David Coscina

Yes, he's a really nice person on top of being so talented. He never talks down to people. He's a very genuine person who loves all aspects of music. And his enthusiasm is infectious.

I agree- these infernal critics are contributing to the death of good film music

Actually, Village Voice pointed out Jonny Greenwood's score to There Will Be Blood in a very positive way.

Lisa Schwarzbaum is not exactly writing for the Village Voice. And it's a sad statement on film appreciation of music score when a critic points out when the music is not relegated to background monotonous crap. If anything, this makes me all the more excited to hear the full score.

True, but when you do talk about a new score, it's often by Debney.... Not as excited as you are, Dave, but I like what I'm hearing. The big, soaring stuff doesn't really do it for me (though I love the brass in it). It's annoying, I feel like I should really love Yared, but so little of his stuff has grabbed me. Morlock- who, to add insult to injury, also spent a couple of hours last night being in awe of Horner No one says you have to love Yared. If his style ain't your cup of tea, no problems. My take on the lack of excitement over some of his stuff is two fold: 1. He got pigeonholed scoring romantic tear jerkers which constrained him to a certain style. I mean you cannot write twelve tone funk for something like City of Angels (which actually had an awesome score as it was). 2. He's got a very refined classical sound to his music. Kamen also developed into that in his latter years and I remember a lot of people didn't like his Iron Giant score because it was very European sounding. Something like Troy or Camille Claudet shows his range much better. He's capable of a lot more than what filmmakers demand. He told a story about how he came up with "Crazy Tom" from The Talented Mr.Ripley. He said he just started playing around with the theme which, up until that point, was only a slow throughtful piece. He created a dizzying kinetic version "just for the heck of it" and Anthony Mingella was so impressed he put it into a scene from the film as it was. The teasers we have heard apparently don't even come close to how exciting Amelia is in its music score. Man I'm really looking forward to this. One other thing: I respond very much to great harmonies in music. That is what moves me emotionally and fascinates me cerebrally. Yared, like WIlliams, has a terrific sense of harmonic development and expansion. It's not the same old diatonic triads with his work. Even the examples of Amelia reveal this.

Horner may have been a good composer when he was 29 but he's been relegated to the "STALE" section of film composing for some time now. I desperately try to convince myself otherwise but while he's got technique, frankly, it's borrowed licks from a plethora of other composers so it does much count in my books. Yared is more original. And he actually gives a shit about music and art. All evidence to the contrary in Horner's case.

can you elaborate? Harmonically there is a lot more going on than most crap that passes for film music to my ears Well it's hard to say from just these samples. But it sounds pretty ordinary and typical of film music these days, granted it's better than the stuff Hans Zimmer media ventures crowd will do at least. But it seems to be pushing no boundaries and is happy to sound soft and unnoticeable and entirely within the cliches. Now I have heard some amazing aircraft scores, try Franz Waxman's the spirit of st louis, especially the track Building the Spirit. http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-St-Louis-Franz-Waxman/dp/B00004LMQK Well yes, Waxman is in a differentl league or perhaps a different time. I have no doubt that Yared's score will be expansive and amazing because I hear the kernels of how he will develop these themes. Some of his approach is very much like Ravel in that he's got some fantastic building of chords and some terrific harmonic resolutions that are not cliche'd. I don;'t think he even resolved to a standard V-I in anything I heard. But Yared is an exquisite composer, meaning he's not going to hit you over the head with minor block chords a la MV-RC or punish you with pounding drums. For rhythmic propulsion, he uses short string figures (short articulations like spiccato and staccatisimo) or else rhythmic ostinatos like Williams would do and embellish them with orchestral percussion. Sorry to be so defensive but I count him as a friend and mentor, and I know first hand from studying his hand written scores how deep his music knowledge is. I would just say that I'm looking forward to the full soundtrack and that one track that is 11 minutes long.

can you elaborate? Harmonically there is a lot more going on than most crap that passes for film music to my ears

There are aspects of Daniel Plainview's character that I could identify with- like his misanthropic outlook. Not saying this us an admirable quality but I can understand it. Plus I like how the film portrayed organized religion but won't elaborate due to forum rules.

yea I'm hyped. Been a loooong time since i got this excited about music from short teasers.

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/amelia/ 10 exerpts from his upcoming score. Sounds epic, beautiful, and lyrical. The brass writing sounds really cool, like territory Yared has not explored before. Those ascending figures in the horns are inspired. Actually sound a little like something a guy named John T Williams would write. This is really cool sounding stuff. I'm actually excited about an upcoming score! Who would have thunk?

There really aren't any sympathetic characters except maybe Daniel's son.

I'm curious- what exactly failed to draw you in? I didn't mean to suggest that you have a poor attention span BTW.

I found TWBB quite engaging but then again I don't have ADD or ADHD. Seriously though, I was weened on films that had a deliberate pace to them and respected their audience enough to unfold at a leisurely pace. Today, I really worry that shit directors like Michael Bay are actually contributing to the attention problems in our young children by bombarding them with images so fast. I mean, advertisers would employ these means of manipulation because they had 20 second or 60 second time slots to brainwash their target audience. But when a filmmaker implements the same rapidity of images and information for 2 hours, it's agonizing and punishing to those who aren't used to that bombardment of stimuli. Anyhow, that's a little off topic but I do believe some people just were not able to sit still for Anderson's drawn out film style because they have become accustomed to the Michael Bay style of cinema (if one could even call it that).

