There is nothing wrong with the flute sound per se. In Japanese works, especially when combined with koto, the flute sound is actually quite beautiful.

However, in the context of film music, the appearance of the sound has taken on certain associations. That's understandable because alot of film music works on that basis: a certain sound or tempo automatically communicating an certain idea to the audience.

At first the flute sound simply meant ethnic color. Maurice Jarre uses it in Shogun to indicate "This is Japan" though he also tried to use it dramatically. When Graeme Revell used it in Until The End of the World it still meant Japan but, helped by the fact it's made of wood or bamboo, it represented the peace of natural surroundings that the flute music was probably meant to evoke originally. When played away from Japanese settings it still presents this attitude of beauty. But the sound has also evolved since then to communicate a kind of interior readiness for battle, a thoughtfulness or even magical mental power of will on the part of a character before he acts. It also references a less modern era so it's used to communicate primitivism as well. You might attribute this to Horner (or maybe Zimmer in Black Rain) but I'd go back to Japanese films scored by Takemitsu to hear the flute used with this reference to begin with.

In any case, a lot of complex signifiers get dumped on a few flute sounds. It's almost like everytime the flute accompanies a scene it takes on a new meaning. Two men are about to fight or a couple is in bed or what have you, the flute comes in to indicate a kind of interiority or beauty or spirituality. But it's not the associations per se that I dislike so much. It's that the sound has become such a crutch, so over used, that the appearance of the flute has become more like a sound effect and a gimmick instead of real music. Overuse has worn it out. It's become the equivalent of the sting impact or mickey-mousing. The sound has lost all the power it ever had even if it still easily gets across the same message to the public. So in my opinion, it's time to get past using it and communicate the same ideas by innovating yet a new form and sound.

NP> Hans ZImmer's The DaVinci Code (****1/2 /*****)

quote:

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Originally posted by sean:
Dinko, do you like the guitars, too, in The Perfect Storm?

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjhackman:
Lou Goldberg after reading your last post a few lines up and actually quite scaried. I mean if Horner ever read this, he may want to really think about getting some sort of restraining order against you. You are SO harsh against him. I do NOT like John Powell. I think his scores are ALL the same, drum techo beats with NO melodies to speak of and it doesn't help he is scoring nearly ever other picture that comes out of Hollywood, but there are those that do like him and thats great. I'm not about to tell those people you MUST change and your opinions are wrong. What I do is, it makes me look at his music for a 2nd or 3rd time around to see if I can see/hear what they hear. Your true hatred for this man is quite scary and very not natural. Bin Laden has a deep hatred for us the Americans and you have a true hatred for James Horner, there is some correlation there yes.

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Couldn't agree more. When you get a chance read my viper-like attacks at Lou.

NP: The DaVinci Code (HZ) *****/*****

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But for someone who knows the humanities well or knows the sciences well to look at you and say you come up short is very hard for most people to take and so they've revolted against this and diluted the importance of standards altogether. In order that no one's feelings get hurt, today, all opinions are relative and equal and valid and become matters of subjective taste and freedom to like what you like. Everyone gets to feel protected at whatever level of education they reach and it's the most destructive thing to hit education since we started to teach people.

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This might well be the "truest truth" I've ever heard. I agree with every word Lou said in his past two posts, and it's great to see someone writing about and backing up uncomfortable truths.

Now maybe I should have written a little more about my Horner- experience. It's not like I've only listened to Braveheart and Titanic and called it a day. I've tried everything, from Aliens over Star Trek II over Land Before Time over Willow over Braveheart over Titanic over Troy to The New World.

But for the record, as much as it would give me pleasure, I'm not a stalking nutjob who is going to do a UK Danny Gonzales and attack any man, Horner or otherwise, physically in person. Horner has nothing to worry about in that regard.

