The Quick Question Thread

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

Not really, @karelm.

There are jump scares (both of them a  Lewton Bus) in both THE EXORCIST, and CAT PEOPLE (1942).

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

Of course, a Lewton Bus is something of a cheat, it being a perfectly ordinary object (a bus; a telephone) that has had its sonic identity magnified to such an extent as to scare both the characters, and the audience.

Lewton Busses are, also, audio scares. JAWS has many effective visual scares.

[Sweeping Strings 1,770]

Is the one in Cat People where the name comes from?

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

Indeed. It is named after Val Lewton, the director of the film.

[bollemanneke 2,937]

Does the Far and Away signature edition have metronome marks? If so, would someone post them for this spineless old little fraction of a man who's currently on holiday in Ireland?

[Andy 2,566]

@karelm
 

A good read

Jump Scare Origin and History

 

My daughter and I consume a lot of cheap horror. We both love the jump scares. Sometimes the anticipation is so fun we just get giggling.  Obviously good horror films need more than just jump scares, but it’s good fun. 

[karelm 2,641]

31 minutes ago, Andy said:

@karelm
 

A good read

Jump Scare Origin and History

 

My daughter and I consume a lot of cheap horror. We both love the jump scares. Sometimes the anticipation is so fun we just get giggling.  Obviously good horror films need more than just jump scares, but it’s good fun. 

Something about that story reminds me of this skit.

 

[Edmilson 4,988]

Question: is Raiders the only JW score for Spielberg recorded with the LSO? Actually, is it the only Spielberg score that was recorded outside the United States?

 

And why? I mean, in the early 80s JW had already done ANH, Superman, ESB and ROTLA with the LSO, why didn't he do ET and TOD with them too? Was the experience of recording Raiders in London so bad for Spielberg that he demanded of Williams to never score a movie for him there again?

[karelm 2,641]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Question: is Raiders the only JW score for Spielberg recorded with the LSO? Actually, is it the only Spielberg score that was not recorded outside the United States?

 

And why? I mean, in the early 80s JW had already done ANH, Superman, ESB and ROTLA with the LSO, why didn't he do ET and TOD with them too? Was the experience of recording Raiders in London so bad for Spielberg that he demanded of Williams to never score a movie for him there again?

George Lucas used LSO because it was a buyout orchestra requiring no further payment unlike the LA union orchestras.  He clearly believed some actors were allowed to share in the profit (Alec Guinness) but at his discretion and not a prearranged agreement.  This is a left-over concept of how he viewed the music as preexisting temp (thank you Kubrick).  In contrast, Spielberg never had this vice and saw music with a more Hitchcock than Kubrick view (an essential aspect of the story telling rather than a background character helping with the setting).  You are seeing the impact of Lucas as producer which I think over time he has been softened because he had a career with full creative control.  

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

7 hours ago, Edmilson said:

...in the early 80s JW had already done ANH, Superman, ESB and ROTLA with the LSO...

Don't forget DRACULA, and MONSIGNOR 

 

[karelm 2,641]

What does Imperial mean?  As in, the Queen wore the Imperial Crown?  

[Jay 32,111]

Imperial just means you are part of an empire.  So its the crown of the British empire. 

 

Like how Imperial Stormtroopers were the soldiers of the Galactic Empire. 

[bollemanneke 2,937]

I defriended someone on Facebook but responded to their comment later. Will they still be notified even though only friends can see my posts?

[Omen II 1,146]

On 14/9/2022 at 2:44 PM, karelm said:

What does Imperial mean?  As in, the Queen wore the Imperial Crown?  

The Imperial State Crown is one of the only two crowns in regular use by the British monarch, the other being the St. Edward’s Crown.  Both can be seen among the Crown Jewels kept at the Tower of London on public display.

 

The current Imperial Crown is a remodelling of an original made for Queen Victoria in 1838.  It contains a sapphire said to have been worn by Edward the Confessor, as well as the Cullinan II diamond and pearls reputed to have belonged to the first Queen Elizabeth.  It is worn at the state opening of Parliament as well as following the coronation.

[karelm 2,641]

3 hours ago, Omen II said:

The Imperial State Crown is one of the only two crowns in regular use by the British monarch, the other being the St. Edward’s Crown.  Both can be seen among the Crown Jewels kept at the Tower of London on public display.

