Are we score lovers fundamentally movie lovers or...

[Quintus 5,399]

... are we all fundamentally movie score lovers? (A new fan sub-genre?)

Maybe its a weird question, but I know what angle I'm coming from so go figure...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Scores come before the movie as far as I'm concerned.

[Quintus 5,399]

Scores come before the movie as far as I'm concerned.

But the movie MUST come first...

Chicken or egg?

[muehlopwer 0]

Chicken or egg?  

It's the EGG!!!!

A group of philosphs and scientist found it, it IS the egg!!!

[pi 0]

both

[Morlock 11]

Fundamentally? I'd say probably movie lovers. A movie score is nothing without a movie. I am not impressed with JW because he can write nice music, but because he can right the perfect music for the specific film at hand.

Or, in short, I'd take Network, a great film with no score, over The Fury, which IMO is a crappy film with one fo the best scores ever.

But really, the two are way too entwined. Most of my favorite scores are from my favorite movies, and I often become a bit disenchanted with a great score when I watch the movie it was written for and see it sucks. Like The Wind and The Lion. Great friggin' music. But as a film score, I've got nothing to associate it with, aside from Sean Connery's masterful Arabic accent, some ridicules looking action scenes and Candice Bergen's horrible performance.

That's why I approach seeing Total Recall again with terpidation. I love the score, idealizing what the images might be (I haven't seen the film in over a decade). But if they turn out to be as unimpressive as I imagine they could be....a bit of the magic will be gone from Jerry's masterpiece.

[Quintus 5,399]

 That's why I approach seeing Total Recall again with trepidation. I love the score, idealizing what the images might be (I haven't seen the film in over a decade). But if they turn out to be as unimpressive as I imagine they could be....a bit of the magic will be gone from Jerry's masterpiece.

Take a chance and watch the movie again. Regardless of Arnie (I love him in this btw), Total Recall is a solid sci-fi flick. Actually its more than a mere good film - its an excellent piece of escapism. Goldsmith did the movie proud and Verhoeven repaid the favour gladly. Or should that be the other way around?...

The score/images are seriously cinematic in places.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

personally I don't speak for any of you, except when some of you(which is becoming more and more of you) are wrong.

I am a movie fan first, and if the score is deserving a score fan second.

[Melisande 0]

Honestly, I'm a score lover, not a movie lover. I like music much more than movies.

I haven't even seen the movies for many of the scores I own. I didn't even see E.T. until last year :oops:

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Score lover, since i havent seen many movies of all the scores i own.

[codanai 0]

Scores come before the movie as far as I'm concerned.

But the movie MUST come first...

Chicken or egg?

I actually disagree with you. I don't see any reason why a movie must come first. In fact, I don't think directors have tried the reverse approach enough. Disney did it with FANTASIA, Kubrick a little with 2001, but filmmakers seem afraid to really explore the idea of 'the music comes first.' Maybe it's because they're comfortable with the normal procedure and afraid to really experiment with new things.

But personally, I think it'd be so great if filmmakers commissioned composers to write pieces--ballets, symphonic poems, etc.--and then the filmmakers would create movies around the music. This could reap some really awesome results.

[tony69 0]

the movie comes first. the score is subservient to the movie. its the golden rule of film scoring. all the composers will say the score must serve the movie, but if it achieves a life beyond the movie, that's an awesome thing, but that's not the goal. the score must heighten the movie or express what is not there or in some cases, to decieve the audience.

[SomeNewGuy 0]

That depends entirely on the movie and its score. A great film can have a terrible score, and a terrible film can have a magnificent score. Or it can be a good movie and a good score, but one is simply better than the other--I'm a fan of some scores more than the movies they accompany (Star Wars, for example), and a fan of some movies more than the scores that accompany them (like LotR).

[Jeshopk 8]

It's the same as asking if Opera lovers love the libretto. Some do, some don't. But it's music, and you don't have to know what it's saying.

[Atreides 0]

It depends on what I'm focusing on at the time. If I buy a score on CD, I want to hear some good music. However, the movie should come first when a composer is writing the score.

Great movies are never fashioned around music. Great musical montages, maybe, but movies are primarily a visual medium. All sound effects--music included--come second to the visual storytelling. If a composer can accompany, reflect, and tell the story of a film all at the same time successfuly, great! However, the music should never be dominant over the visuals. Music certainly has its times to shine (if all is done well, that should be throughout the film), but at the same time, it should always be serving a supporting role.

In the case of 2001, one could say that the music took center stage, but this would only be a half-accurate assessment. The music was more important in 2001 not because it was dominant, but because Kubrick was expressing things with images that required a very different approach with the music. Kubrick rejected the actual film score in favor of the classical music because he felt that, for the music to accompany the film, it had to exist outside the film; causing people to go into a contemplative state of mind rather than to reflecting the action, which would have missed the point of the movie entirely.

So, when I'm watching a movie, the movie comes first.

But when I'm listening to a film music CD, different standards apply.

