First, from an interview published via Bloomberg today, sayeth Hans Zimmer:

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Nayeri: Do you consider yourself a modern-day opera composer?

Zimmer: No.

Nayeri: Why not?

Zimmer: What we do is a little thinner and a little shallower, and it's called film music. It's entertainment. I think I would lose some of my freedom of having ideas if I took it all a bit seriously.

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Next, from Varese's PR about tossed scores, specifically regarding tossing Chris Young's An Unfinished Life:

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In a climate where, more that ever, film makers and studios are treating film music as a disposable art and truly memorable and meaningful scores are all but unheard of, the fate that befell Christopher Young’s exceptional score for Lasse Hallstrom’s An Unfinished Life was all the more sad.

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Now that the great Zimmer has spoken on the subject, Varese can edit its first line to read "In a climate where, more that ever, film makers and studios [AND COMPOSERS] are treating film music as a disposable art..."

With the Hans Zimmer quote, Peter, would you rather have Zimmer agree with the interviewer's question and compare himself to "a modern-day opera composer"? I think a lot of people, including you Peter, would balk if the opposite were his answer.

Where exactly did Zimmer say that film music was "disposable"? That's conjecture on your part, Peter.

All he appears to be saying is that if he *were* an opera composer, he wouldn't have the liberty he has with film music, as far as ideas go.

I'm not saying he's right (I'll take a film score anyday over an opera), but I think you're stretching it.

But your analysis of my original post is good, if not obvious. Honestly, though. I'm hoping for more stretching of the conjecture with the post. Otherwise we're dead in the water, bored.

My original point is that a great composer (my favourite composer) like Jerry Goldsmith looked at having a score rejected in stride, that it was a film composer earning their wings.

To go further, although it's a shame that scores are rejected so quickly these days, even painstakingly detailed music for films like Troy (Gabriel Yared) and King Kong (Howard Shore), it isn't the end of the world and it shouldn't reflect badly on the composer: In your case, a Chris Young rejected score.

The problem with rejected scores, to me, resides in the decisions made by Hollywood big-wigs: The main point made by Varése: Someone who has little or no knowledge of how film music functions or the legacy behind it is in charge of deciding to toss a perfectly good score out the window for another, where the replacement composer most likely has to rush in order to get their work in on time.

Just off the top of my head, the only replacement score that I'm totally satisfied with is the Jerry Goldsmith/Joel McNeely music to Air Force One. Its far better than what David Newman (a composer who's work I enjoy) had conjured up for the film. That, IMO, was a good decision. On the other hand, I can't think of any others that compare to that film.

O.K., stretching the conjecture: Hans Zimmer is part of the problem with film music today because he doesn't take his work seriously. I would think that ALL film composers, even the not-so-talented ones, take their work extremely seriously; while having fun, of course.

Look at this:

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Zimmer: The problem with the record business then -- now, I don't think there is a record business, so it's probably not a problem - - was, if you had a hit, they absolutely expected you to go and repeat yourself.

Nayeri: Isn't the movie business like that? Pressure to reproduce past successes?

Zimmer: Yeah, but somehow I always manage to get away with subverting that.

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Who is he kidding?

This is one of the worst interviews I've read, like straight out of a high school newspaper, but even in its simplicity I sense he has a strong disdain for something close... I can't quite pinpoint it, but why otherwise would someone believe something about themselves that isn't entirely the truth? Is Zimmer going to end up like a movie star and go down in an ugly blaze, or even end up like his 80s synth counterparts (Jan Hammer making news 10 years on, but this time for DWI arrests in Beverly Hills)? Or will he get real and make a graceful exit from film scoring when he passes on at 83 like other true great scorers?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&sid=a2_8pQ0I6QVM

His take on his own industry and practice is so interestingly odd.

On occasion, as in Goldsmith's TIMELINE, the director or the studio changes their mind on the tone of the entire film...thus the composer is either asked to rescore it with the new tone in mind or it gets tossed and someone else comes in with new instructions.

And sometimes, a director hires a composer that the producer doesn't like...the producer fires the director's composer after a power struggle ensues and brings in his OWN composer to score the picture (or vice versa, depending on the power the director weilds).

