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The Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2024)-Thread


Brundlefly

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I am really interested in your theory on the following topic that, in my honest opinion, deserves its own thread:

 

Let's just assume that Jerry Goldsmith was granted to live 20 years longer.

What kind of movies would he have scored?

What would have been his regular collaborators?

How could his style have developed?

Would his style have developed at all?

What would he have said about the filmmusic of our age?

Would he have adopted to the current requests of directors and producers or would he have only collaborated with those people that still respect the traditional production of a film score?

How popular would he be by now? Would he have become a living legend like John Williams or be some random composer that scores shitty movies for over 30 years?

How many expansions would exist/not exists, if he was still able to meddle and mess with the special labels?

 

I'm especially interested in what @Yavar Moradi and @publicist think.

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I think he'd be just fine. His stripped-down action scoring would go very well with modern blockbusters. He'd be probably more hip than Williams is these days.

 

Karol

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In an alternative universe John Williams got on tha American Airlines flight to LA on September 11, 2001. After that point Jerry becomes Steven Spielberg's go to guy. JG beats his illness and lives for several decades. His charisma is such that he directs the film community to reject the ZIMperialist movement and while he is no JW the overall film musical experience among the next several decades is much stronger. Film music is better due to a smaller HZ and MG footprint. In fact James Horner never crashes his plane though tragically we lose Bear McCreary in an auto accident. 

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

A nice thought (except the John Williams dies on 9/11-part).

History has a way of not being denied when you alter the timeline in timeplot stories.

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He’s eighty years old. He’s surrounded by synthesizers. He wants to write a hip-hop score. He keeps a computer for him, a DAW and the latest plug-ins. He’s in his nineties. He likes to push the envelope, like his early years. He runs the studios and the executives crazy. He’s 93. Studying his newfound scoring technique is like being at a university. His music makes love to the ears of young filmmakers. They ask him to score their films. He calls home and tells Carol about his Indian summer, who cries. He still writes scores as prolifically as ever. Oh God, he’s writing so fast. He sees his name in concert halls everywhere. He wants to conduct those concerts, and finally get the public recognition he's always deserved. But he’s 74 years old, he's got a terminal illness, and he can’t do it. And the youngbloods are so fast.

 

 

 There was so much love in this man's music.

 

 

:(

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51 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Said JJ Abrams to John Williams upon announcement of new Star Wars films.

And he surpassed everything he did in the prequels (and everything else he did in the 21st century) with one little three minute and twelve second track.

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5 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

And he surpassed everything he did in the prequels (and everything else he did in the 21st century) with one little three minute and twelve second track.

Minor correction. March of the Resistance is actually 2:34 

(And while nice, does not hold a candle to TPM score, or even Across the Stars, let's be reasonable)

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3 minutes ago, Fabulin said:

Minor correction. March of the Resistance is actually 2:34 

(And while nice, does not hold a candle to TPM score, or even Across the Stars, let's be reasonable)

Puke. Across the stars. Star wars 1st love theme. As Kevin McAllister says I don't think so! 

 

And I was talking about everything he has done in the 21st century, Potter Tintin, etc. Rey's theme is that great

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

This is an interesting kind of thread. Publicist's response is very reasonable and realistic.

 

Personally, I think Goldsmith would have a higher status now in Hollywood, because he would be on eof the surviving masters who played a leading role in the "good old times". People would want him to write the new Star Trek scores and everything else that trammels him in the nostalgia corner rather than giving him the chance to explore new areas (which he himself didn't seem to be particularly interested in in his later years).

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On 12/17/2018 at 1:52 AM, Brundlefly said:

I am really interested in your theory on the following topic that, in my honest opinion, deserves its own thread:

 

Let's just assume that Jerry Goldsmith was granted to live 20 years longer.

What kind of movies would he have scored?

What would have been his regular collaborators?

How could his style have developed?

Would his style have developed at all?

What would he have said about the filmmusic of our age?

Would he have adopted to the current requests of directors and producers or would he have only collaborated with those people that still respect the traditional production of a film score?

How popular would he be by now? Would he have become a living legend like John Williams or be some random composer that scores shitty movies for over 30 years?