That said, I do hate his music with an intense passion. While a James Horner score is not literally criminal, it is artistically and morally criminal in my eyes. I feel I'm justified in holding this position and that it does not need to be tempered or diluted. You may consider my position scary and un-natural however I do not. And compared with the guys who tore up the seats at those Antheil concerts in the 20s, I consider my approach quite mellow. That said, Horner earns my utter contempt and I care about art too much to be restrained in what I say about him.

You write, "Well there are those who like him and that's great." Well, I write, "No, it isn't, there's nothing great about it." You may not be about to tell those people they must change and their opinions are wrong but I'm not above that.

If you're a nimrod, you're a nimrod. If you walk the streets in the Emperor's New Clothes, someone is going to step up and say you're naked. People do it to me all the time. I do it to Horner every chance I get.

Sean agrees with you and is proud of his attacks on me. Well, I opened my mouth so I asked for it. I can't write inflammatory stuff and feel bad if people try to beat my head in over it, that comes with the territory. Likewise, Horner opens his mouth and out comes the worst sounds to ever accompany celluloid. He shouldn't think he can do that with out getting scathing criticism either.

As for attacking Horner's followers, think of it this way. Hitler was the speaker but we went out and had to kill a lot of troops serving under him who weren't Hitler. If you're going to support Horner, you're just a storm-trooper and should expect the same criticism I give Horner.

Of course, I mean this in a metaphorical and not actual sense. Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot Horner fans as if they were Nazis (though it would be nice if the US Government declared war on Horner-terrorism so I could).

What a great metaphor. Horner scores are the 911 planes attacking the World Trade Center of Cinema and are a fundamentalist terrorist attack on the culture of Western Civilization. Horner is the Bin Laden of film composers.

But why bother going on here swatting flies. I've got better things to do than play exterminator or try to awaken the comatose.

So enough. All you Horner-lovers can go hold hands, sing Cumbaya, and watch Flightplan together. I'm going back to Rozsa-land, a land flowing with milk & honey with good clean alpine air and a flawless perfection unheard of in the caverns of the Horner-Morlocks.

gkgyver-Thanks for the support. At least someone here is reading my lengthy posts through to their ends and thinking about them. And, even if you should not agree with me, you're mulling over what I'm talking about. That in itself makes the hours I spend typing the text worth the effort.

And you are right about knowing the roots, the range, the canon. I try very hard to keep up on the amount of art I want to experience. But it's impossible. I'd need 40 lifetimes to read all the books, see all the films, and listen to all the music I have on my own shelves alone. But I try, though I wouldn't call it effort or work or struggle since I like doing it. I just saw Open Water today. I'll probably see another film tomorrow. Sean accused me of not being in the position to criticize Horner because I'd heard half a score and walked away. But as both you and I have said, we've listened to a lot of Horner before making an assessment. It's an educated opinion based on a wide range and a lot of examples. When Sean actually hears some Korngold, hates it, and explains why he does (as best as can be articulated) that's when he'll get a little more respect from me because he stretched himself like Stargate is trying to do even if I still have to disagree with him and still disrespect him for not liking what I like.

I'm picking out this particular aspect of Horner's sound because I really want to understand why you hate him so much (or rather his sound, because I doubt you have anything against him, personally). You have given some reasons throughout the thread, but for the most part it has been - to be honest - a lot of hyperbole.

Now, you say that it's not the associations that the flute conjures up that you have any problems with, but the fact that it is overused or used as some sort of Pavlov's dog. But isn't this is a crucial aspect of film scoring? To rely on instrumental conventions to get the point across to an audience? Isn't this also what Rozsa, Herrmann and all the other greats relied on in their time? Remember: music is non-representative. It often has to RELY on clichées to add meaning to a visual. Especially in classical Hollywood films.

When that is said, I do believe Horner has used the instrument to convey other things than "interiority" or "spirituality". It's just a part of his soundscape; his pallette, if you will.