The scoring industry's in a precarious place now with the popularity among the studios of music library thinking (with MV, or whatever the hell it's called now, at the forefront), with its cheaper production and quicker turnaround, and so I'd find it even more difficult to swallow if the major purveyor of the practice, the godfather, really, tried to make me believe it was something it wasn't. It'd be like the CEO of McDonald's trying to sell me a Big Mac as the epitome of French cuisine.

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Originally posted by JoeInSanDiego:
Usually, a score is rejected because an audience tested the film bad and the easiest thing to change is the music...you can't go back and reshoot the whole thing...but it takes just a few weeks to get a replacement score put back in.

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But see, there's a big fundamental "wrong" with this myth that never reaches those in charge of analyzing test screening report cards. I haven't ever read about a re-score situation ever saving a film. A bad film is a bad film. Maybe a re-scoring can make it a little better (or a lot, as in the case of AFO), but it's so rare. Look at all the films with replaced scores in history and tell me factually that the re-score was significant. If music was so important in changing (saving) a film, why is it never mentioned in reviews except for the obligatory "the music is fitting" quotes we see? Perhaps because music is the end of the line, the last creative contribution, in filmmaking.

Bad films can be made seriously good by re-editing, but of course, that would require a re-scoring as well, as music is written to the rhythm of the picture... but only until poorly tested temp films are re-edited will I think the studio is really serious about making a bad film better.

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Originally posted by JoeInSanDiego:
sean: RANDY Newman composed the original score to Air Force One and had it rejected in favor of a Goldsmith/McNeely contribution.

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lol whoops ... yeah, sorry it was Randy!

What's interesting about Goldsmith and Herrmann considering themselves "composers" rather than "film composers" is that (at least in Jerry's case) Goldsmith actually wrote concert pieces and worked outside the medium of film, as well (and that's reason enough not to just associate yourself with one form of composing music). (I'm guessing Bernard Herrmann did the same.)

To Hans Zimmer's answer, again, to if he considers himself a modern-day opera composer: That's a stupid question to begin with. Modern-day operas are still composed today, are they not? Zimmer doesn't do them, so why would he consider himself part of that community? Also, there's maybe no good answer to that question given the idiocy of it. Personally, I'm glad he answered no to that question.

Tv's Frank: I think you're misunderstanding what Zimmer is saying. I don't think he considers the actual film music, past or present, "thin and shallow," just the medium, as compared to writing music for an opera, which he thinks is a much more serious gig (with more constraints: the serious aspect); but he's probably wrong, I'm sure there are many bad operas, as there are good ones. Read more of his interviews, his comments on other scores by other composers is insightful, especially for what you think he thinks about works by other composers. And he's also quick to shoot down a lot of his own scores, where quality and skill is concerned.

Peter, another quote from interview leads directly into what we're talking about with regard to rejected scores:

"Nayeri: Can great music save a bad film?

Zimmer: No, but I think sometimes it's easier to write great music to a bad film."

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Originally posted by sean:
Peter, IMO, in the case of Air Force One, it was a bad film all around; and in the movie, the Goldsmith/McNeely score only added to that negative image: The patriotism is vommit-inducing already, so to add a musical counterpoint to that wouldn't have worked and the two composers had to take the ball and run with it (no matter how embarrassing that looks onscreen). As a stand-alone body of film music, its great!

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The music in the film is pretty entertaining stuff, to me at least, and Goldsmith knows how to nail some of the corniest moments. That Harrison Ford "Get offa my plane" scene where Goldsmith's music bursts forth got an applause out of the audience I was with, just like the moment in Hollow Man where Elizabeth Shue breaks out of the freezer.

Ok, I've done enough Sean-bashing this weak, i'm tired from it all and he doesn't even rate as much as he got.

OK. Simmer has always had a kind of German depressiveness to his personality. I remember an interview where someone asked him if he liked such and such a score he was working on and he didn't. It's weird kind of honesty. I almost get the impression that he writes weak film music and somehow knows it's weak and he doesn't respect his own stuff that much but goes on doing it because he gets hired.

Simmer really does think of film music as shallower than concert music. And if he thought of it as serious music, he'd have to take it more seriously and work at it. When he says, "I would lose some of my freedom of having ideas." He almost should have said, "I couldn't just write anything and put it into the film, I'd actually have to work to make it good, and that would cost me the freedom to write without making it good."

