's be-pimpled butt didn't help much either.”

Another intelligent spectator commented – “What is so sexually attractive about a woman pissing on herself? Is there some kind of smell that attracts men?! Secondly, I don't think I'll ever see a movie with Harvey Keitel in it again. After seeing a few movies of his I now realize that I don't like his acting style. He seems very false, too contrived, and always the same. One of the things about him that really turned me off is a lovey-dovey look he repeatedly gave to Kate Winslet's character. I cringed everytime he did it. It made me want to puke.”

Part 6 – KILLING CINEMA…’STONE’ DEAD

Subsection A – KUBRICK’S MYOPIC WORLD VIEW

Yes, it’s about time Keitel was exposed for the one-dimensional and unconvincing amateur that he is……just like Joe Pesci has already been consigned to the trashcan.

It’s also good to see a more realistic criticism of Kubrick’s work becoming apparent these days. Nothing has dated more than Kubrick’s approach to making movies…..witness the hopelessly outmoded, boring and lame EYES WIDE SHUT. The re-release of that old chestnut A CLOCKWORK ORANGE has ignited a wave of ridicule here in Britain. One critic had this to say……”Because of its unavailability for so long, a lot of people will be curious to see the film, but its view of the future now looks comically dated. Kubrick allows his actors to indulge in melodramatic mugging and cartoonish caricature. In fact, most of it is poorly acted, and Kubrick’s exploitation of Burgess’s material is juvenile and voyeuristic. On seeing this movie thirty years on, it is amusing to ponder the conceit of Kubrick, who is alleged to have withheld release of this film in Britain for fear of inciting copy-cat violence…..ha, ha, ha”….. that’s one of the more favourable reviews.

The same critic had this to say about the tiresome CIDER HOUSE RULES…..”Its nomination for Best Picture shows that the Academy still loves a liberal homily, even if it’s yawn-inducingly dull”.

Not that I am making any case for HOLY SMOKE, which I haven't seen, or CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which has its moments, but which left me absolutely cold, and which is very much a bastardization of novelist Anthony Burgess's intentions.

Yes, the British Press loves to bash the nation’s favourites over the head with a ripe old Sunday morning exposé.

However, I don’t believe that the British Press actively seek to attack British people who find success in the USA. In fact, these days the reverse is true. More than ever, the people of Britain are looking to strengthen the bonds that tie us to our American cousins, fortunately strong constitutional and family links with Canada help to realize this aim.

As with Stone’s snicker-inducing and lamentable NATURAL BORN KILLERS…..today’s cinema audiences know when film makers are making an effort to manipulate them. NATURAL BORN KILLERS’ apparent notoriety was born out of media-hype…..the movie itself is inoffensive and far LESS violent than many other often superior ‘90s movies that have received far less attention. As far as the so-called ‘copy-cat’ killings that this movie allegedly ‘inspired’…..well, if that is the case, it only goes to show just how much this movie failed in its satirical aims. For all of its farcical attempts to shock….surely the point of the movie was to comment on the perceived cynical nature of today’s society…..in this it failed miserably…..not least because such a view of society is fundamentally flawed to start with. Fortunately, this sort of preaching, politically correct and obvious ‘message’ movie is gradually dying a death…..film-makers are beginning to realize that all they are doing is making MOVIES……how can ANYONE take a MOVIE seriously? Especially if that movie, be it A CLOCKWORK ORANGE or NATURAL BORN KILLERS, is so laughable…..and completely divorced from reality anyway.

You see, NATURAL BORN KILLERS can’t have it both ways. It is a supposed, and woefully unsuccessful, satire of today’s society….and attempts to poke fun at the voyeuristic panderings of the media….the purveyors of sleaze…..a fair observation in itself. However…..at the end of the day…..that’s all NATURAL BORN KILLERS itself is doing…..trying to shock and titillate the audience…..because it isn’t clever enough as satire…..thus, the movie shoots itself in the foot.