But you're only confirming what I was saying earlier. We meet on a ground of respect because we share tastes (in this case, the French New Wave) and this opposes us to others who don't share those tastes. We can respect our differences with them or not respect our differences with them, we can try to solve our conflict with them through violence or through more civil means like logical argument, but in the end, common ground creates an easy instant respect that uncommon ground does not.

People abhor violence but it does solve conflicts. If one guy is beaten up or dead, there's no more conflict. If Horner stops composing, my conflict with him ends. If I keel over dead, I'm no longer there to fight him.

If I were a more confident shot, I might say sure, let's settle this in an Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton sort of way. However, neither Sean or Horner are so important to me that I'd wager my life to off them. I hate Horner but I don't hate him THAT much. Art's important but I don't do anything more about it than yell at people about it from a safe distance. I'm not much of a soldier.

But obviously, there have been conflicts down through history involving art, politics, women, or what have you, where those become the stakes. I hate you enough and have to see you stopped enough that I'll risk my own neck to kill you and end the conflict. The arena: two go in, one comes out.

And don't say you don't love violent conflict since that and sex is pretty much what most movies boil down to.

Thor-Well, I don't have to back up my statements. I could have just said the shakuhachi sucks and walked away, much to your consternation & bewilderment.

I'm trying honestly to articulate why I dislike Horner so much but I'm having problems doing so. Obviously, listening to the music alone doesn't make it as self-evident to others as it does to me (in some cases, the opposite happens). And my attempts to explain keep coming back to examples of my actual experience (which aren't really logical arguments). But if my animus is directed at Horner above all, it's because no other composer has given me the bad experiences he has. I've seen a fair number of films with weak or bad scores that I've been able to live with but a film scored by Horner in 90% of the cases will be a film where the music will annoy me while watching the film in such a way that it ruins the entire experience for me. What specifically Horner does to bring about this reaction is hard to discuss but easy to point out. "Hear that? That phrase calls attention to itself. That approach is wrong for this scene. That cue is too bland. What is it getting across? Nothing."

That same experience carries over to the soundtrack albums where I'll put even the best Horner discs on and find myself cringing or yawning and forwarding to the next track before the current one has ended.

I don't know Horner personally but he looks like a little runt & I've heard stories that he has an even bigger egotism than I do (the car-parking incident for example), so my guess is, if I did meet him, I wouldn't like him any more in person than I like his music.

I have to differ with you: there has been some fun hyperbole in my posts but my posts haven't been mostly hyperbole with little or no legitimate content. I have been dealing honestly with two related issues, criticizing Horner and defending the right to make value judgments against both Horner and those who like him.

As for the flute, it might be an element of Horner's sound but it's now an element of a lot of people's sound. Zimmer uses it in The Last Samurai (which you were just playing) in one of the manners I describe.

To clarify, I do have some problems with the associations that the flute sound has taken on, because that leads to a tendency to use and hear the music in a certain context. Like everytime a film does this kind of scene you can probably expect to hear the flute. It's an easily communicator but it becomes cliche.

Now if you go back to my earlier post on the flute you'll see I did say that a musical form or convention that is developed and used as a sign/symbol that audiences can quickly interpret into a specific meaning is a key aspect of how film music works. One of the basic ideas of classical Hollywood form is that film music has to be grasped easily to an audience hearing it for the first time. So it obviously relies on this practice.

But we all know that certain tropes can become dated.

Let's take an example I hope you're familiar with, Amfitheatrof's score to Major Dundee. In the film, everytime we see the Apache leader Sierra Cherriba and everytime his name is mentioned, Amfitheatrof chimed in with this 3-note electronic motif: Ching-Chang-Chung. OK, it was a gimmick and I'm not sure it even expresses all that much of significance, but there it is. I didn't mind it. However, there are some who just hate it. It becomes such an irritant that it ruins the film for them and it's one of the reasons why the expanded version of the film was re-scored.

