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One of the aspects of movies I really enjoy is the soundtrack—<snip>
Any other movie fans who find the music an especially important aspect to your enjoyment of movies?
The "soundtrack" is almost as imperative, as the acting. Yes, it's THAT important. Since the soundtrack may include snippets of the score, it is very important.
Movies are reliant on the sound. Especially movies with "enhanced" sound. (ie. "Earthquake.")
As viewers, we've been conditioned to be guided by a certain rhythm or series of notes. This may have started very early for some of us, watching cartoons. (Merry Melodies is a perfect example of this, phenom.)
In some instances, the score can be so powerful, that hearing it outside the cinematic performance may "take you to that performance, when you experienced it."
"Jaws" is a perfect example of this. "Star Wars" another.
Music can "take" you to places, that other art forms may not.
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Couple oldies besides, Georgy Girl (1965)
The Apartment (1960), by Adolph Deutsch composer,
An Affair to Remember (1957) (song, Our Love Affair) sung by Vic Damone, composed by Harry Warren, lyrics by McCary and Adamson.
The Way We Were, sung by Streisand
I just watched a YouTube show about Last of the Mohicans (1992), the British guy who does analyses of movies based on historical events, and he mentioned how powerful the soundtrack was. I agree, one of the best scores ever. (The main theme comes in around 2:30)
That's not the issue. I'm not self-absorbed enough to think that a soundtrack is bad because I don't like the artist in question. (anyway, I don't dislike Joan Baez)
It's the marrying of her style of music to a futuristic film set in outer space. Her soft/folk rock does not work in that setting, to put it mildly. It would be like the very first appearance of Darth Vader early in Star Wars... and Gordon Lightfoot starts singing.
Hey, don't pick on Gordon Lightfoot, my favorite singer!
I recently began studying movie music recently.
The soundtracks aren't really music in the common sense of the word. They're more like fragments of musical compositions; the parts that arouse emotions of some kind.
They can be pretty bad when I listen to only the sound and don't see the moving pictures, but the good ones can really stir emotions. Hans Zimmer's compositions are especially good at that, and listening to them alone is almost visual.
Zimmer can create several different emotional things at once, which is almost like magic to me. He did the soundtrack for "Dunkirk" along with a hundred other movies.
There's an extended scene in Dunkirk that keeps switching back and forth between a small boat in the English Channel and an air battle in the sky above. It's a very tense scene; a German fighter is threatening the boat, and a British Spitfire goes after the German.
Who's going to survive? The people on the boat? The German? The British pilot?
Zimmer builds up the tension for them all using very small musical shifts. The German is intent on sinking the boat, the Spitfire pilot is in a race against time to catch up, and the boat captain knows he's a sitting duck.
All of them had a barely noticeable little musical theme that conveyed each's emotions, and there was another theme going throughout that kept the viewer in suspense. Amazing stuff. I think Hans Zimmer is a musical genius.
I got interested in this accidentally while watching the original Magnificent Seven movie from the 60s with the sound turned off.
Without the stirring soundtrack, almost 1/3 of the movie is actually quite boring. They're riding through the desert. Ridong some more through the desert. Riding some more through the desert. Like they're never going to quit riding through the desert.
But when the soundtrack was on, the ride became magnificent. it actually took over the images it was meant to support, and made what was a pretty mediocre movie a memorable one.
What made the music so good was that part of the movie lasted so long the composer had the time to develop a very strong piece of complete orchestral music that wasn't just fragments. Elmer Bernstein was another genius.
Check it out- here's the entire visual action in that movie. It fits very neatly into the complete theme and needs no dialog for the viewer to understand the plot. 3 1/2 minutes.
I recently began studying movie music recently.
The soundtracks aren't really music in the common sense of the word. They're more like fragments of musical compositions; the parts that arouse emotions of some kind.
I had the Beatles song "Help" going through my head when I woke up this morning. The songs on that soundtrack certainly aren't "fragments."
I had the Beatles song "Help" going through my head when I woke up this morning. The songs on that soundtrack certainly aren't "fragments."
