mrbellamy

 

Came across this video interview with Paul Thomas Anderson. Somebody asked him about working with Jonny Greenwood and he spoke about the influence of the Spielberg/Williams collaboration on the use of music in his films (jump to 49:13 in the video):

 

When I grew up, I was watching Steven Spielberg's movies with John Williams. I was like "Fuck, that's how you do it! Music and what the movie is, they bash together. Not that I'm comparing us at all, but that's what influenced me. That's how it should be. These two things smash together and you're supposed to grab and smash an audience with that stuff. That was my influence, I thought that's how you're supposed to do it. And then I saw what Bernard Herrmann did and Alfred Hitchcock and stuff like that and I was like, that's what you're supposed to do. So that's been my feeling on how music should be in movies.

Alexandre Desplat was spotted in costume on the set of George Clooney's The Monuments Men:

 

http://www.popsugar....ge_nid=30659183

 

I wonder how big his role is.

 

I don't want any more 'rambunctious adventure music' from Williams these days, as I don't think he's particularly interested or motivated for it anymore. I want more of the introspective music that clearly is closer to his ageing heart. 

 

Let's not forget that Spielberg himself is approaching 70. He even explicitly said in an interview recently that filming action sequences just doesn't give him the inspiration that it used to when he was in his 20s and 30s, making all those good, fun adventures that he became so famous for. 

 

As much as some of his fans complain, the fact is that he's received a lot more encouragement lately to do dramas than sci-fi/action/adventures. In his first ten years making theatrical features, he landed Best Picture Oscar nominations for Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T., as well as a Best Director nomination for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Reviews were great, and so was the audience response. In just about every corner of the world, people responded to that kinetic energy, and they let him know.

 

Since the 90's, however, his best-received films have largely been his dramas. His adventure films have done well at the box-office, but aside from Minority Report, reviews haven't been outstanding, and how much crap has he gotten since about the likes of War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? It seems that all he can ever talk about regarding Indy 4 is how poorly received it was by fans, and while it's usually in good humor, it had to have been rather discouraging for him to keep bringing it up. Sure, it made a lot of green, but it's easy to take that kind of thing for granted when it's a goddamn Indiana Jones movie.

 

After Jurassic Park came out, he's often said that he has a "one for me, one for the audience" type of attitude about the blockbusters. Movies like Close Encounters or E.T., though, were highly personal, and not merely done out of some obligation to an audience that craved escapism. I just wonder if he's starting to feel that ship has sailed for him.

 

"Christoph Waltz has been set to star in The Zero Theorem, the next film to be directed by Terry Gilliam. Waltz will play Qohen Leth, an eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst who works on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence—or the lack thereof—once and for all."

http://www.deadline....oltage-selling/

Oh, what the hell, I'll do this too.

Release date: November 9th (limited), November 16th (wide) - http://www.deadline....ielberg-disney/

So I guess that means score samples in October!

I somewhat disagree with you about the datedness of CE3K. While it's certainly and clearly a movie of its time, I don't think it has aged poorly, except in the light of shallow Michael Bay speciall effects orgies that so often become blockbusters these days - but that doesn't make them better movies.

Yeah, I'm with you here. I don't think it's dated in any way that matters, and from my perspective, it retains a painterly, almost impressionistic look -- particularly in the matte paintings -- that still looks pretty great to my eye. Certainly it looks different from the photo-realism of most modern movies, but I think in the case of CE3K, it lends the film a dreamy quality that serves the material quite well, and doesn't date it as much as other films where that artificiality works against them. It may not be the kind of thing that wows jaded teenagers anymore, but I think Quint also may be underestimating the ability of those young people to appreciate finer aesthetic qualities as they themselves get older. Worked for me, anyway.

Also no, there's nothing inherently wrong with remakes (or sequels, for that matter).

I find it difficult to separate film technique and emotional storytelling, considering one is - or should be, when done well - always informing the other. Certainly I admire the technical finesse of the zooms when Barry first sees the Lyndon family in Barry Lyndon, along with the inspired musical choice of Schubert's "Piano Trio in E-Flat" and Kubrick's refusal to cut away in the editing, but it's not that alone that always gives me that jolt of excitement whenever I watch it. It's the context, the strange feeling of foreboding that these elements create that is absolutely essential to the storytelling and the introduction of those characters.

Likewise, when George McFly kisses Lorraine Baines for the first time, of course I'm tearing up because of the significance of the moment, by what's happening to Marty, by what it means for George. But it's also the echo-ing out of all background noise in the sound design, the mixing of the score and diegetic music, as Alan Silvestri's variation on his main theme backs off so Marvin Berry can close out the bridge and punch into that glorious final chorus of "Earth Angel". Michael J. Fox's reaction is great, of course, but it's also supported by one of the most perfectly-timed jump cuts I've ever seen, as we move out from a close-up and into a wide-shot, so we can see him pop up with his guitar. That's craft.