Now imagine if in every Hollywood film for the last 5 years everytime the antagonist showed up or his name was mentioned you had to hear Amfitheatrof's ching-chang-chung motif from Major Dundee? One film after another, the bad guy shows up, ching-chang-chung. You'd go crazy.

Well that's how I feel about that "damned Jap flute." No matter what it's meant to communicate (and that has some range depending on its use), the diminishing returns have set in and its time to move on to something else. A few films more and I'll be saying the same thing about Yo-Yo Ma cello solos.

Look, a lot of forms that Hollywood used in the past as communicative tools no longer fly in modern films. Even if I think some forms are still potent and never should have been abandoned, i.e., Cinerama, 3-strip Technicolor, a Golden Age film music sound, they have been abandoned because current audiences reject them.

If I took a modern release like say MI3 and tracked in Korngold or Tiomkin under it, or if a modern composer scored it in an "old-fashioned way" complete with 100-piece strings underneath the kiss, it would create such a cognitive dissonance in the audience that they'd be walking around like the people at the end of Alphaville. Or they'd just laugh. Well the shakawhatsis (no matter how much you like it) is starting to work in the same manner as the ching-chang-chung and should go the way of the dodo.

Pallette! Is that how it's spelled? I wondered about that when I wanted to write it earlier. My own education sucked. I can't spell half the words in my own language.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
BMJ-Thanks. Yeah, Sean is just a punk kid. And a Canadian too. I always said we should have invaded them.

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Too late now. Currently you're in no position to invade anyone... not even Canada.

It's OK that you don't like Horner's style or sound. That's a preference. I, for example, have problems with John Barry's approach to film music and general "sound". However, I respect him and his position in film history.

You mentioned a professor earlier, and her experiences with teaching students how to write theses. I am in a similar position myself. I find that my student tutoring limits itself to tips on structure and polemic rather than contents. I warn them of the danger in forwarding statements in a rash subjective polemic without losing sight of rationality. In other words: It's OK to be passionate about something, but in order to have a convincing case, you must prepare yourself for detailed scrutiny.

Granted, we're not writing academic theses here (although some would probably label your posts that way, Lou! ), but the same argument applies. If you're not able to pinpoint EXACTLY what your problem is (with Horner, the shakuhachi, whatever) in a rational manner, then people can easily construe your posts as being either the result of a mischievous agenda or the result of "heat of the moment" feelings. Hence hyperbole.

Prejudice is another thing I warn people of (in theses and in any walk of life). You haven't met Horner, Lou. He can be sweet as a pie.

Now, I agree with you that certain clichées wear out their welcome (be they instrumental, harmonic, thematic, whatever). They go BEYOND being a simple sign and just become a verfremdungs-effect. The shakuhachi does that to you. The wailing woman does that to many others. For me, neither are a problem. Point is, though, that the flute is no longer tied to any specific meaning in Horner's scores. It's an orchestrational COLOUR (hence the palette analogy). It's what DEFINES part of the "Horner Sound", like it or not. But it's certainly idiosyncratic.

Anyway, I agree with your assessment of today's educational standards. I'm a student at a university (no ivy league) and I can safely attest to the... uhm, "lack of intelligence" of some of my peers. The first question to be asked after an exam is "was there a curve" because half the class did so poorly. It's not just students either... "education" has become such a burden and it doesn't motivate or inspire (at least for me). It's not about what you know or can do, it's about what degree you have and which jobs you can get with it. School doesn't even scratch the surface when it comes to the real world. I wish, at the very least, this country's public school system would start teaching kids about how to use a credit card.

People have gotten a bit lazy and careless. It's all about presenting yourself as not to "offend" anyone. If so and so is too stupid to have high standards then you shouldn't either. While I wouldn't physically attack anyone, I do wish people would stand up for themselves. And this can be done in a non-snobbish way. There's a difference between being a snob and being sharp. Sharp people know how to get their point across... to their peers and to people they clearly out-class. (I'm not implying that anyone here is a full-blown snob, though.)

