TheUlyssesian

In some of the longer string statements, I sense a little bit of John Barry and maybe even Gabrial Yared. I see some similar string writing to this track. Though not as sweeping or overegged. Of course English Patient was written for an epic, Book Thief is a much smaller film.

The problem I have with this criticial conception of emotional manipulation is that it's artificially narrow: sentimentalism is hardly the only variety of emotional excess. It just draws the most ire because it's the one most closely associated with commercialism. How often does Williams really develop his themes, though? I felt that the themes in Williams's last non-Spielberg effort, Memoirs of a Geisha, were relatively static as well. I would count Geisha is a Speilberg film. He produced it and for the longest time was going to direct it. But decided to produce instead. So definitely a Spielberg connection in Geisha as well. POA would actually be his last non-Spielberg effort.

These are mostly young male hipster critics, brought up on a poisonous diet of Zimmer And RC. Anything symphonic or orchestral or melodic sounds boring and dated to them. Same way a classically made film with patience seems boring to them. I think modern film critics for the most part today or unfit to judge musical scores.

The Malay Mail Online As if another layer of schmaltz were needed, the music is by John Williams. Cinema Blend From the presence of Rush and Watson to the generically sentimental score from John Williams, it's a soulless chimera of every Oscar-bait trope, cobbled from a story that actually deserved better. Geeked Out Nation The cinematography was great and surprisingly the films score was composed by the great John Williams. However Williams score was rather reminiscent of his other work with Steven Spielberg. Why So Blue The Book Thief also has a beautiful score by John Williams that seems like a step too far in some cases. It is not that the score is bad, but the film feels fairly small in scope compared to what Williams has composed, which especially doesn’t help when the film has the need to really emphasize its drama with scenes that reek of cliché. Culver City Observer Stepping away from his decades of work with Steven Spielberg, John Williams' score is lush and sweeping.

New York Times John Williams’s score — a quieter, more somber echo of his music for “Schindler’s List” — lends the film an unearned patina of solemnity, for “The Book Thief” is a shameless piece of Oscar-seeking Holocaust kitsch.

A good score is a fundamentally good score. With coherent themes, interesting instrumentation, orchestral color. These are timeless qualities, a well written score will always please and engage. That's how it works. So what if this KIND of score has been written. These are fundamentals of music and will ALWAYS please. And regarding Williams recent output, I think it is still the strongest amongst working composers. I think Tintin is a GREAT score, War Horse is fantastic, Lincoln is pretty good, I even have time for KoCS. Memoirs and Munich are lovely. Tintin specially, I think is a masterpiece. So he's doing pretty good for himself.

Oh I think Williams score will surely get an Oscar nomination. I would bet money on it. The trouble is, while nominating, only the composers vote. While deciding the winners, the entire membership votes. Which is why Williams has so few wins. The composers know he's great, the general membership, not so much.

I read a couple of reviews of this and they were all talking about stupid things like the acting and the story and the script! And I was like, chuck all that, and that's all well and good but HOW WAS JOHN WILLIAMS' SCORE???? That is the extent of my interest in this film.

I think Tintin was a very ambitious score and extremely complicated with literally a dozen themes swirling around the orchestra at various points and sometimes many at a time in harmony or counterpoint. I would imagine it was a very challenging score to play because of its pace and the sheer density of the orchestration and the number of notes. So that wasn't a usual score for me, that was a modern masterpiece and had a distinct European sheen to it. THAT was a score no other composer could even dream of much less write.

Hmm. It is true the main theme isn't immediately gripping but then again Williams has been doing quite a bit of different kinds of scoring of late. None of Tintin or War Horse or Lincoln have clearly delineated "main theme" in the traditional sense. Tintiin has a motif, not a proper theme. War Horse has one but again no singular concert arrangement just highlighting the theme. Lincoln had a couple of gorgeous pieces, but it was barely used in the film. But the score within the movie sounded fantastic for Tintin and War Horse. So i hope same is the case here. Maybe once we listen to the music with the visuals, it will have more emotion.

The main theme played beautifully on the piano. Yep, I think this theme is gonna be a classic.

