Bayesian

Ordered! #277391

Hoi polloi = the masses, the plebes. (Also sometimes means the elite, for some strange reason, but that’s certainly not the meaning I was going after.) Basically, any of us non-Zimmer-ites who don’t have homes in Malibu and aren’t the capos of our own film scoring mafias.

Oh please tell us more! You’ve got more stories, right? I love when we hoi polloi get to peek behind the curtain!

On July 30, I attended Raiders LTP performed by the San Francisco Symphony. It was my first LTP and I loved it! Some random thoughts: - There was a pianist in the orchestra. I didn’t realize JW used piano for color in that score. - Six percussionists were on stage, by my count. Most impressive! - They had an intermission, which they introduced by segueing into the Raiders march. When they started up again, they played the Mutt adventures. - The performance was sharp! No flubs, as far as I could tell - Even though I was there to watch the orchestra/conductor, it was surprisingly hard for me not to just watch the screen instead. Overall, lots of fun and I’m very much looking forward to more JW LTPs! Home Alone this Christmas, to start.

Watched Oppenheimer last night in a cavernous IMAX theater. The film is an amazing achievement, easily the best pic frontrunner for 2023. I give Nolan (a filmmaker I’ve been ambivalent about for years) full marks for the story he tells here and the nonlinear way he tells it. I agree with the minority here, though, about the music. You can’t help but notice (endure?) how loud it is. It’s a nearly nonstop aural assault dialed up to 11. At least, thankfully, Nolan chose not use music (or any sound) during the extraordinary Trinity test scene. Oppenheimer might well be the apotheosis of maximal sound design in film. The music is barely musical, instead serving as some kind of demented version of an audio description aid like the kind you can turn on for a streaming service, one that hardly ever shuts up. Agitated, screechy violins and strings to convey intellectual torment, pounding, quickening synth beats to convey emotions coming to a head, dead silence interrupted by maxed-out crashing noise to convey… not sure what, exactly, other than a startle that gets old quick, followed by a headache. As others have accurately said, Göransson’s music often drowns out the dialogue, which is actually not his fault; the music and sound design that go hand in hand in this film are simply mixed far too loudly and far too often. It’s an unfortunate demerit against what I’d otherwise say is Nolan’s best film to date.

Now I need to figure out where this magazine is sold. Barnes & Noble is a scarce sight these days. By the way, does anyone think this film has a chance at being seen as a prestige pic at the same level as Oppenheimer? On paper, the pedigree for the former is arguably as strong as the latter, or damn close to it.

I recently mailed a beloved forum member here a CD via USPS without the jewel case and it got to him safely without the customs fee being paid. If you place the disc in a bubble mailer along with the inlay card and booklet, it gets treated as a letter by the post office (which means $4.10 to ship to Europe without tracking, ~$20 with tracking). I will note that the postal clerk was initially iffy about whether it really was just a letter inside--obviously, a CD is stiffer than a letter would be. I told him it was a piece of cardstock and I had it in a bubble mailer to protect it and he went with it. Stories like Marian's are very frustrating to read because there's next to no recourse to make things right and the amount of money lost adds up quick. I'd certainly be frustrated if it were me in his position. Sometimes a bit of harmless sleight of hand helps to even the playing field. PM me if you're in Europe/AUS/NZ and want to give this a try.

Post of the week. And it was written on Monday.

I fucking hate that gif

Are they really doing that? Could it be related to Spacey just recently beating the rap in the UK case? (If so, I wonder if this could mark the start of his professional rehabilitation.)

I liked the posts informing about historic examples of large musical forces in classical and film music—very interesting to read. So maybe Fallout’s 230 musicians aren’t necessarily over-the-top. But 550 for DR Part 1 is still ridiculous to me. I also no longer harbor much trust that Balfe did it for the musicians’ benefit. The supposed “inspiration” from Russian composers, trying to claim that in situ recording adds something precious to the music, name-dropping the Swiss Drum Corps and the top-rank cities he went to, and touting a 35-person bongo session— all of it reeks of Balfe shouting, “BE IMPRESSED WITH ME!!” Other composers let their music speak for themselves. It seems like it’s only RCP guys who annoyingly insist on using the PR full-court press. If only the music was deserving of it.