Moving back on topic, I don't hate or have any problem with scores from different eras. Like I said before, I just haven't explored it deeply enough. I listened to Goldsmith's Masada and loved it. I also don't have any problem with your dislike (or hatred... not sure about that) of Horner. We all have something we don't like and we all generally look down upon those that do like it. I must admit, I look down on those who don't listen to film music and can't even imagine what they're missing out on.

Now, you gave some specific examples of why you do not like Horner. [Just FYI, I haven't read (or don't recollect) your past posts about him.] You could have valid points here but I haven't seen those films. I'm not a big movie buff. However, does Horner display no strengths even when his music is not superimposed over a movie? For example, I think "Ride of the Firemares" from Krull is a good track (I've never seen the movie). What is it about that track that you do not like? Don't think about the movie. Just the music. I may have no taste when it comes to this in your eyes... I'm just trying to understand your position here.

I'm not saying Horner, or even any other film composer, is a genius. I wouldn't know what musical genius was if it bit me in the ass. I just know what I like and what can fulfill me personally. In part, Horner can do that. But keep in mind, Rozsa, Goldsmith, Williams, and a slew of other composers can do that as well. Here's an example. Aliens was one of my favorite sci-fi movies when I was growing up. Horner's "Futile Escape" brings back the essence of that movie to me. Going beyond that, I find myself enjoying the scores to films I've never even heard of.

As for the French New Wave directors, I've seen their films, but I just never responded to it the way you two apparently did and maybe still do. There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever, and I've never denied the influence those filmmakers have had on the many directors that followed, good or bad. And god, you're writing about me dying: screw you, BMikeJ.

For the record, while I have praised certain works and slammed others, I've never started a topic like "Isn't Bernard Herrmann the greatest composer ever??" and expected a love fest to follow.

The Professor I know isn't dealing with issues of structure and polemics. She's dealing with basic syntax. Ok, people who've gotten into college who cannot put a coherent paper together. Who could not write the post you just did that I'm replying to.

As much as I respect a solid basis in language, logic, rhetoric, and persuasion, I'm not deeply interested in convincing other people of my positions. I'll try at times but it's often just enough for me to state my opinions in boldface without all the supports and civility.

I mean, there's something positive to be said about rash irrational subjective polemic. It's fun to do. Why? Because it comes from the Id. Instead of following the rules of debate, you just poop on it (as Triumph the low-brow comic dog is so often fond of saying). It's a scrutiny mutiny.

I define hyperbole as extreme exaggeration for effect which is different how you are defining it. And I have to disagree with you further. I may not be able to pinpoint exactly what I have a problem with. Like free-floating anxiety or a baby's cry, something's wrong and there is a reason only you can't pinpoint it within a hundred yards. Or I may be able to pinpoint the problem and still not be able to describe it well. Like going to the doctor's office and trying to describe your symptom in a way that the doctor can diagnose on his end. You know exactly what you are going through but try to tell him that. It would be funny in that context to have the doctor tell me, I think you've just got a mischievous agenda, you're messing with me, right? Or, you're just being too emotional, calm down, and start over.

Prejudice is unfair & limiting to be sure but tribalism is very deeply-rooted and hard to get beyond. It's also a survival mechanism. In the end you may not be able to trust any other person besides yourself (and you can be self-deceptive and self-destructive!), but even if irrational, the psyche says like things are safe & trustworthy and unlike things are not. Also, prejudice builds out of experience. If you deal with 6 or 7 people of a certain group and get ripped off, you're not going to want to deal with the 8th person of the same group even though he might be the most trustworthy person on earth.

I'm not against the s-flute or the wailing songstress per se. They don't bother you. They bother me a little. The wailing chick communicates nothing. The flute is just everywhere. Horner may be using the flute for color rather than as a sign (Freud: sometimes a flute is just a flute), although it's easy to argue that all film music is a sign.