Different stroke for different folks. No problem Data. I'm sure there's a few films we do agree that are great. I once had an argument with a director I was scoring a short film for over whether Jaws was a better film than Schindler's List. I said it actually probably was in terms of cinematic technique and that pissed her off. She also hated John Williams' music. No surprise that I got kicked off of the film shortly after. C'est la vie.

Once again, some film's aim is not to please but to edify and cause discussion. TWBB is that kind of film. If you want escapism, there are plenty of movies that fit the bill. I would not expect to go into a movie like TWBB with the idea that I would be entertained. Nothing in the trailers would suggest that and in fact, the music I heard in the trailers WAS Greenwood's original score (another bold move). Why must everything be happy and saccharine?

The movie TWBB is #1 in my Top 10 from 2000 list. And it's in with my all time top 10 best films: Seven Samurai Alexander Nevsky Ran Vertigo Citizen Kane There Will be Blood Schindler's List Goodfellas Saving Private Ryan Ivan the Terrible Pt 2

I think this is a good thread and I appreciate all of the different view points. As I mentioned in the previous post, sometimes the aesthetic affect of music should be to irritate, not to please. This was clearly the role in parts of TWBB. Also remember that PT Anderson likes to mix his scores very loudly. There are parts of Magnolia where Jon Brion's "Schindler's List" styled minimalist track actually mars the dialogue and is also mixed with some Aimee Mann songs, basically Anderson operating in full music-montage (gotta love a guy who actually KNOWS the usage of visual and musical montage a la Eisenstein). Like Alex, I love the application of the score in TWBB. I don't listen to all of the tracks on their often because they can be off-putting. But I would submit that I don't think Greenwood nor Anderson are looking down at their audience- I think both RESPECT their audience enough to throw these curve balls at them. It's far more insulting to me when someone chucks out something predictable and easy. Someone like Michael Giacchino respects his audience too and believes in creativity and wants to give his listeners the best he can do. His methodology is a little different but the end result is that he's not simply towing the line as so many other composers do either because they lack the balls, imagination or capability to do something different. Same goes for John Williams. What composer writes a fugue for some dudes putting a cage together? Or a baroque inspired piece accompanying a montage of hapless humans that could be a predator's feast in the upcoming chapters of the film? Or even fusing jazz with BArtok harmonies in a little '60s piece about a guy who impersonates other people? Greenwood might not have delivered something pleasing to the ear in all cues, nor did he pioneer these techniques, but the marriage of his stylistic choice with the narrative was just about the ballsiest thing I have seen in mainstream cinema....ever. David

Datameister, I did not mean to imply Giacchino was a bad composer- I own all 4 seasons of LOST soundtracks as well as various other Gia scores. I think he's quite talented and a skilled technician. But not much of what I have heard, as much as I love it, for LOST screams unique or innovative in its scoring approach. It's fairly reflexive scoring in my books. Doesn't make it bad, just not cutting edge and frankly, I don't think the composer is given the same latitude for network TV as Greenwood was given by PT Anderson for a feature film. It's not really even necessary to compare both.

Close, but no cigar. TWBB sounds like contemporary noise; Lost sounds gratifyingly out-of-the-ordinary among TV and film music. That is your opinion but I would like to clarify that none of the techniques Giacchino uses are out of the ordinary in the concert hall. These technqiues and compositional ideas were pioneered by Varese, Penderecki, Ligeti and George Crumb 40 years ago. Film composers like Jerry Goldsmith, Alex North, Leonard Rosenman, and John Corigliano applied them to film 30 years ago. And frankly, writing glissandi up or down for brass after a scary scene is not what I would call innovative. It's actually predictable. The only think that has any merit to Giacchino's approach is that mainstream TV audiences have not been exposed to this style of writing. Greenwood's application of the same techniques (and I would offer more developed and deft) towards a period American drama is much more unusual and uncompromising. The whole point of some of the abrasive cues is to underline the monster that Henry Plainview is. It's a horror film without the goul. That is its brilliance (I offer it's the best film of the 2000s by a long shot, especially in its film technique and acting). It doesn't bother me that many dismiss it because most of it was intended to disgust, not to delight. But there are several introspective tracks that are hypnotic, beautiful, and just damn cool (Future Markets). But to each his/her own.

I cannot get the extra cues because Nonsuch won't take non-US orders even when it's the MP3 download version. That stinks. I love this score. "Future Markets" is probably up there with my fave cues from the last 10 years. It rocks.

there's a lot more to this score than "noise" or dissonance. But frankly if you guys aren't open to it than so be it. I also won't recommend Prokofiev's 3rd Symphony either because of those icky dissonance's either.

Your right, we should all stop wasting our time on the subject and get back to discussing all the great new film music out there. We would if there were any.

Yeah, Zimmer is ZImmer and Williams is god, er Williams. There are only a handful of other guys working in Hollywood right now that DON'T have some assistance when it comes to composing. Howard Shore is one of them. Writes and orchestrates everything himself. He might have assistants for other scoring related chores (synth programming) but the music end is totally in his realm. I think Chris Gordon (not Hollywood mind you) also does everything himself. Pretty awesome composer actually. This has been said to death but I will say it again for the cheap seats- Williams' 8 stave short scores have every bit of detail that a copyist would need to explode the score into full orchestral format. There's no guesswork and this is from the mouths of Hollywood orchestrators. I have some of Williams' short scores and they are so elaborate I could produce a finished piece with them with no help. If some people continue to assert that Williams has compositional assistance, well I will quote Will Ferrell from Step Brothers: "you're just coming off stupid".

City of Angels by Gabriel Yared. Beautiful score. Wish he would get more projects. His music is amazing.