Although I suppose that's not what he meant. He meant that the way he scores films requires in him a flexibility to be playful. If he was writing big, serious music, he couldn't be playful and it would inhibit him. And since he calls film music, entertainment, he equates it with non-seriousness, something less than creating Fine Art & Clssical music.

Fine if he thinks we all shouldn't be so stuffy about film music but...it lets him off the hook as far as the quality of his music is concerned. He's not writing grand opera so it doesn't have to be that good (as long as he doesn't get rejected).

I don't know how to answer Mike. I guess I have to agree--that it's better to be told what you already preceive is the truth than just get hit with one more cover-up in a world of cover-up. But, the admission doesn't lead to any more reform than if it wasn't made so what is the point? It's not like Simmer is coming out and saying, I don't take this too seriously and I should. He's saying I don't take this too seriously and I wouldn't be able to do it if I had to.

If anything, it represents "The New Honesty" we are seeing at all levels of commerce and politics: "Yeah we're torturing prisoners. So what? What can you do about it? Nothing. And you shouldn't care anyway because it's a good thing for us anyway." "Yeah the stuff is radioactive, but if you don't get cancer from our product, you'll get it from the next one. We might as well get our share or the profits and, once again, what can you do about it? Nothing." People don't bother to hide their selfishness any more. They assume you will either see through every statement anyway and figure everything is a scam or will believe whatever is broadcast to you because you need to believe everything is going fine. And whether you know what goes or hoodwink yourself doesn't matter, the crimes and the abuse of power go on everyday regardless.

It's true that the industry's push towards standardization (perhaps a response to making films for a global market with less intricate dialogue & story & more special effects that will cross borders) has brought back the library approach from what B-movies could afford to what A-movies use. New software seems to suggest film composers can be dispensed with entirely for the lowest-budget productions. For those of us who were raised on a cinema where film music was composed by real composers who worked hard at it with a certain measure of pride and professionalism and which produced the distinguishable sounds of artists, the current state of affairs has been a bugaboo for years.

As for rejected scores, I've written on this at length too. We know all the reasons why scores are dumped. But the industry has changed its own attitude about the dumped score. Before it was a badge of shame. To quote David Raksin: "A big deal." You got dumped and you didn't work for a while. Now the score that gets dumped gets replaced by a new one written by a guy whose own last score got dumped. It's like a musical chairs where the same 30 guys go around trying to make a fit with 25 different new films.

There's a feeling that Hollywood would like to dispense with film music altogether. Maybe Dinko's scenario is right & film music is obsolete. Though having written in the "First Film Score" post that film music has a heritage going back 5000 years, it seems hard to imagine it would just vanish. Maybe it's the film composer that Hollywood would like to get rid of. If so, they've done a pretty effective job of doing just that.

At which point the fault isn't Simmer's. Oh sure you can slam him for being a weak composer, but maybe he's just a businessman who knows the score and is giving the industry what it really wants: functional, generic sound without the fuss of dealing with composers who care about doing something else. He takes it all in stride with a laugh. If he actually put sweat into the music, if he took it seriously, the stress would put him in the hospital. He'd blow a gasket the way Gabriel Yared did when Troy got rejected & the company told him to take the clips off his website.

The industry wants weak composers and they hire them. Kind of explains Whore-ner's whole career now. Guys who are artists have to get with the program or else get des-Troy-ed: we need stuff that is still music but which meets our needs for a generic, homogenized sound. And we need composers who can take both orders and rejections like newspaper reporters are used to getting their copy sliced & diced by editors.

Wanted: Hollywood composer. Must be nice, friendly, and able to take bone up asss on regular basis while still smiling. Must be able to produce 90 minutes of similar-sounding orchestral music of passable quality in two weeks. Artists need not apply.

Here I am slamming Whore-ner & Simmer when they're the only guys with the credentials to do the job!

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
I can't believe it. I must have dropped acid unknowingly. I'm agreeing with Sean and actually finding he knows what he's talking about. My whole world is coming unglued here.

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Stargate-Well there are those who like what Whore-ner and Simmer are doing. We have enough people on this board & elsewhere you don't consider them weak composers at all but rather viable ones whose merits are worth discussing at length.

Nevertheless, in all the talk that has come before in various posts about the (supposed) decline of film music, about Sonic Wallpaper, about temp tracks, about dumped scores, and everything else, the final word to bring up is tolerance.