My feel is that the issue lies with the average audience's perception of what the music does within a movie. Williams still writes in the "old-fashioned" (hate the term, but it's for brevity's sake) way of using dynamics (i.e. soft/loud) within the orchestral/symphonic language, so in this sense it's natural he weaves in and out of the narrative using the whole range of musical dynamics, from pianissimo to fortissimo, going through mezzoforte, mezzopiano and so on. Let's be frank with ourselves: this is not what film music does now, especially in Hollywood movies. We're now to a point where the audience is getting to notice a scoring approach that follows with dynamics the action on screen, because most of today's film scores instead seems to be just blaring-out-loud all the time or unobstrusive/unnoticeable/sound design-y all the time. yes sadly today's score are just deafeningly mixed. Like Zimmer. Even Gravity, which does not have sound effects because there is not sound in space, and where the score is not competing with the sound effects to be heard, the music is still so loud as to be almost deafening. Amen! I need some in this drab sound designy modern film music environment. Problem is a lot of reviewers don't like anymore when music carries a scene. They want it relegated to the background, or just "loud noise" like RCP scores because we've gotten use to that. Of course it's just this guy's opinion. I just with a director would let loose Williams music once in a while, the only time it happened in the last decade it Memoirs of a Geisha that This is such a sad scenario. Frankly there has also been a shift even in reveiwers. Today critics are mainly 20 something young male bloggers and for most of them are even film-maker wannabes. So they absolutely rave scores like Drive or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I remember reading reviews in disbelief as they disparaged Williams War Horse score showing a very poor understanding for music. Trust me, the film music taste amongst these younger critics is so piss poor that had E.T. been released today, a classic score which was praised in every film review at that time, these guys would tear it apart. It is Williams who has remained the same and the world around him and the critical community that has changed. I like "modern" scores now and then and when done well but if there's a score I prefer an old fashioned orchestral symphonic score. Like I said before, an autopilot score from Williams even now would be better career best of most working composers.

I don't think it was the "official" premiere per se. It was a work in progress screening. One thing I take away from this is that Williams has basically final call on this. That they just put in what he wrote without editing. That's a good thing. But this all seems rather rushed to me, this is an unusually tight schedule for a score. Wasn't Tintin recorded a year and half in advance?

Yes. More info here. Hmm. Then I think this will be a non-synced score, meaning, long melodic pieces that he will be in the background of the film without intricate syncing like say in Tintin or Star Wars etc. Even War Horse had synced music but Lincoln it was just applied like wallpaper in some scenes as just musical accompaniment. So this might be a score like that. --- And wasn't the screening incredibly quick after the score was recorded?

Is the click track used for tempo and syncing music to the action?

I think Nemo Cold Mountain could have won. LOTR's over due status and the air of inevitability and its sweep very obviously contributed to it winning. I am not contesting that it is an outstanding score see? I am saying many other factors contributed to it winning than the mere fact of its quality.

That was immensely deserving. But it didn't win on merit, even had it been a horrible score it would have won. It would have won were it anything. The film just swept every category it was up for. It was ludicrous LOTR 3 even won for script.

The thing is, all the films want more Oscar noms to their name, it increases their prestige and is something to put on the dvd cover. So why should the producers of Munich or Memoirs throw away a sure shot Oscar nomination? So both are submitted and bother are nominated. But I am not sure that its even possible for a non Best Picture nominated film to win Best Score anymore. The last such win was more than 10 years ago. The Score category is just sorry these days. I can't get over the fact that shit like Babel and Social Network got nominated and even won. What a mockery of film music composition. Even this year, it'll be the same, I bet either 12 Years A Slave or Gravity will win for score because they are favorites for Best Picture. The only instance in the last 10 years when I think a score truly won only on the basis of merit was Up.

I can only tell what Randy Newman did. I can not speculate as to what his thoughts might have been.

The two categories have different paper work that needs to be submitted.

The disfigured face of face of modern film music....

The artist has some say. Newman decided not to compete for Toy Story 3 score and subsequently won the grammy for it. The film was the biggest critical and box office success of the year and was a Best Picture nominee. I think he would have been nominated in a heart beat. http://www.thewrap.com/awards/column-post/77-original-score-oscars-smallest-field-23534 Very little campaigning happens for Best Score anyways. Only the members of the music branch vote for Best Score and I doubt they are fancy enough to be invited all these shin-digs. The campaigning is heavy but mainly for the Top 8 categories - Picture/Director/Screenplay/Acting. Tech people are really marginalized for much of the process unless they happen to be superstars like Zimmer. I daresay Zimmer receives much more coverage and attention and interviews than the maestro.

True for me and I will say this from personal experience. Everytime John Williams has a score out, it is atleast in Top 3 for me every time if not at No.1. And the years where Williams is nominated and doesn't win, I usually prefer his score to what ends up winning. So even sight unseen, it seems to be that Williams would atleast turn out something that will be worthy of a win. A half assed score from Williams is more accomplished than the career best work of most composers today.

The very name of Miyazaki means quality. At the very least, the film be good. And The Wind Rises is just so promising, rave reviews, a visually dazzling trailer and a momentous score.

I have a very horrifying feeling that not only will Zimmer get nominated, we will be double nominated for Rush and 12 Years A Slave. And he will win for 12 Years A Slave. I call this the rape and pillage of the art of film music composition. And when Zimmer wins, he will get a standing ovation. And the great maestro has never received a standing ovation. Oh the cruelties of life. I think a mere 5 Oscars are absolutely paltry for such a career.