 

The current Imperial Crown is a remodelling of an original made for Queen Victoria in 1838.  It contains a sapphire said to have been worn by Edward the Confessor, as well as the Cullinan II diamond and pearls reputed to have belonged to the first Queen Elizabeth.  It is worn at the state opening of Parliament as well as following the coronation.

Thanks @Jayand @Omen II I am starting to understand.  It's complicated but as I understand it, Imperial means "of the empire".  So, an empire is an extensive group of states or countries (or worlds in the case of the galactic empire) under a single supreme authority, an emperor or empress.  So, an Imperial State Crown means it doesn't belong to the Queen per se but to the Empire the queen leads.  As I recall, in Star Wars there is mention to the "Imperial Senate" which I would imagine is a tool of the Galactic Empire sort of like in Ancient Rome, the Senate was eventually corrupt with their power and either served the emperor (Caeser) or killed him because he stood in their way.  Star Wars used that as a model of the Galactic Empire where Darth Plagueis the Wise learned how to resurrect the dead and killed his master once he learned this power to become the first galactic Emperor.  

[Bayesian 1,068]

Does anyone know who wrote the melody for the Touchstone Television logo?

 

[Tom Guernsey 1,765]

Have cross posted this here and to the Ennio Morricone Composer thread... but did Ennio Morricone score an Agatha Christie adaptation or did I imagine it?! I have a recollection of him saying that he thought Richard Rodney Bennett's music for Murder on the Orient Express was far too grand and upbeat (or something along those lines) but I don't know EM scored a Poirot mystery himself.

[GerateWohl 2,871]

2 hours ago, Bayesian said:

Does anyone know who wrote the melody for the Touchstone Television logo?

 

Sounds like Jurassic Shark did.

 

 

[thx99 1,534]

2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Have cross posted this here and to the Ennio Morricone Composer thread... but did Ennio Morricone score an Agatha Christie adaptation or did I imagine it?! I have a recollection of him saying that he thought Richard Rodney Bennett's music for Murder on the Orient Express was far too grand and upbeat (or something along those lines) but I don't know EM scored a Poirot mystery himself.

While Ennio may have said something to the effect, I know Herrmann commented on RRB’s music, saying something to the effect that the opening title didn’t fit because “it’s a train of death”. Here’s Elmer Bernstein recounting the story:

 

“It [TORN CURTAIN] was very brilliant stuff, but it was part of a terminal misunderstanding between him and Hitchcock. Hitchcock wanted a romantic score [but didn't get it], because Herrmann didn’t think like that… The last time I saw him, we had a fight only over one thing. A dear friend of mine, Richard Rodney Bennett, had written a score for a film called MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. He had … a bit of a sort of pastiche score. This waltz he did for the train when the train takes off. I thought it was just brilliant. The way I think of other composers work as brilliant is when I say: I wish I had thought of that.” (laughter) “Herrmann and I were talking about what was going on in music, what have your heard lately and so on… and this a clue to where he went wrong with Hitchcock. I said [what I thought about] what Richard Rodney Bennett did with the train, the waltz and so on… he said: ‘It was ridiculous, that train was a train of death!’ – Oh come on give me a break the Orient Express a train of death? Who could take that film seriously? But he was very intense. That’s the way he saw things. If he would have done it, it would have been a train of death.” (laughter)

 

Source: http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/interview-bernstein/

[Tom Guernsey 1,765]

3 minutes ago, thx99 said:

While Ennio may have said something to the effect, I know Herrmann commented on RRB’s music, saying something to the effect that the opening title didn’t fit because “it’s a train of death”. Here’s Elmer Bernstein recounting the story:

 

“It [TORN CURTAIN] was very brilliant stuff, but it was part of a terminal misunderstanding between him and Hitchcock. Hitchcock wanted a romantic score [but didn't get it], because Herrmann didn’t think like that… The last time I saw him, we had a fight only over one thing. A dear friend of mine, Richard Rodney Bennett, had written a score for a film called MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. He had … a bit of a sort of pastiche score. This waltz he did for the train when the train takes off. I thought it was just brilliant. The way I think of other composers work as brilliant is when I say: I wish I had thought of that.” (laughter) “Herrmann and I were talking about what was going on in music, what have your heard lately and so on… and this a clue to where he went wrong with Hitchcock. I said [what I thought about] what Richard Rodney Bennett did with the train, the waltz and so on… he said: ‘It was ridiculous, that train was a train of death!’ – Oh come on give me a break the Orient Express a train of death? Who could take that film seriously? But he was very intense. That’s the way he saw things. If he would have done it, it would have been a train of death.” (laughter)