Morricone comments on this where he feels film music has no intrinsic meaning until the film itself gives it a meaning. I'm not sure I agree but it's interesting that he thinks of it in that way.

The s-flute may be a key element of the Horner sound, "like it or not" but I don't like either it or the Horner sound. I'd rather he stopped composing or people stopped hiring him. Whether he uses a flute, a violin, or a musical saw, I'm prejudicially done with Horner. He & everything he does has worn out its welcome.

Stargate-To begin with I'm not really out to slam students. Education isn't easy at any level and deep proficiency and mastery is very hard, only for those with incredible drive and superior mental ability to begin with. That level just can't be reached by anybody or everybody which is why those you get there can be seen or see themselves as a kind of elite. Now, whether they act snobby or generous about their position is up to them but comes secondary to the actual achievement.

So because education is tough and takes effort and commitment, I have to root for anybody trying to educate themselves regardless of where they get with it. Also, as it says in the Book of the Samurai, "Sometimes it's good to take a nap, though we shouldn't let the students know this." Or in other words, it's ok to be a slacker sometimes.

All I'm saying is that if you want to be educated and be able to carry on discussions at the level of mastery, you have to know the range and the canon.

If I want to discuss art history, the more exposure I get, the better I can do it. But, even if I'm familiar with the history in total from cave paintings to works finished last weekend, I may hit upon a specialty I like the most and prefer overall. Now I may be able to lecture on that topic but I won't be able to discuss anything else outside of it if I don't take the blinders off and increase my field of vision.

I knew an English major who wrote her thesis on the ghost stories of Edith Wharton. Those were a big love for her. But if you talked with her, she loved The Beatles, Billie Holliday, and knew Beowulf, Russian lit and Latin American poetry just as well as she knew Wharton. She preferred Wharton but had a background in as much lit and art as she had time to experience.

Now imagine this scenario (an allegory of Sean and I). She says Wharton ghost stories are the ultimate. So I ask Have you read Dickens? Because I love Dickens. And she says no. And I say, how can you say Wharton is the ultimate if you haven't read Dickens? Go read Dickens and if you still prefer Wharton at least you came by it honestly. But she says, no, she doesn't want to read Dickens, she hasn't any interest in doing so. And I say, ok, you don't have to, I can't force you, but it's your loss and I can't consider you as literate if you're ignoring key aspects of the canon. And she says, Oh, you can't consider me literate huh? Well who are you you snob? Go to hell. She asks, Have you read Wharton? And I say, Well, actually I have and she's no good. And she says, well what would you know about it, you're just an assshole. And on & on & on....

Most composers play better on their own than in films if for no other reason than they don't have to compete with distractions. But Horner doesn't improve significantly there either.

As for why exactly I don't like a specific cue from Krull. I'm not sure I don't. I'd have to go dig out my copy from a box and play the specific cue again, decide how I feel, and try to articulate it. In isolation, it may turn out I like the cue, but put into the context of the whole score or Horner's body of work, my liking one cue or not is unlikely to change how I feel about the works as a whole.

You may ask, how does Ripley's Rescue or Futile Escape not fit the scenes they are linked with? Again, in order to properly answer, I've got to re-watch Aliens again, if just to be fresh on it. But without doing so, I'm going to propose the radical notion that another composer might have written something for the sequence that works even better than the cues you think already align so perfectly. Hell, even the Psycho murder scene, the tightest fit I know of music and image, might have been topped by another composer. Who knows? It's surely possible.

In any case, I'm not going back film by film cue by cue over all of Horner's works to try and figure out precisely why each note he used causes me heartburn.

And I don't really hate everyone who finds meaning in Horner's work. I'm more perplexed that you are able to find value where I find trash. Am I missing something? Am I not getting it? I don't think so. I think I'm getting that there isn't anything there to get. But others find value there. Are they tastless fools? Seems so to me but some do show taste & intelligence elsewhere. So, I'm perplexed by this.