Movies like NATURAL BORN KILLERS merely highlights just how out of touch much of the media, and some film-makers, are with society’s maturing sensibilities.

What can one say about Oliver Stone? Well, I can best indicate my appreciation of this misguided big-head’s work, by registering 1981’s THE HAND, as my favourite Stone movie to date.

Subsection C – STONE AND KUBRICK….APPEALING TO THE HERD

It would be easy to dismiss film-makers such as Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick as IDIOTS….but patently they are not. Film-makers like Stone and Kubrick….obviously endowed with at least a modicum of talent……..when producing such movies as NATURAL BORN KILLERS or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE are merely taking advantage of the tolerant and comfortable society that THEY live in and that ‘The West’ now enjoys. All this ‘rebellious’ mumbo-jumbo, this anti-establishment bent, this attempt at ‘coolness’, this “satire” on current society is CHEAP point-scoring…..it’s easy to shock (some people)…..but to make a movie that actually POSITIVELY uplifts is the more difficult task (like AS GOOD AS IT GETS)…..I’d love to see the likes of Stone or Kubrick try. What do these film makers want? Are they hankering after some kind of communist regime, complete anarchy, or a fascist state? No…of course they’re not…..under such circumstances they wouldn’t be ALLOWED or able to make their precious little films…..the sort of movies that appeal to all of those hairy pseudo-intellectuals and fashionable “rebels”…..you know, the sort of people who don’t know the meaning of the word hunger, hardship, and state oppression. Film makers like Stone and Kubrick have got their ‘fame’ the EASY way…..let’s see them make a film that BENEFITS society (if such a film is possible), rather than attempting (unsuccessfully) to ‘pull it to bits’.

This is the paradox……society is SO comfortable these days, relatively speaking……that people like Oliver Stone have time to ‘contemplate their navel’, to analyse the hypocritical nature of human nature. In my youth….we didn’t have time for such things…..we just got on with life…..we were more worried about getting food on the table and coal in the hearth…..and you know what, we appreciated the little things in life a lot more. The post-war austerity measures, that lasted well into the 1950’s here in Britain, meant we often slept with empty stomachs. Don’t get me wrong…..I am very pleased that society has progressed as it has done to this day…especially having endured the hardships of the mid-twentieth century myself….that’s why I see movies like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and NATURAL BORN KILLERS for what they are……shallow attempts at audience manipulation. The sad fact is, these movies have succeeded in their UNSPOKEN aims (audience manipulation)……at least in the eras in which they were released. 1994 was only seven years ago…..but fortunately society HAS matured in leaps and bounds since then, and most people TODAY view such movies as NATURAL BORN KILLERS with a wry smile….and an attitude of…..‘Mr Stone and Mr Kubrick……you can’t fool me.’

If they were GOOD films I wouldn’t have any complaints about them. But any success these movies have enjoyed has been based primarily on their notoriety…..not their dismal attempts at satire and social comment. You know how some like to brag…..’I’ve seen NATURAL BORN KILLERS…..cool movie!’…..well, these people are lemmings.

Part 6 – KILLING CINEMA…’STONE’ DEAD

Subsection D – A GHASTLY COLLECTION OF MOVIES

The only Kubrick movie that is a true overall cinematic success (in other words a plain good film), in my opinion, is PATHS OF GLORY….a magnificent all-round cinematic experience. SPARTACUS was okay….but any one of fifty average directors could have accomplished this. LOLITA….was a waste of time….pointless and style-less. DR STRANGELOVE was tedious and boring. 2001 merely provided an empty canvas onto which egg-headed visionaries could dribble their own meaningless gibberish. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is a weak embarrassment, with about as much subtlety, intelligence and flare as a rabid, consumptive, flatulent, and blindfolded hippopotamus with toothache, gallstones, peptic ulcers and an ingrowing toenail staggering through a performance of King Lear. BARRY LYNDON had about as much emotion and spontaneity as a fossilized tree stump. THE SHINING was another complete waste of time…..the movie seemed to go on for days….nice atmosphere, shame about the plot, performances, script, Scatman Crothers and everything else though. FULL METAL JACKET was a textbook piece of Kubrick hollowness. This movie had many of the same qualities as a mirage, except FULL METAL JACKET was less substantial….this was one mirage that everyone was glad to see vanish at the end of two hours. And EYES WIDE SHUT, the pinnacle of crass filmmaking…..a movie as painfully boring as placing your hand in a weak vat of acid and watching your flesh gradually dissolve.