Because somewhere someone in charge is saying OK. Instead of saying, this isn't good enough, go back, re-do it and make it better and more original, they are allowing things to be as they are and insisting on it. They're even dumping scores they consider "old-fashioned" in favor of more watered-down fare (Troy being a case in point). And I can't see it as just a default position, as something that has just happened that people don't want to have happen. There has to be a deliberate desire to have things this way.

On the TV shows that rely on Sonic Wallpaper for a scoring approach, you get dumped, fired, or not hired to begin with if you can't provide the required sound. That's an edict from the top, a deliberate decision which says this is what we want.

Somehow the current trend in Hollywood is for scoring to be different from the styles of the past which modern audiences view as unsubtle, obvious, cliched, & corny. All film music must lack clear bold statements and themes and style which can be attributed to the individuality of a given composer. The Herrmann sound, or Tiomkin sound, is now verboten, film music can't sound like it was composed by a composer, that's now considered too ideosyncratic for the medium. What is required is a sound that says film music but is generic, the same from film to film, as if one composer or no composer were generating all of it.

It's ok to depart from old cliches--pirates & electric guitars--because that's different from the older Hollywood code that is dated. If the film can put some difference between the old and the new to be hip, that's allowed. However, if the new approach stands out too much to go off the generic path, rejection will follow.

I'm not going to debate the quality of current film product. If current films are bad than it only follows suit that the people making bad films aren't going to have the taste to have good scores in them.

There's something else going on that I wish someone in the industry would admit to and explain: why is this the preffered mode? What benefit in the production-distribution process does this approach towards film music offer? Where's the profit in it? Obviously a film needs to connect with an audience to be a hit, how does having this kind of film score help to achieve that? Or is the idea simply that there has to be a score but it needs to be so innocuous that no one need fear it will become a point of attention or distraction?

In any case, things are different from media music of the past. Whether you view that as good or bad is up to you. But the conditions have been set and the composers found to meet the conditions. Those with other statements to make in music will have to write for the concert hall. Film music has gone from a group of individual artists sharing a form and a few techniques to an established code all composer-craftsmen must comform completely to.

Film music is now like the manga/anime look. It doesn't matter who you are as the artist drawing the image, all the characters ultimately have to have the same look: big eyes, big mouth, small crooked line for a nose, no distinguishing marks. Film music has become that as well, the musical equivalent of the anime style that is the same from work to work no matter who is drawing it.

Whatever the reasons, Hollywood seems to have established an overall code for film music which suits its mode of production.

Whether it suits the audience's best wishes is another thing. There are a few of us who gripe about it vocally and publically but we're surely in the minority and if the industry even hears our complaints, they ignore us. Somehow, the majority of the audience either likes what is going on, doesn't notice, or doesn't care.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Those with other statements to make in music will have to write for the concert hall.

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Nope, can't do that either. If you write Demterius and the Gladiators as a symphonic suite today, no orchestra will play it. It's too "old fashioned", romantic and what not.
For all the bashing of film music composers, there are few in the current crop of concert composers who are worth even a tenth of the time we devote to Zimmer & Co. The kind of lame, dissonant sonic noise that presents itself as contemporary classical music sounds like little more than a group of kindergartners being given instruments to randomly play on. One piece by one composer is completely undistinguishable from another piece by another composer. It's the same forgettable, and unpleasant garbage either way.

I will go on a limb here and take some flack from Sean and say that Zimmer has a point on [his] own music; it is incredibly shallow. I say this because I mean it with sincerity. The two least shallow Zimmer scores I've heard are The Thin Red Line and The DaVanci Code; everything else is either entertaining (King Arthur, Crimson Tide, Broken Arrow, Gladiator, Spanglish, The Lion King, Batman Begins) or grating "atmospere-first" bullshite (Black Rain, Hannibal, Pearl Harbor, etc.). The same thing occurs with his proteges out of Media Ventures. Early in his career, HGW absolutely sucked (and I'm referring to Repacement Killers and The Borrowers) but since then the guy has risen to find his own style and has completely become like a born-again composer (some pieces on Kingdom of Heaven could function as their own concert pieces). I once found John Powell to be a cheap imitation of his mentor (Face/Off) but after I Am Sam I was impressed and he only helped his reputation with X-Men 3 (a better score than Ottman's Superman Returns. Now the current crop of MV-alums has only one reasonable person who might break out and do fantastic work, and that's Steve Jablonsky (notably for Steamboy but The Island was a solid score). I see Klaus Badelt going no where; he can't shake this dumb MV rep of being the master of this bombastic synth crap (PotC, Poseidon) and I don't see him trying anytime soon. Same case with Jim (James Michael) Dooley. His score for When a Stranger Calls is a (to paraphrase Mr. Goldberg) Whore-ner cop-out; Chris Young wrote this music back in the 80s!