Maybe I should start a topic: "What do people see in Horner, what do they get out of him, exactly?"

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Originally posted by sean:
As for Dinko, she's right

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Now, now... I haven't had my sex change op just yet. But I'd like to know how you learned about that...

I'm just a wordy guy. And I guess at a certain level, I respect myself and other people enough to think writing to them about what I think and about what they think is a worthwhile thing to do.

And you should be glad. Even I realize that I'm probably the most entertaining "act" on this otherwise boring board. And those who really get it know it's going to be a great time to read me when I've got my dander up, lose it, get full of myself, and go overboard.

Instead all you sheep get so seriously angry, want to restrain me and hem me in. God, what piss-ants.

--Where am I?
--In the Village.
--Whose side are you on?
--That would be telling. But, we're Philistines.
--What do you want?
--We want, Information. Information.
--Ok, no problem. Horner sucks.
--Number Lou, you are being Un-mutual. Un-mutual.
--I'm not a number, I'm a wise-cracking smart-asss.
--Mu-wah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
franz, you need to get a life outside film music boards.

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I personally think it's very moving.

Congratulations to everyone involved... this is now the first thread that comes up when someone searches for "James Horner" in the message boards!
http://www.moviemusic.com/cgi-bin/mb/search.pl?query=james+horner&results=25

"The Trouble with Graeme Revell"

quote:

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Originally posted by Dinko:
Now, now... I haven't had my sex change op just yet. But I'd like to know how you learned about that...

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It was on Conan O'Brien "Seeeeeeeeeeeecrets."

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Olivarez:
I can't believe people never mention Horner's Cocoon. Am I the only one who loves this score?

I personally think it's very moving.

For the record I haven't had any interest in Horner since 1990.

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So if someone comes to the site and puts Horner into the search engine, at the very top is this topic with 3 pages of me trashing Horner and defending the right to do so, while discussing elitism and prejucide in non-PC ways? That's great. The people who posit they should atleast be allowed to love Horner in peace even if others don't like him get to this topic and get told to go blow in no uncertain terms. As it should be.

Well that ought to nip any future Horner-love fest posts in the bud.

In answer to Mark O, if I were to play Devil's Advocate with myself (hard to do since I'm the Devil to begin with), I'd have to say there are certain Horner scores that I liked more at one time (when I was young, dumb, and didn't know better, like say Sean is).

It's also hard to imagine and re-live this, but there was a period when Horner first came on the scene, when the whole community was a-buzz about him. I remember seeing Humanoids From The Deep and Battle Beyond the Stars in theaters (I can't believe I'm admitting this but it's true) and thinking, hmmm, we'll see what happens here. And what happened was Krull, Brainstorm, Gorky Park, Cocoon, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And there was excitement. For Horner to go from C-movies to the biggest blockbusters in so short a time, someone out there in the industry must've been impressed. Now that's still no proof he was ever good, after all the same thing happened to Georgio Morodor and Harold Faltermeyer, but Horner did have a meteoric rise (an odd phrase since meteors fall don't they?).

I remember seeing Gorky Park in a theater with my girlfriend at the time and she was like, "Is there going to be an album?" I'd run into her from time to time after we split and were seeing other people and she'd say things like, "Rain Man was awesome, what do you know about this Zimmer guy?" Or, "I'm listening to Backdraft & Crimson Tide a lot these days." After Titanic she was like, "Everyone in the country is talking about Horner [and they were, every chick in the nation had to have that OST] and I was in on the ground floor back with Gorky Park."

Even I had a better opinion of Horner in those early days. But when I go back to play something like Brainstorm, which might be the most inventive & interesting score Horner ever did, I can't play it through now. And I could play it even a few years ago. And it has nothing to do with hate or prejudice. It's just poor music. It got past the gate once but not today.