[Bowie 45]

I'm just a John Williams lover. I notice scores though. The successful marriage of film and music is a bizarre phenomenon, and JW does it best by a longshot.

Bowie - who came here because of this fact, but is perturbed at how often justification of being a fan, here at jwfan.net no less, is expected.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

I'm a movie lover. but I'm not sure whether that love of movies stems from my passion for music or my passion for expressing art in general. All I know is that I certianly owuldn't be a movie lover if I wasnt' a score lover, and vice versa.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

i wouldnt have been a film music fan if i werent as in love with movies as i am.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I listen to film scores more than I watch movies. The sonic medium has always had more of an effect on me.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

I have to change what i said.

In the past i was a movie lover, and i got scores for movies i liked.

Now it's as i said in the other post.

[Olivier 5]

Different things, like music and books. They happen to be linked, and you usually start being interested in film music through films, quite naturally, but you may very well have one without the other.

Actually, my very first film music album (E.T.'s LP) was offered to me by mother without even seeing the movie.

Come to think of it, I wonder how she got the idea of buying me the music; I suppose trailers, the poster and discussion of the movie on TV made it clear to her it was a good movie, and that the movie would be jsut as good; I'll have to ask her. She was not a film music collector either, though she did love "Lara's Theme" and did know some James Bond music.

My love of film music was thus born independently of the movie itself-- I had sticker albums and books, but loved the music before actually seeing the movie).

I like movies a lot, but my score-collecting is pretty much disconnected from my movie-viewing experience-- fortunately, otherwise I wouldn't be getting much music.

I might wait to the see the movie first to decide, or want to get a score after seeing a movie, but as most film music lovers, I have never, may never want or never be able to see, the majority of the movies whose scores I have.

Sometimes, however, I might be interested in watching the movie after hearing the music.

ex: The chances of my ever seeing Stanley & Iris are pretty slim; I doubt it will ever been shown on TV in France (it's always possible, but it's not exactly considered as a major movie of either actors or director or film history), and I don't intend to buy the DVD (should there be one).

ex: Ballets Russes; there are even fewer chances that I might ever see it; even it were broadcast here, I wouldn't be interested in watching it. Very nice music, though.

Last point: I don't have time to watch much anything any longer, but I have always listened to music all the time, and listening to music while working is obviously a lot easier than watching a movie.

[Trent B 337]

I think I am more of a movie lover.

I generally won't get into a score unless I've heard it in the film first. Grant there are/have been a few exceptions (ahem, Star Wars for instance...)

Once I do watch a film and if I decided I like the score I'll pick it up and listen to it.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Movie lover.

[Adam 1]

Its more about the music for me now, though I'm only interested in the best of what's out there so I'm not even really a film music lover in the sense that I can do without 95% of it probably at least.

When I was young, film music was about the movie. The music was just a way to have a piece of the movie and it didn’t even occur to me to wonder who wrote the music. But when I eventually noticed that JW had written the music to all 3 soundtracks I owned, that sparked an interest that’s grown steadily over the years. Now I’m far more interested in JW than I am in films. Films tend to disappoint me. I like good movies but its often not worth the commitment of time and money to try to find the good stuff in the jungle of mediocrity.

- Adam

[Henry B 50]

I've heard plenty of scores detached from films. I'm not much of a movie person. However, I have seen the films that correspond to most of my favorite scores.

[pi 0]

There is an interesting movie with out any score only sparse source, it is that movie about that Nazi's planning on what to do with the Europe Jews, the title escapes me - Lockhart from HPCOS is in it. It is so wierd, doesn't even feel like a movie without score, you are waiting and wiating for it - it never appears.

[nightscape94 965]

I am lovers of both. I see film as an art form. Same goes for music. Here we have to different forms of art coming together.

Score, to me, is another off-shoot of "classical" music (the more stingy will forgive me for using the term in conjunction with the whole, and not just the period). Opera, ballet, orchestral...film music. They all have similarities, and differences, but are, in many ways, directly connected. Their functions are different, and they are approached in different ways, but use many of the same elements and emotional anchors. So I don't necessarily like to say that I'm a "score" lover, but more a lover of good music. I'll take whatever I can get.

Tim

[futuremartymcfly 0]

I probably wouldn't haven't gotten into film scores were it not for the fact I loved Jurassic Park when I was younger, but from there film music took over films in general. Its like the chicken and the egg, the Chicken comes out of the egg, but is overall more powerful then the egg.

[Richard Penna 3,684]

I do like movies, but the score comes first with most these days. I get so many scores for which I actually have pretty much no interest in the movie.

[Red 75]

I can't choose. It is a symbiotic relationship, one isn't as good without the other.

[John Crichton 4]

Mostly movie lover, but with Williams and other of my favorites it's very 50/50, if not more for the scores. I recently rewatched the Indy trilogy for the first time in a long time, and the part I enjoyed the most was listening to the scores in the film. But the movies were good too.