nuts_score, I agree with you that The Thin Red Line and The Da Vinci Code are probably Zimmer's best scores, but I wouldn't call them the "least shallow." They are genuinely good film scores, one orchestral, and the other a strong orchestral score with Zimmer's synth flares every-now-and-then. This was pointed out a short time ago at FSM, but Zimmer seems to be most successful when he spends a great deal of time and energy on a film, and has a good relationship with the director (whether it be Terrence Malick, Ron Howard, or Ridley Scott).

The other scores you mention, like King Arthur, Crimson Tide, Broken Arrow, and Gladiator are all strong, as well. These are the scores, however, that those who don't like HZ will point out as his amongst his worst efforts: Because they don't enjoy his sound; and that's fair enough. I happen to like his sound and would argue that his best skill is writing action music (showcased by the above-mentioned scores); that's where he's most at home. Like him or not, Zimmer is damned talented at using electronics in ways that other composers won't or simply don't have the skill to do. This isn't a defence of his music, I'm just pointing out where he excels.

nuts_score, I know you like Hans Zimmer (don't pretend to give Batman Begins and King Arthur bronze medals—you can't fool me), so I think you're being a bit harsh, especially where a score like Black Rain is concerned: Zimmer's first attempt at action music. It's not that bad, and works fine for the silly film its attached to (too many neon lights!).

And yeah, it is utterly fascinating to read some of the vitriol that comes out of those who appear from nowhere to take a gigantic dump on Hans Zimmer and James Horner. It's all good fun.

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Originally posted by sean:
nuts_score, I know you like Hans Zimmer (don't pretend to give Batman Begins and King Arthur bronze medals—you can't fool me)

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Now you know that King Arthur gets the gold in my book; that's just fantastic action scoring. But I'm afraid Batman Begins is going to have to settle for the bronze in this battle.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
Of course there are some exceptions (Estacio, Tan Dun, Salonen...). But there's hardly any work to be had in the concert hall for anyone wishing to make a statement either. If it's new music, it has to have certain patterns. Otherwise, it's rejected for being old-fashioned. Hmmm... what does that remind me of?

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
I don't know how to answer Mike. I guess I have to agree--that it's better to be told what you already preceive is the truth than just get hit with one more cover-up in a world of cover-up. But, the admission doesn't lead to any more reform than if it wasn't made so what is the point? It's not like Simmer is coming out and saying, I don't take this too seriously and I should. He's saying I don't take this too seriously and I wouldn't be able to do it if I had to.

If anything, it represents "The New Honesty" we are seeing at all levels of commerce and politics: "Yeah we're torturing prisoners. So what? What can you do about it? Nothing. And you shouldn't care anyway because it's a good thing for us anyway." "Yeah the stuff is radioactive, but if you don't get cancer from our product, you'll get it from the next one. We might as well get our share or the profits and, once again, what can you do about it? Nothing." People don't bother to hide their selfishness any more. They assume you will either see through every statement anyway and figure everything is a scam or will believe whatever is broadcast to you because you need to believe everything is going fine. And whether you know what goes or hoodwink yourself doesn't matter, the crimes and the abuse of power go on everyday regardless.

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It's the Information Age, baby. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and all that. People will find out anyway, and chaos is less likely to ensue if the powers that be are honest than if they aren't. Besides, with the bureaucracy what it is, chaos is kept at arm's length anyway. So they don't care either way.

To boil down my thoughts in a very general way, I think that the same regime isn't likely to change its own successful tactics in some revolutionary way. As that applies to Zimmer, basically you're right, what's the point? He's become more a businessman than a composer (and I don't fault him for that; he's wildly successful at what he does), and he probably won't be the one to change the way things have become. And that's fine. We'll have to wait the storm out, to see if the recent refreshing influx of classically trained composers into the mainstream (Alexandre Desplat springs to mind) continues. Everything's cyclical, so my hope is that complex, compositionally sound scores will one day again become the "trend" studios are hot on.