I sent a friend a disc of music from Things To Come from a lot of different conducted versions, 80 minutes of basically the same 10 cues repeated a few times each on the disc. And he wrote back that he was playing the disc through frequently and wasn't getting tired of listening to the same cues over & over & over.

I wrote him that I've been listening to Things To Come and indeed all my favorite film scores for 30 years now, the same 3 minutes cues, over & over & over & over, and I have yet to tire of them. Here they were written to be heard only once while buried under dialogue & sound effects and they were composed in a way where they stand up to three decades of repeated playing. I wrote him that you don't tire of playing the Things To Come cues over & over because they're masterpieces and if you don't overdo them, if you pace them out, they'll last you a lifetime.

Well, a lot of composers aren't in the same league, and Horner isn't even in the same league as those guys.

In the Varese album, Titanic-The Ultimate Collection, there is a piano solo version of Horner's Titanic theme. I remember when I first played that version, I thought, yeah, just as a bare-bones song melody, this is ok. Titanic was the last Horner score I considered passable. But you know what? I went to play the solo & the score a while back and I was horrified. It's so much Enya, not just the same synth-scape, but even the melody. But even that wasn't my main beef. I'm following a melodic line in one of the cues and Horner breaks in to cover some action and it's generic 70s TV chase music at its worst. You've got the biggest-looking film before LOTR had those shots that went on into the background for miles and, good god, he's scoring it like it was an episode of Chips. Because when it finally comes down to it, that's all he can really come up with.

There's some new box set of the film out on DVD with like an hour more extra and alternative footage and I haven't bought it. I don't think even that film, which I loved (at least on the level of epic visual spectacle), could make me listen to that score again. I'd have to watch it with the sound turned down.

I come by my intense dislike for Horner honestly even if I can't tell you exactly why I feel as I do or pinpoint exactly what Horner is doing wrong.

But as this post is only another proof of, there is a cult for everything. The people who praise Horner aren't lying about it. They really love the guy (or certain scores, periods, practices, and what have you). And, if I yell at them, they only get angry or defensive. And they should. I mean I really am being a stubborn, nagging assshole to them about it. I remind myself of those husbands or wives who don't smoke who have a spouse who does: "I know you like it, but I don't, and it's a bad habit, bad for you, certainly bad for me, and you should stop for both our sake's. It's only for your own good. You'll be a better person for it." And they reply: "Every forking day, I gotta listen to this? Why in hell did I ever get involved with you in the first place?"

Snob. Assshole. Holier-than-thou Nag. It's so ironic. I've become just the kind of person I myself would spend serious time fighting to be free of.

Ok, from now on, I'll try to get past this & leave all you Horner fans alone. I'll reach into my heart (now where did I put that thing, hmmm, seem to have lost it) and pull out some unconditional love for you guys. Or better still, since both love and hate are acts of ego & selfishness, because an "I" is the one loving or hating, tranparency & invisibility might be the proper response. "I" just.....fade.....a w a y . . . . .

Rocketeer, even though very generic in places
Alamo Jobe episode on Amazing Stories
Willow
and some others. There is a certain charm to certain ones of his.

If I spend a lot of time watching films and reading about them, it's not to lord my knowledge above others but to have the experience in the first place. That said, I'm not an academic (as Thor & I went over in detail in the Africa Addio/Italian System topic). However, what I said about the entire international history of film still stands. It's entirely natural to make connections between films from 1894 and those from 1994 and 2004.

I advise everyone here who is entrenched in a cinema of the last few years to really try and expand their range to all sorts of styles & sounds and all periods of film. I've been watching a lot of silent film lately--try this yourself.

One of the points in this topic was "You need to get a life outside this place." And I did go get a life outside this place--though I already had one.

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Originally posted by mlw:
It is too early in the day to hunt down all the sources and whatnot, but I really enjoy the soundtrack All the King's Men even though it is universally condemned to death. I probably won't type any words in all caps about it though. Maybe later.

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