That’s an explanation I could get behind. Balfe giving hundreds of players some piece work and maybe even a share of the royalties would be a gracious gesture. And not calling attention to it as a make-work stunt would be respectful and classy; all the locale-flavor PR nonsense would just be cover. If that’s truly the underlying reason, I’ll cop to my judgy attitude. It wouldn’t change the fact that we badly need to move on to a different soundscape for film scores (from composers who aren’t Zimmer-issued) and that we as moviegoers and film music enthusiasts will continue to suffer until that happens. But at least it means Balfe’s heart is in the right place. I’m not convinced that’s actually the situation, but it’s nice to think of it as a possibility.

I didn’t know about these examples. Thanks for sharing. My position about excess in this regard remains unchanged, and indeed I wonder if anyone who’s familiar with these examples can tell me if the results are worthy of their respective stunt. Maybe I’m being too much of a purist or elitist about all this. From what I understand, Balfe isn’t formally trained in music, so it may be unreasonable for me to expect him to be grounded in the traditional elements of composition. In that sense, he joins Zimmer and Elfman and probably others who have found great success in an industry that doesn’t gatekeep (at least with regard to credentials). I don’t begrudge his success in any way other than that he uses his clout to promote a scoring style whose creative potential went stale years ago and has since been thoroughly exhausted. Why oh why did it have to be Zimmer/RCP who became the 800-lb gorilla and handed the mantle to Balfe?

That is such a load of PR puffery, I might have actually lost five minutes of life expectancy seething at the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Do we get L.A. vibes when we hear music performed by the studio orchestra on the Sony scoring stage?? Of course not. Can anyone tell me what the hell was Venetian about any of the score playing during the party or in the alleys and canals afterward? Is there such a thing as an Abu Dhabi sound that would have somehow belonged in scenes set in an airport? And someone please tell me what musical signature applies to a passenger train traveling to Austria? To claim that the music somehow gains character by being played in situ is the highest form of masturbatory preening, worse even than the way wine critics write about nose and terroir. Here’s an idea, Balfe: Write music that weaves regional characteristics into your M:I sound and let the ace musicians who already live and work in London give you the world flair you seek. A talented composer would already know to do that—and know how to do that, of course, and not try to make an end run by claiming that recording in Venice somehow makes the notes special. But you’re not that composer, are you? I can’t wait for the PR for the score to DR Part 2. I fully expect to read that Balfe recorded a hundred-strong Slavic male choir in the bowels of a decommissioned nuclear sub. You know, so we the audience really get to understand the Entity. All in a year’s work for this brave musical pioneer.

I'm genuinely curious about this. I recently learned Lorne Balfe used 230 musicians (including six flutes and 30 brass) for MI: Fallout and something like 550 musicians for MI: DR Part 1. These numbers, especially the latter, are absurd. The guy's no Wagner (and even that megalomaniac would probably have balked at counts like these) and he operates in an industry where instrument striping, synth choirs, electronic overlaying, and audio processing make musician counts like these preposterous overkill. So what is it, then? I have some theories: 1. Balfe is a mediocre film scorer at best and he knows it. Having reached the limits of his composing talent, he believes the best way to make an impression going forward is by maximizing the production value of his so-called music. He may only know how to write the epic equivalent of "Hot Cross Buns" but, by God, he'll scour the planet for the largest possible number of the best conservatory-trained instrumentalists to play the ever-loving hell out of that three-chord-and-zero-modulation theme. 2. Balfe is trying to gain credibility on the cheap. Even though he knows he can't write a melody or develop a theme to save his life, he still craves respectability. And one way to get it is to bury your work under so many layers of borrowed prestige and reflected glory that to question the quality of the music itself almost becomes an act of disrespect. What's better than being able to say that a renowned soloist performed your music for a film? Getting to say that a dozen of them did (q.v. Zimmer and his drumming circle for some Superman movie). Slaving for well over a year on a score and then hunting down 550 of the best musicians in Europe to perform it? What churlish misanthrope is going to criticize your music after you tell them that? 3. Having Peter-principled his way to the top ranks of his industry, Balfe doesn't actually recognize how untalented he is and genuinely believes he needs five hundred musicians to properly deliver on the quality and potential of his latest writing. Sorry for the tirade, Balfe/Zimmer/RCP fans, but for fuck's sake -- what happened to our beloved art form? A beautiful garden -- the clever and delightful use of dynamics, tone color, leitmotif, orchestra hits, non-Western scales, and key change to set up scenes, accentuate story beats and deliver payoffs -- has turned into a dumpster fire of wall-to-wall noise that's sucked far more oxygen out of the room than it deserves to. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Balfe's music really does warrant musical forces of that magnitude. If someone wants to give a shot at explaining it, I'm ready to listen.