I guess what I'm saying in my rambling and roundabout way is that Zimmer won't be the one to change things, but at least he's up front about it, and I appreciate that. It's like the prostitute telling you beforehand what she does rather than after the fact. Or something like that.

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Originally posted by Dinko:
If you write Demterius and the Gladiators as a symphonic suite today, no orchestra will play it. It's too "old fashioned", romantic and what not.
For all the bashing of film music composers, there are few in the current crop of concert composers who are worth even a tenth of the time we devote to Zimmer & Co. The kind of lame, dissonant sonic noise that presents itself as contemporary classical music sounds like little more than a group of kindergartners being given instruments to randomly play on. One piece by one composer is completely undistinguishable from another piece by another composer. It's the same forgettable, and unpleasant garbage either way.

Of course there are some exceptions (Estacio, Tan Dun, Salonen...). But there's hardly any work to be had in the concert hall for anyone wishing to make a statement either. If it's new music, it has to have certain patterns. Otherwise, it's rejected for being old-fashioned. Hmmm... what does that remind me of?

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I'd like to take an off-topic moment to completely disagree with most of what you've said here. For starters, some of the most successful composers in the last couple decades have built their styles specifically around music that often sounds centuries more old-fashioned than the romantics -- I'm thinking of people like Arvo Part, Giya Kancheli, and John Tavener -- and have been repeatedly praised by critics and the public alike in doing so, as well as garnering the support of some of the most prominent performers around (Dennis Russell Davies, Yo-Yo Ma, etc).

I'm also having trouble figuring out which composers you're talking about when you say "lame, dissonant, sonic noise." I can think of a few people like that -- actually Augusta Read Thomas is the only one coming to my mind at the moment -- but when I think of the people in contemporary concert music who actually seem to be connecting to the public at large I think of people like those three I mentioned above plus John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Michael Daugherty, Richard Danielpour, et al. Philip Glass's music has become rather romantic (shockingly so if you compare something he wrote last year with something he wrote in the 60's). And I don't know how you feel about the Bang on a Can crowd, but there's a wealth of great composers in their company, and moreover they're pretty all-inclusive as far as styles go.

I find it hard to believe orchestras would refuse to play a new piece of "old-fashioned, romantic" music just because it is old fashioned and romantic. Concert attendance is slipping and many orchestras are doing everything they can to get attendance up. If they're inclusive enough to include video game music in their repertoire, what reason would they have for rejecting a piece that might play to a great many more people than a piece of "lame, dissonant, sonic noise"?

Ultimately it's sales that are going to drive an orchestra's programming, and while the type of music you're describing might work with some critics and musicians, utlimately it doesn't sell to the larger public. I know I've read John Adams despairing that it's difficult to write a piece of tonal music that sounds fresh nowadays, and I know as a student Steve Reich felt pressured to go atonal, but times have changed since then and it seems a little incredible that composers might be writing dissonant, even alienating music only because orchestras will only play new music if it doesn't appeal to the audience.

What "certain patterns" does new music have to have, and do you really think they are more restrictive than they've ever been in ages past? It's because of "certain patterns" prevailing that Baroque music sounds Baroque, Romantic music sounds Romantic, etc.

The term "postmodern" is even typically defined by the revival of older techniques. If you take a moment to survey, say, 20 of the most prominent composers in the concert hall today, I expect you'd find a much larger variance in style than if you surveyed the top 20 composers of the Baroque period. I'm not saying that makes it necessarily better or worse, only that I think there are plenty of composers around who are trying to make statements. And I'm also not saying they aren't being met with resistance -- they certainly are. I just don't think it's the same kind of resistance you're talking about.

Kirk

It used to be in Hollywood, as long as the producer wasn't trying to commercially exploit a tune, that almost any kind of music was acceptable in Hollywood so long as it dramatically serviced the film. Theremins anyone?

All I was suggesting above was that the old freedom no longer exists and that if a composer wanted to break free and be more expressive, they couldn't do it in the film score as they might have been able to before. And this on top of acknowledging that the film score had some pretty rigid boundaries all along to begin with. They've simply become even narrower now.