Kubrick’s career has seen a promising beginning followed by a gradual diminution, well more like a plummet, of ability and judgement……of Wellesian proportions.

Subsection E – GENESIS, GOLDSMITH AND STONE

The completely random forces of nature gave birth to mankind, and mankind in turn created a God in his image, and most recently mankind’s sophisticated society allowed the likes of Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick to contaminate cinema with impunity.

Far from there being a ‘grand design’, drawn up by some mythical being, ie in the case of Christians Jehovah, mankind’s emergence on this planet was a complete ‘freak of nature’…..it wasn’t pre-ordained, it just happened. The original ‘higher’ civilizations created ‘Gods’ to give purpose to their lives and meaning to the unknown, the Anglo-Saxon world then seized this mythological weapon and, up until recently, used it to stifle enterprise and to salve his conscious….I mean, any evil, no matter how despicable, is okay so long as it is done in the name of God.

However….despite the bad publicity Christianity has received, its overall effect has actually been quite positive. Though based on the absurd premise that Jehovah appeared amongst mankind as Jesus the Christ, the fundamental articles of the New Testament have formed the moral basis of Western Civilization….though the signing of the Magna Carta was I believe a more tangibly important step down the long road to today’s tolerant and sophisticated ‘Western’ society…..ie the fundamental rights of an Englishman.

During the past fifty years, Western Civilization has reached unprecedented heights of peace, harmony, goodwill and progression….allowing technological advance, social maturity, global harmonization, and above all, man’s ability (through wealth and free time) to examine his own psyche….and his own ‘purpose’. This has given rise to a wave of sophistication and enlightenment, a wave that is gathering strength all the while. In its wake we have seen a rejection of traditional religion….this replaced by a more reasoned, dispassionate, intelligent and ‘common sense’ understanding and respect for mankind’s place in the universe.

Part 6 – KILLING CINEMA…’STONE’ DEAD

Subsection F – NATURE IS ‘EVIL’

Yes….the universe. A big, dark, dead place…save for the tiny specks of matter scattered across the void like a few grains of sand in an ocean of nothingness…and one of those grains of sand is home to mankind.

To explain mankind’s origins in romantic terms one becomes necessarily enmeshed in religious ideals. However, myself, rather than relating to the word of the Old Testament, prefer the ideas of the ancient Babylonians when it comes to the creation. Their fundamental belief, which I find far more compelling, is that the Creator, or God, is basically EVIL, not good.

Christendom’s cherished religious ideals of good winning out over evil in the shape of the good Jehovah overwhelming the powers of Beelzebub, or whatever you want to call him, is fanciful to say the least…..and completely at odds with the evidence provided all around us in the REAL world. Disease, famine, murder, mutilation, perversion….need I go on. No…the Babylonians believed that the Creator was EVIL.

And, in a sense I agree with those sentiments. It is MANKIND who harnesses and triumphs over the EVIL forces of NATURE. Let’s face it, everything is against us…..disease…..man is conquering that….mankind’s base animal instincts….man is taming them….even ageing….mankind will soon cure the greatest of human ills. In other words, the goodness (or rationality) that is in man is triumphing over the evil (or chaos) in nature.

It is in this climate of sophistication, toleration and enlightenment that filmmakers like Stone and Kubrick are allowed to wade in with their size nines. Their feeble attempts to ostensibly create ‘message’ movies, whilst really trying to manipulate the innate voyeuristic tendencies locked away in man’s subconscious, are now met with unrestrained hoots of derision…..though some misguided souls STILL rate these filmmakers as more than just purveyors of miserable humdrumness.