“Somewhat uncritical”? Daniel Robinson is a total kiss-ass. Maybe his fawning prose helps him get access to the people he writes about, but it makes for poor journalism/criticism.

@Tom Guernsey, thanks for describing so cogently a big part of what I feel is wrong with today’s approach to film scoring—specifically, how oppressively it makes its presence felt. Oppenheimer sounds like a perfect example. I haven’t seen it yet, but it gives the impression of being a Very Important Film from a Very Important Filmmaker. (Certainly, that’s how Nolan appears to have gone about making it—have you read the production notes on this thing? You’d think Nolan was painting the fucking Mona lisa.) All the adorably precious lengths Nolan went to make his film aside, there’s something seriously out of order when all the hard work of costume designers, art directors, historians, set dressers, acting coaches, cinematographers, location scouts, editors, production assistants, etc. gets thrown under the bus because the Very Important Filmmaker has a tin ear for music. Film scoring is supposed to support the moving picture, not overwhelm it with its loudness and unrelenting-ness. Film scoring is supposed to be a partner in creating the world we as moviegoers seek to disappear into—not bludgeon the audience into submission. It’s utterly amazing to me that the works of hundreds of artists and specialists can be so easily sullied by one man (or one man + a worker bee brigade of MIDI keyboardists). Nolan is as much to blame for this as Zimmer or Balfe or any of their clone army. Today’s film music problem traces directly back to the Dark Knight. And now with Oppenheimer being praised to the heavens, we’re probably in for many more years of the same.

Did the email explicitly indicate the CD as a limited edition?? That would be interesting, seeing as it hadn’t received that disclaimer on the emporium website.

Which people? The DOJ? It’s called antitrust. Apple’s board? It’s called not fucking your company over by saddling it with the responsibilities of the worlds largest media company (which already probably should never have been allowed by the DOJ to swallow Fox after buying Lucasfilm and Pixar).

And far more annoying. How many times can you watch someone screw over another person who’s saving your ass and needs your help before you start rooting against her?

Goddam autocorrect!

Given the almost vicious level of inattention Disney’s giving this CD release, even those who ordered one in time shouldn’t be surprised if their copy comes in the mail with an unsold KOTCS disc in the tray or a CD-r of the DoD score ripped from Youtube at 128kbps. That’d be in keeping, wouldn’t it?

The Department of Justice wouldn’t allow the world’s largest company to swallow the world’s biggest media conglomerate, would it?? Even if it did, why would Apple’s board go ahead with that? Now Tim Cook would have to concern himself with the running of theme parks, cruise ships, music publishing, and a hundred years of wide-ranging pop culture IP on top of the zillion things he’s got going on at Apple. That’s an I sane workload.

Man, what a dreadful and troubling thing to have to read about my second favorite film composer. This cannot end well for Elfman. If the allegations are true in their entirety, we have just witnessed the end of his career. He’ll then join the growing crowd of talented men fallen from grace whose achievements will forever be interpreted in conjunction with their moral failings and abusive actions. If the allegations are false, he’ll still get dragged through the mud until the courts declare him innocent. Abadi’s detailed accusations, coupled with the hush money agreement and her founding of an awareness and victim support group, make me inclined to believe her. I’m still processing what this means for my relationship with Elfman’s music. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t maintain payments and spare what could well be the ruination of an incredible career. More importantly, what on earth possessed him to do these offensive acts in the first place? All this makes me wonder, what other currently respectable artists/celebrities/public figures are one NDA breach from being destroyed in the public eye?

It surely is a sign of the end of an era when the CD release of the score to a movie like Indy 5 comes and goes in nearly the blink of an eye and with no marketing. If it weren’t a JW score, I suspect it wouldn’t have even gotten the CD treatment in the first place.