As for Mike and his belief that things cycle. This is true to a certain extent. Post-moderninsm believes this is so. But when something cycles back, it doesn't cycle back as pure. It's now self-consciously "retro".

Meanwhile, "retro" is the last thing a producer like Jerry Bruckheimer will allow for. Having tossed Silvestri's swashbuckler score for Pirates 1, he decided that no matter what his films were about or when they were set, they'd all sound like Con Air. With that attitude he should produce Sophia Coppola's next film, they'd be a perfect match.

Of course, we can still point to people with careers who have somehow maintained the ability to write solid music while dealing with the industry but I always feel the tension between them and the system as a whole as if Hollywood either hires them only here and there or is just waiting for them to finally die or is waiting for them to screw-up so they can dump their scores and make a show trial out of their agony.

Goldsmith was conforming to the industry better than any of the other old-timers and somehow snuck Mulan past everybody before the end even if he couldn't get Timeline through. Despite the last fling of Far From Heaven, Bernstein's future was going to be a series of Gangs of New York-like rejections if he had lived longer. That's obvious because it's the current fate of John Barry who is still alive. And you have to wonder if Williams didn't have the support of Lucas and Spielberg, who have brains enough to know to keep using him, where even he would be right now in the scheme of things.

I can't say that people are setting out to make things intentionally bad. It's just that many producers/filmmakers lack taste or history/perspective and the same can be said for much of the audience as well (one of the reasons I "hate" Sean so much is that he seems to represent for me the typical audience member who doesn't care about the whole past history of Western civilization).

Also, with a global market at stake, films have to be dumbed and watered-down to the level of Coca-Cola (to raise the same methaphor I've been using for years): the same mixture of sugar, fizz, and caffeine for everyone from Japan to Guatamala.

Subsequently, Hollywood issues a product of certain form and quality and it hires precisely those composers who will align their work with the product overall. Producers & directors add a layer of "quality control" so that the music produced stays free of "abnormailities" but they don't have to exercize it too often since they hire and keep those people who know what is required and can produce it.

The only problem, one which leads to dumped scores and bad feelings, is that a film score requires a balance of talent. You need an artist who can actually write music well to start off with. Later, you make certain that the end results conform to pattern. However, artists being a wild card (because they are talented people after all), they often get it wrong, compose too well or too individually or too much in the style of the past, and must be censured.

The best thing is to hire the mediocre hack. He has some talent but can't ever go overboard with it.

So, composers who tend towards the generic library sound (Simmer) or who can arrange a lot of different styles and themes into a blend on short-notice (Whore-ner) are the ones who get all the jobs. Just don't invest soul or seriousness into it and you can raise your kids in Malibu too.

And if they need to write actual music every once in a while for their own pride and state of mind, they can always take on a bad or low-budget film where they can write as they please without industry interference.

All in all a good life giving Hollywood what it wants.

The rest of us who gripe are atypical, we've seen too many films, had exposure to many works of quality. We demand too much from the current film industry. If you want a masterpiece with a great score go watch Lust for Life on TCM. But if you want to see films in a theater you'll have to be content with Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, Poseidon, and POTC2.

I don't know how things are on your end, but what gets played in concert halls in Canada, is precisely what I described above: new music must be the pointless dissonant kind of crap that audiences hate, otherwise it's almost never played. Every time an orchestra commissions a new work, it ends up sounding exactly like the dissonant noise it played the previous month.

Part, Kancheli or Tavener are nowhere to be heard, except in record shops.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
It's just that many producers/filmmakers lack taste or history/perspective and the same can be said for much of the audience as well (one of the reasons I "hate" Sean so much is that he seems to represent for me the typical audience member who doesn't care about the whole past history of Western civilization).

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In real life, I honestly don't think you'd "hate" me, because there's a lot of assumptions behind what you think I like and dislike. That I don't care for "the whole past history of Western civilization" (whatever that is: the Western part; there's many interpretations and refutations abound) is a shining example: The degree I'm just finishing up this summer is a split major: English / History. I don't write about those things here, though (anymore—and you'd never know it from my posts, or at least I hope you wouldn't); especially politics: It used to get me into hot water with such colourful individuals like Dan Goldasser.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
As for Mike and his belief that things cycle. This is true to a certain extent. Post-moderninsm believes this is so. But when something cycles back, it doesn't cycle back as pure. It's now self-consciously "retro".