Mankind has CREATED a God, Jehovah, who has been a mere instrument of man’s progression from superstition to enlightenment, and mankind has also created the artificial circumstances in which moviemakers like Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick can thrive…..two of the most pro-Establishment-orientated and conformist men of the 20th century. By attempting to touch the voyeur, they have merely underlined mankind’s weaknesses…..weaknesses that have essentially been overcome….or at least are being overcome…..so Kubrick, rather than being visionary, is at best stating the obvious, and the pity is that SOME people have fallen for this exercise in smoke and mirrors…..this exercise in arch-conservatism.

Part 6 – KILLING CINEMA…’STONE’ DEAD

Subsection G – DR GOLDSMITH AND MR HYDE

So, these small talents, through their own weak and conventional work, epitomise mankind’s weakness….this struggle within man, good versus evil, instinct versus reason, is best illustrated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s brilliant and insightful Dr Jeykll and Mr Hyde.

ALL of the good and ALL of the evil in the WORLD, is within man….within man’s consciousness. The animal kingdom is driven by instinct….dispassionate and without design. Mankind, through self-awareness has recognized, though not yet conquered, the struggle of base animal instinct and intelligent reasoning within each human…..beautifully explored in the tale of the good Dr Jeykll of Victorian London.

Part 6 – KILLING CINEMA…’STONE’ DEAD

Subsection H – THE ROYAL NAVY

I was sat in a pub recently, the Admiral Blake in Bristol, and through serendipity happened upon a particularly ‘misguided’ soul. In the aftermath of the Hartcliffe baby murder…..a young boy murdered a baby here in Bristol….the unfortunate I was talking to was bemoaning the violent and ‘evil’ society in which we live.

To this I registered my utter surprise, amazement, and incredulity. ‘Of course bad things DO happen in society still…but, do you not realize, chum….today’s society is far safer, more prosperous and more tolerant than ever before!’.

His response was ‘how so?’.

‘My friend’….I began. Just two hundred years ago in this very city, historic Bristol, life WAS NOT A BED OF ROSES. Men were press-ganged into the Royal Navy….it was the time of the Napoleonic Wars….in which Britain triumphed over France YET again. This time it was Nelson, the greatest Admiral in history, who trounced the French at Trafalgar. This feat was made even more remarkable since it came just twenty years after the British lost the American colonies in humiliating fashion…though Canada was a more than satisfactory compensation.

The press-gang was feared like nothing else, even bride-grooms were herded onto ships on their wedding night….that was the extent of STATE brutality at that time. Life on board a Royal Navy vessel in Georgian times was pure HELL. Clothes had to be washed in one’s own urine, rats were a mainstay of the menu, biscuits were eaten complete with writhing maggots, and that great British invention….the cat o’ nine tales…..ensured that many British seamen poured forth a soup of flesh and blood from their mutilated backs.

Whistling was disallowed amongst the Royal Navy. Only the cook was allowed to whistle….and then only to satisfy the crew members that the habitually tobacco chewing cook wasn’t spitting his bile into the main course.

Many household phrases were derived from the British Royal Navy. ‘A square meal’ from the square plates the crewmen ate off of, ‘learn the ropes’ from the need to understand the purpose of every piece of rigging on a British ship, ‘slush fund’ from the fatty excess the cook would secrete unbeknown to the crew, and which he would sell to candle-makers and fish and chip shops on return to port……to name but a very few common-usage phrases.

Even the American reference to the British as Limeys, came from the Royal Navy’s use of lime-juice to combat scurvy.

So, life back in the early 1800’s was hellish…..even boatswains could be beaten up by the crew on return to port with ‘establishment’ blessing….the British authorities felt that the navy was no place for wimps.