 

Source: http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/interview-bernstein/

You are quite right... I misattributed to EM but thanks for recounting the story. Funnily enough, I just listened to RRB's Orient Express score and a lot of it is actually a lot darker than the grand main theme. I'm sure Herrmann would have written a fine score but sometimes you need a bit more grandiosity. It almost relates back to my thoughts about Patrick Doyle's score for the recent Branagh Poirot movies which are much more skewed as psychological thrillers with less of the old fashioned glamour of the earlier movies.

 

I was perhaps getting confused with comments EM apparently made about how he'd have approached Star Wars totally differently. He and Kathleen Kennedy have something in common in that regard...

 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

As much as I love Herrmann's music, in the case of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS he was dead wrong.

RRB's score is magnificent, truly deserving of an Oscar™ nomination.

[Amer 1,814]

Herrmann would have made it work no matter what. Imagine what THE EXORCIST would have turned out like had he actually scored it.

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

That's intriguing, @Amer.

Was Herrmann ever in the frame to score THE EXORCIST?

[Amer 1,814]

On 22/09/2022 at 10:23 PM, Naïve Old Fart said:

That's intriguing, @Amer.

Was Herrmann ever in the frame to score THE EXORCIST?

He came to the screening as Friedkin wanted him to score the film. But the conversation went down hill.

 

Friedkin:  I want you to write a better score than CITIZEN KANE.

 

Herrmann: ..Then you should have made a  Better film than CITIZEN KANE...

 

Film Score Monthly covered this story in a very vivid article. I'll post the link to the download later in the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,476]

A thought that just occurred to me:

 

Does the practice of naming sequels like "[title of first story] 2" (or II) actually maybe derive from calling the 1939-1945 war World War 2?  Like calling it WWII had an unintended effect of introducing that?  I can't think of any sequels in literature, theater, or film from before the war that were titled this way....

[Bespin 7,019]

In a database or a search engine, if you search "Halloween" and find the actual 12 movies, it's great.

 

Then, for a theatrical release it's better too. Some series don't have a number, but get a different title.... good luck trying to see all of them, and in the right order (without the help of Wiki)!

 

Mar-ke-ting.

[Naïve Old Fart 8,015]

So... what was the first film to be called

 "(title of first story)2"?

[Bespin 7,019]

The really first bad one I saw was Jaws 2!!! 

[Jay 32,111]

3 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

So... what was the first film to be called

 "(title of first story)2"?

 

Quatermass 2 in 1957

[BB-8 1,950]

Goethe's Faust I & II

 

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust._Der_Tragödie_zweiter_Teil

[Bespin 7,019]

That's funny, but the first major film to start using this technique was The Godfather in The Godfather Part II (1974).

[BB-8 1,950]

Just wondering whether the Bible was the first piece of literature that fell into "parts".

[Disco Stu 15,476]

At least for films:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_2

 

Quote

Quatermass 2 (retitled Enemy From Space in the United States and Canada) is a 1957 black-and-white British science fiction horror film drama from Hammer Film Productions. It was originally released in the UK as Quatermass II and was produced by Anthony Hinds, directed by Val Guest, and stars Brian Donlevy with co-stars John Longden, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes, Vera Day, and William Franklyn. Quatermass 2 is a sequel to Hammer's earlier film The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). Like its predecessor, it is based on the BBC Television serial Quatermass II written by Nigel Kneale. Brian Donlevy reprises his role as the eponymous Professor Bernard Quatermass, making him the only actor to play the character twice in a film. It is considered as the first film sequel to use the ‘2’ / ‘II’ suffix within the title.

 

[Jay 32,111]

28 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Quatermass 2 in 1957

 

[Disco Stu 15,476]

Sorry!

[Bespin 7,019]

52 minutes ago, BB-8 said:

Just wondering whether the Bible was the first piece of literature that fell into "parts".

 

But that's a compilation of collective works!

[BB-8 1,950]

3 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

But that's a compilation of collective works!