How many expansions would exist/not exists, if he was still able to meddle and mess with the special labels?

 

I'm especially interested in what @Yavar Moradi and @publicist think.

 

Just realized I never gave a direct reply on the topic, when prompted!

I think Jerry would have continued scoring all genres, as he had his entire career long. Maybe not horror, since he really wasn't a fan of the genre in general...though he did do the Haunting remake in the late 90s so who knows?

 

He would have continued his collaborations with Dante (The Hole), Anspaugh (I think he even composed a demo/theme for The Game of Their Lives), Schepisi (I think he was slated to work on the Empire Falls miniseries, before he passed away?), Tamahori (Next? XXX: State of the Union?), and Verhoeven (Black Book, Elle). Jerry was very much about *who* he worked with over what he was working on, I think. It was about having a collaborator he enjoyed working with, I think. He probably would have started some new director relationships as well, if approached.

 

I think publicist already gave a good answer on how his style might have developed, but of course we will never know. The Sum of All Fears main title was a complete surprise/shock to me, proving Jerry could still do that at such a late part of his career. I'm sure his style would have continued to develop and think he still had a few surprises left in him. Even his final film score (Looney Tunes) showed how much boundless creative energy was still there.

I think he would have continued to say things he was already saying about modern film music. The trends were already there; they've just continued to get worse.

 

I think he showed he could adapt to a lot of modern filmmaking practice, perhaps moreso than his contemporaries Barry and Bernstein. Unlike them, he did a lot of live television and radio in the 50s, which no doubt toughened him in that respect...

I do think he'd be a living legend (especially in the industry, where he still is). I don't think anyone is (or could be) on the level of John Williams in terms of notoriety as a film composer...not even Zimmer. In the past, maybe Herrmann, Rozsa, A. Newman, Steiner, Barry, Mancini each had their day. But if we're talking present day, I don't think anyone can touch Williams in terms of popularity with the general public. Within our niche group of film score aficionados, Jerry does (and would) reign supreme, with Williams.

 

I think a lot of expansions of his works happened before he passed away, so maybe not too much meddling. But who knows?

 

Yavar

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2 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

He would have continued his collaborations with Dante (The Hole), Anspaugh (I think he even composed a demo/theme for The Game of Their Lives), Schepisi (I think he was slated to work on the Empire Falls miniseries, before he passed away?), Tamahori (Next? XXX: State of the Union?), and Verhoeven (Black Book, Elle). Jerry was very much about *who* he worked with over what he was working on, I think. It was about having a collaborator he enjoyed working with, I think. He probably would have started some new director relationships as well, if approached.

I always have to think of him starting a collaboration with Nolan instead of Zimmer.:wub:

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6 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

Thankfully we pretty much already have that and it’s completely awesome. ;)

 

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7684/.f

 

Yavar

 

Hey it might have happened if Joe Dante directed Batman.

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1 hour ago, Nick Parker said:

I've been hearing so many great things about The Shadow, is the OST a good place to jump in?

 

anigif_sub-buzz-4954-1520795259-1.gif

 

The OST is, in my opinion, one of the worst in Goldsmith's discography. It's not that it plays badly as an album, but it doesn't well represent what Goldsmith wrote, at all. Unlike the OST of First Knight and Lancelot's Theme, it doesn't omit a key theme entirely, but it comes really close: the beautiful love theme only appears once, briefly, in the finale cue. One might be forgiven for even thinking it was just a unique bridge melody or something, the way it's used there. But in the score proper it is given a ton of great development and really makes its mark just as much as the hero and villain themes.

 

This is one where the Intrada expansion is IMO especially essential, because they almost *triple* the running time -- this is one of Goldsmith's longest scores (along with QB VII and The Mummy).

 

Yavar

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I confess the suspense underscore in Nemesis is some of the most boring (to me) music Jerry ever wrote. That said, his aggressive action music (such as the second half of Odds and Ends) is absolutely magnificent and fits in with his action music from the preceding decades... I'm still glad we got the complete score, so I can edit down my own album, because the 48 minute original Varese album was like half boring suspense underscore, leaving off so many thematic and action highlights.

 

Yavar

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