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You could apply that line of thinking to May 16, 1977, when STAR WARS came blasting out of theaters and John Williams was suddenly the "new" voice of motion picture scoring (although I'd argue he'd already done that, SW just popularized the movement), so would you take anything away from some great symphonic scores in between that time and the time when Zimmer and Jay Rifkin came on the scene? Of course not. (Or at least I hope you wouldn't.) I agree with your point conceptually, but "retro" doesn't imply hollow, nor does it imply static. It's simply of another time. Personally I'd welcome a "retro" movement if it meant more "classical" orchestral scores. To some degree it's already happening, the touchstone (IMHO) being the massive popularity of Shore's LOTR scores. Unfortunately NARNIA set us back with its Gregon-Williams score, but I'm hopeful that we're back on the right track. I'm just not ready to resign myself fully to the idea that the MV sound is the be all end all of the future of film scoring. Call it a character flaw.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Meanwhile, "retro" is the last thing a producer like Jerry Bruckheimer will allow for. Having tossed Silvestri's swashbuckler score for Pirates 1, he decided that no matter what his films were about or when they were set, they'd all sound like Con Air.

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Mike--Call me a pessimist but you're going to be waiting the rest of your life for the return of quality orchestral scoring to film. We'll still get good scores every year but the total overall landscape and its rules have changed. The likes of Ben-Hur are over. Even another Star Wars or Raiders is unlikely.

Let me give you an Ann Arbor analogy (since I know you spent time living here now). In the 60s, the town had a thriving campus film scene, one of the best in the nation at that time, 3 or 4 groups showing classic & experiemntal film every night of the week.

But times changed. Students became less concerned with art & culture & film in general and the purpose of college once again became getting a job. That is for those who weren't drinking & skirt-chasing (not your typical film buffs anyway).

By the mid-80s, vhs (and then the DVD) became the main source for anyone interested in classic film to watch it. The once popular idea of going to campus to see films projected lost all steam. Every once in a while a very basic title of the repetoire like Casablanca will show for students at the downtown theater but this isn't the same thing as being able to see all the Samuel Fuller movies in a month as you might have in the 60s.

Now I know a few guys who are townies who have been here since the 60s and they long for the return of the campus cinema of that era. They want the whole 60s to return pretty much, not just the filmgoing aspect. Well, it isn't gonna happen. If film & art & culture ever become as important to students as it once was in the 60s, it's not going to be for many years. And for film groups to thrive on this campus or elsewhere where they can project 35mm prints of very obscure films just isn't going to happen outside of Paris, NY, LA, and Chicago (and only because they have a good programmer in Chicago and 7-8 million people to support the thing) for many decades to come if ever. You don't find a large enough group of people saying, I want to see Moonfleet tonight in 35mm projected on a large screen more than anything else, and I'll pony up the money and make it happen.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Mike--Call me a pessimist but you're going to be waiting the rest of your life for the return of quality orchestral scoring to film. We'll still get good scores every year but the total overall landscape and its rules have changed. The likes of Ben-Hur are over. Even another Star Wars or Raiders is unlikely.

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Maybe you're overly pessimistic. Maybe I'm overly optimistic.

I keep thinking about the period in film scoring when JAWS and STAR WARS first hit the scene. Even the most interesting film scores weren't often with traditional orchestra (the progressive jazz of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, for example), but a lot of the dreck was just kitschy wallpaper, not unlike it is now. In general films were becoming more naturalistic, and music was taking on an altogether different role. It seemed to be the way the industry was going, until of course a giant shark ate its way through Amity Island.

I guess my point is, such galvanization can come out of nowhere to forever change what was once the norm, so such an event is worth hoping for.

The problem now, which is what leads me to believe you're probably right in your assertion, is the state of the film industry itself. No one knew of the term "summer blockbuster" before JAWS, and of course now it's the coat rack on which Hollywood hangs its hat. Music played an integral role in the early blockbusters because so much of the trickery was done using practical effects, and frankly a huge score was needed to suspend the audience's disbelief. Now computers are used and effects are arguably better (though I personally prefer practical effects), and music has once again taken a backseat. They just need some kind of sound in there to fill in the ever-shrinking quiet moments of their big tentpole releases.