Like the James Bond franchise? Variations on a theme by Ian Flemming...

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

24 minutes ago, Bespin said:

1 hour ago, BB-8 said:

Just wondering whether the Bible was the first piece of literature that fell into "parts".

 

But that's a compilation of collective works!

 

Exactly.

 

When printed magazines became common, serialised storytelling was quite popular. For example, many (most? all?) of Dickens's novels were originally release chapter by chapter.

1 hour ago, BB-8 said:

Goethe's Faust I & II

 

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust._Der_Tragödie_zweiter_Teil

 

But as your link shows, the official title is a bit longer than just "… 2". Sequels or multi-part series also aren't a modern invention. For example, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) is a sequel to Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia - or rather, Rossini came almost 100 years later, but the play Mozart's opera is based on is the second and Rossini's the first part of Pierre Beaumarchais's Figaro trilogy.

[Disco Stu 15,476]

Today I also learned that Time magazine coined the terms "World War I" and "World War II" in its June 12, 1939 issue (notice how it was actually in anticipation of the coming war).

 

Kinda funny how from the very beginning it was sort of an intuitive thing that Roman numerals are inherently fancier than Arabic ones.

[A Farewell to Kings 3,805]

Don't forget the practice of naming people "So and So II"

[Disco Stu 15,476]

Just now, Roll the Bones said:

Don't forget the practice of naming people "So and So II"

 

Good point

[Bespin 7,019]

39 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Kinda funny how from the very beginning it was sort of an intuitive thing that Roman numerals are inherently fancier than Arabic ones.

 

The sequels of The Godfather and Star Wars used the latin numbers.

 

The sequels of Jaws used the arabic ones.

 

Ah HA!

[Tom Guernsey 1,765]

Has anyone watching Babylon 5 on Amazon video in the U.K. seen it drop from being one of their “free with adverts” to only being available to pay for? I can’t see anything about this happening online but it’s suddenly changed for me and now I have to pay for the last few episodes of season 4 and all of season 5 which is quite disagreeable! I’d have watched it more frequently and I know this change was about to take place. 

[Bespin 7,019]

42 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Has anyone watching Babylon 5 

 

Sorry, I didn't see the first four.

[Disco Stu 15,476]

Random question for our many German speakers:

 

My understanding is that German is like English in that articles are not always required before nouns (like they mostly are in French, for example).  Like in English we don't use articles when the noun is a generalized stand-in for the concept of the thing ("I love pizza" vs. "I love this pizza").

 

As I've been following along with the German text of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, I was curious about the phrase "Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod."  In English, since these nouns are the general concepts of life and death, we'd say "Dark is life, is death" with no articles.  But according to Google Translate, if you translated a similar phrase like "Dark is night" to German, it would similarly not use an article ("Dunkel ist Nacht").  So why do life and death have to have articles in German?  Are they just "weighty" enough concepts?

[Bespin 7,019]

Disco, that's poetry.

 

Every language has a litterary style (often a bit outdated) that we don't necessary use every day.

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

My understanding is that German is like English in that articles are not always required before nouns (like they mostly are in French, for example).  Like in English we don't use articles when the noun is a generalized stand-in for the concept of the thing ("I love pizza" vs. "I love this pizza").

 

Disclaimer: I'm writing this as a native speaker who hasn't had an actual German grammar lesson since school, some 30 years ago or so.

 

Not really. Nouns in German usually need an article (unless they're names, and even then we often use them at least in some dialects, e.g. we usually say der Peter, although it's grammatically wrong and nobody would write it like this, unless writing in dialect). An exception are indefinite articles, which we actually derive from numbers - ein Hund (a dog), eine Katze (a cat), but if we want to use an indefinite plural article without specifying an actual number (like zwei Katzen/two cats), we simply omit the article entirely - Hunde, Katzen (dogs, cats in general). Though thinking about it, I guess English does the same. At least there German is more lenient than e.g. Italian, which to my never ending confusion uses definite plural articles in this case - i cani, i gatti (sometimes? always? My Italian is both very rudimentary and rusty)

 

I suppose "I love pizza"/"ich liebe Pizza" is a special case of the plural thing, even though the word is similar, because it's kinda of short for "I love all kinds of pizza" - as opposed to "ich liebe eine Pizza" (which I suppose in English would pass as more or less the same, but in German would rather be interpreted as "I love a specific individual pizza") or "ich liebe die Pizza", which again is a curious thing: For "this pizza", we would in this case rather specifically say "diese Pizza", and for "that pizza" "jene Pizza" (although we're usually rather lazy and just use "der/die/das" instead of "diese" (this/these) or "jene" (that/those), especially in Austria). "Die Pizza" would mostly be used if there were several food options available, and the speaker refers to the pizza option, but not necessarily pizza in general and also not one individual pizza.