Because they are “songs” not music themes—
Hans Zimmer doesn’t use other writers’ composed songs as part of his soundtracks—at least most of the time…
He and many other great composers create their music themes based on what the movie offers
Help was written as a visual opera so to speak
Different type of soundtrack
And many, many movies now come out with less original music and more a compilation/arrangement of songs either suited to the era of the movie (“Belfast” uses almost all Van Morrison songs for example which are part of the movie’s historical and social integrity) or to the themes/scenes of the movie
Like a romantic song for a romantic moment—
The movie “Barry Lyndon” is set in Ireland and Europe during the 7 Years War—the composer used music of composers from that era as well as traditional Irish music played by the Chieftans. Handal’s Saraband is the moving main theme…and I can’t imagine any other sound track would be better
The movie’s sound track is credited to Leonard Rosenman as “scorer” because he worked with already existing music—didn’t create any new…
But with a great movie composer who knows…
And I often wonder if that is why I find some movie genre I just don’t care for…because the music is something I can’t relate to….Chinese action films and the traveling Samurai films come to mind…
Such an interesting topic. I took a college class in classical music appreciation back in the day, and learned a few things about classical symphonic music, such as the way the themes are supposed to be intertwined, building up anticipation through the dialogue of instruments, coming into full orchestration, and how the movements are supposed to be linked, stuff that I really hadn't considered when I was just enjoying the music. Of course the composer knows! But it made me understand why there has been such a disdain in the professional community of music for movie compositions/soundtracks. Like Mike says, the grand themes that we love (such as El Cid, Ben Hur, Gladiator, Magnificent Seven) are mostly fragments, snippets of what would, in a symphony, be the conclusion of a thematic development over maybe 20 minutes. To a classical symphony lover it seems like cheating, and meaningless without the build-up! (that's what one of my fellow students told me! He hated movie music. He said it was like sex without foreplay... ) And the classical composers who also wrote film music, like Shostakovitch, were really considered lesser professionals because of it. One of Hollywood's greatest composers, Miklós Rózsa (had to copy that from Wikipedia!), also wrote "real" classical music. I have a CD with some of his non-movie works. Apparently he thought that the concert music he wrote was his real contribution to the world of music--but he has given us soundtracks such as El Cid, Ben Hur, Ivanhoe, King of Kings--and the Dragnet theme! Dimitri Tiomkin also wrote a huge number of movie compositions, and the score for High Noon actually does have some of the long-range development of the themes that is required in classical symphonies.
But today it seems that the Old Guard in the music business has faded away. Live concerts are being performed, either with just those beloved "snippets," or with compositions by the movie composers, such as Hans Zimmer, with minor themes that actually link the big themes and provide the build-up! I've thought for a long time that big movie themes are the classical compositions of today. maybe the snippets are all we need, because we have lost the patience of a concert audience of the 1800s. But it's nice to see that whether they are snippets or small symphonies by the composer, "symphonic poems," they are gaining respect. Maybe they really will be considered today's symphonic music!
One thing about Hans Zimmer. I love his movie compositions--but when we went to a live Zimmer concert a few years ago, before the pandemic, I had to get up and leave the concert hall! He apparently believes in jolting the audience from time to time, rock concert style. The whole percussion section goes crazy and becomes so loud that the entire building vibrates. When the beat came up through the floor and the chair and started interfering with my heart rhythm, I simply had to get out. So no more Zimmer concerts for me!
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) And the classical composers who also wrote film music, like Shostakovitch, were really considered lesser professionals because of it. One of Hollywood's greatest composers, Miklós Rózsa (had to copy that from Wikipedia!), also wrote "real" classical music. I have a CD with some of his non-movie works. Apparently he thought that the concert music he wrote was his real contribution to the world of music--but he has given us soundtracks such as El Cid, Ben Hur, Ivanhoe, King of Kings--and the Dragnet theme! Dimitri Tiomkin also wrote a huge number of movie compositions, and the score for High Noon actually does have some of the long-range development of the themes that is required in classical symphonies.