The strict discipline onboard ship within the Royal Navy WAS necessary though…..times were different then. Today, people, with food in their stomachs and money in the bank, are far more inclined to do a fair days work of their own volition and far more likely to conform to society’s laws than the men of Georgian times…..when a single penny could mean the difference between life and death….such was the poverty experienced by MOST Englishman…..even when the British Empire was flourishing…in 1805 covering 26 per cent of the world’s landmass….the greatest empire the world has ever known. Indeed, the ‘establishment’ itself in Georgian times was corrupt and unfair….AND PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT TODAY’S GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY.

Part 7 – ’PATRIOT’ GAMES

Patriotism is the last refuge of the guy who made GODZILLA….

Thank heavens the likes of Emmerich made THE PATRIOT…..the thought of someone like Stone making an American War of Independence movie is frightening…..not only would he have probably cast Al Pacino in the Gibson part (complete with ‘Brooklyn Dog Warden and part-time member of the local glee club’ accent and attitude) and have the British portrayed as cannibalistic mutants…..but SOME people…..you know, the sadly misguided pseudo-intellectual lemmings…..would have believed it, or at least would have excused any historical contrivances as ‘artistic license’……however, the words artistic and Stone don’t really share the same universe.

As it is, it’s only Emmerich and Devlin…..fairly good film-makers…..but men that don’t receive the blind adulation and perpetual genuflecting from CERTAIN pseudo-intellectual elements of society. No, Emmerich can distort history as much as he likes, but no-one will care….as long as the movie’s entertaining. Stone would probably try and rewrite the history books. What was it Gibson stated at the start of BRAVEHEART……something like……’history is not written by men who die at the hands of the oppressor’…..an amusingly desperate attempt to give his movie some sort of historical credence. BRAVEHEART was a complete fairy-tale….though a fun movie.

LAST OF THE MOHICANS wasn’t so much historically inaccurate in what it portrayed, more in what it omitted…..and was a stiff, dull and tame movie. In THE PATRIOT, the historical inaccuracies come thick and fast……and I’ve read, I don’t know how many times, that THE PATRIOT is the story of a nation’s freedom from British tyranny…….which is of course absolute nonsense. The British weren’t tyrannical…..the king, parliament, the British army and the British people weren’t tyrannical….and anyway, the majority of the American colonists at that time were of British extraction. The trouble is people believe this ‘British tyranny’ propaganda….even now, here in Britain…..just like SOME of the American colonists did at the time.

George III was a reasonably good king, driven to insanity (after American independence had been achieved) partly due to the heartfelt loss of America. Following the fourth French and Indian War in 1763, Britain HAD to tax the British American colonists…..unfortunately the whole situation was poorly handled by the British authorities and the conflict began…….but, at first, the British American colonies did not even contemplate or desire INDEPENDENCE from ‘mother England’. To illustrate this, the first version of the ‘American’ flag, that was advocated by George Washington, did have the stripes representing the original 13 British colonies (that remains on today’s star spangled banner), but instead of stars, the union jack (in its 1775 form) was to be found at top left. This was another indication that right up to the ‘Declaration of Independence’, the majority of the British American colonists did not desire a complete spilt from England. However, Britain went TOO far in its attempts to stifle its American colonies, and paid the price on July 4th 1776.

I’m thoroughly looking forward to THE PATRIOT…..and it’s been interesting seeing how people react to the story it tells. Whatever….because it is Emmerich, the movie hasn’t been taken seriously…..however, if it was someone like Stone….no matter how bad, or historically inaccurate the movie….it probably would have been hailed as a profound cinematic event…..and without a doubt, ‘FASHIONABLY and CONVENTIONALLY controversial’.

Now, let’s get back to Goldsmith….a film composer whose projects are relentlessly lame and tame.

Many people have in the past registered their belief that I HATE Goldsmith’s music…..this is definitely not the case. Much of Goldsmith’s work prior to 1993 I believe to be very good. However, since that time, Goldsmith’s music has been so devoid of substance and character that it is almost impossible to relate to his music on any emotional level. Thus, it is almost impossible to hate, love, despise, adore, like, or dislike Goldsmith’s work from the period 93-98. Having said that, when the music is heard in its proper context, within its intended element…..the film itself…..it is then that the music naturally takes on some substance…..though this has little to do with Goldsmith and more to do with the images adding to the music….surely the wrong way round…..the music should be there to enhance the movie.