 

But the more I try to explain, the more I confuse myself. A proper grammar teacher would probably despair when reading this…

 

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

As I've been following along with the German text of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, I was curious about the phrase "Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod."  In English, since these nouns are the general concepts of life and death, we'd say "Dark is life, is death" with no articles.  But according to Google Translate, if you translated a similar phrase like "Dark is night" to German, it would similarly not use an article ("Dunkel ist Nacht").  So why do life and death have to have articles in German?  Are they just "weighty" enough concepts?

 

Hmm. We would say "Pizza ist good" (pizza is good"), but never "Nacht ist dunkel". You could say "Nächte sind dunkel", but usually wouldn't. "Die Nächte sind dunkel" would be used for "the nights are dark" (referring to a specific set of nights), but "die Nacht ist dunkel" can refer both to a specific night or all nights in general. "Die Nacht war dunkel" on the other hand ("the night was dark") clearly refers to a specific night. I guess "die Nacht" doubles as the *concept*, or the essence or nature, of all nights in general. In the same way, you'd say "das Leben ist schwer" ("life is hard"), not referring to a specific life, but also not referring to multiple individual lives - rather life per se.

 

More curious though is the actual title, I'd say: "Das Lied von der Erde". The initial article is already different to what it would normally be in English ("Song of…"). Omitting it would be ok, but it would make the whole thing more vague, implying "A song" rather then "The song". But while English uses Earth as a name (I guess), in German it always needs an article (like the sun and the moon, which I guess work the same way in English). The other planets are used like regular names, but I guess Earth is special in that it is not just an individual named planet, but a specific, tangible thing.

[Disco Stu 15,476]

I wonder where English gets its leniency pertaining to definite articles, considering that the two language groups that had the strongest influences on its grammar are Germanic and Romance languages, both of which are more strict about them.

 

Are any other Germanic languages as article-lenient? Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, etc?

 

 

In English to express joie de vivre, you might say "I love life!" with no definite article.

 

Using Google, German and Dutch both get translated with a definite article:

Ich liebe das Leben

Ik hou van het leven

 

But Norwegian and Swedish do not:

jeg elsker livet

jag älskar livet

[Marian Schedenig 6,522]

34 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I wonder where English gets its leniency pertaining to definite articles, considering that the two language groups that had the strongest influences on its grammar are Germanic and Romance languages, both of which are more strict about them.

 

Perhaps something to do with the fact that English articles (and most nouns) are genderless and thus carry less information (even if usually redundant), while their German counterparts aren't? In German every noun has a specific gender (m/f/n), while in modern English, cases like "actor/actress" are the exception. Consequently, many actresses now prefer to be called actors to remove the distinction of them being specifically female (and by implication something other than an actor), while in German, "gendering" (where both the male and female nouns are mentioned either explicitly or as some sort of compound, e.g. "Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen" or "SchauspielerInnen") is gradually becoming established (if still highly controversial) practice, because traditionally, the male noun is used for both groups of exclusively male members or mixed gender members, while the female noun always only applies to females, yet in many cases, the referenced role or occupation is traditionally a "male" one and when referring to e.g. "Ärzte" (doctors), the common impulse is to think of male doctors, which women are understandably fed up with. (The whole thing is becoming more complicated with the acceptance of more than two genders)

 

German discourse is littered with heated debates pro and con gendering, and I just keep thinking how much nicer it is in English where this is simply a non-issue.

[Bespin 7,019]

Joie de vivre means literally "joy of living" btw.

 

I don't know german, but in French the articles are essentials. You can't just say "Star Wars", it's "THE Star Wars", so LA guerre des étoiles (meaning in fact The war of the stars), Les guerres de l'étoile does not sound right... Anyway, that's another subject... In fact you can write "Guerre des étoiles", without the article, but it sounds like a brand name.

 

In german it's called...