At best, during the period 93-98, Goldsmith’s music does little to enhance his movies…..there are exceptions….individual cues and scores (such as EXECUTIVE DECISION) are fairly effective. So, Goldsmith’s music is usually anonymous and harmless. However, there are occasions where his music does become distracting and intrusive…..US MARSHALS for instance. Here, the dull, noisy, clunky, outmoded, and frankly risible nature of Goldsmith’s musical ‘creation’ is impossible to ignore…..no matter how hard one tries. On viewing this movie Christmas ’99 (on video), one of my sisters described the movie as ‘lame, but okay’, and Goldsmith’s score as ‘lousy and naff’. This sentiment was echoed by her children, one of whom went on to say, I quote, “Jerry Goldsmith is PANTS!”.

The great thing about the Zimmer School is the fact that numerous creative talents work in harmony. Of course, many fine film composers work alone….and if that is what they prefer, who is to argue? However, it has become apparent over the years that Goldsmith dominates ALL aspects of his scoring assignments. Okay, if that’s what he prefers to do….that’s his choice. To me though, this helps explain exactly why Goldsmith’s music is SO out of touch with today’s society and almost completely lacking in CMS. Zimmer and his co-composers, multiple orchestrators, arrangers and conductors are often pooling their talent….I’m sure this sometimes leads to creative differences…..but that’s fine…..in the end the Media Ventures scores are usually spot-on and adroit. With Goldsmith it appears to be a case of complete domination…..though I’m sure Goldsmith, like any reasonable man, is open to suggestions. I DO actually admire this apparent quality in Goldsmith….this strong-willed determination to be honest with his own compositional sensibilities…..however, I think in the end he is losing out….the movies are losing out….and we, the audience are losing out. Apparently Goldsmith regards his orchestrator quite differently to how Zimmer regards his orchestrators. It strikes me that with a Zimmer, or any MV score, the music is always being checked and double-checked, the chief composer or originator of the thematic material is then blessed with advice from numerous other disparate talents…..thus, the finished product is a combined effort….a pooling of resource…..and therefore is much more likely to succeed as dramatic score AND is much more likely to appeal to society through the skilful application of contemporary musical sensibilities (CMS). Goldsmith however, doesn’t appear to have, or even to welcome, external input. External influences to him may appear hostile…..and I admire him for his artistic honesty…..but I think his film scoring suffers….and suffers horribly. You see, surely someone should have pointed out to Goldsmith, or advised him, that his work on US MARSHALS was so unappealing, or his theme to ANGIE was dismal, or his score to BAD GIRLS was puerile, or his music to FIRST KNIGHT was downright bland, or his work on CITY HALL and LA CONFIDENTIAL was TOO similar to Leonard Bernstein…..or if someone had just said….’hey, Jerry….that’s a great theme for RUDY, let’s see how we can put it to GOOD use’. Maybe someone did say something, maybe he chose to ignore any advice. Whatever, he DID score these pictures, his music wasn’t rejected, he earned his cash and some of these movies actually made money….so who am I to complain? BUT….what might have been?

EDIT FROM HERE ON...

Having toured the dark archives of this board, scorereviews.com and filmscoremonthly.com, I am beginning to get a very strong impression of who the poster was, what happened to him, and why I don't believe I'll be opening any emails from him. What an extraordinary ... personality.

More Daniel2 that I an recall:

He would hack into message boards, delete posts, mess with it and screw the whole thing up and FSM (I don't recall the number of times mm has dealt with it) has had to strengthen their security and block him several times, but he keeps getting back in.

D2 has used several identities on a number of boards and may even still be here today.

His posts usually consits of SEVERAL paragraphs worth of speech and British rederic.

This guy was boresome on several boards.