What's so great about Jerry Goldsmith?

[Thor 7,508]

Earlier, you mentioned a few JG scores you weren't fond of, but that seemed to have more to do with certain idioms rather than an admission of limitations. What were Goldsmith's limitations as a composer, in your opinion? Did he have any?

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Composing. 

[GerateWohl 4,370]

Limitations as a composer is a tricky question. Did he not invest into certain aspects because he couldn't do it or could he have done anything and was particularly simply not interested in doing so? Who could answer that?

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Yavar.

[publicist 4,643]

13 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Limitations as a composer is a tricky question. Did he not invest into certain aspects because he couldn't do it or could he have done anything and was particularly simply not interested in doing so? Who could answer that?

 

Pragmatically speaking, why is that so important? You listen to stuff, hopefully not just two or three things to base your opinion on, and you should be pretty able to form an opinion what they guy can or could do better than others (and vice versa).

 

General opinion then overrides weird minority ones (ask Thor!), because who cares for a lone voice in the wilderness when it cries out for first world problems like the unrecognized genius of some guy earning millions?

[GerateWohl 4,370]

2 hours ago, publicist said:

Pragmatically speaking, why is that so important? You listen to stuff, hopefully not just two or three things to base your opinion on, and you should be pretty able to form an opinion what they guy can or could do better than others (and vice versa).

 

General opinion then overrides weird minority ones (ask Thor!), because who cares for a lone voice in the wilderness when it cries out for first world problems like the unrecognized genius of some guy earning millions?

Don't ask me, why this may be important. I didn't put the question. Thor did.

[1977 1,743]

Jerry wrote some of the most achingly beautiful love themes, as good as any of his peers. Ilia's Theme, the love themes from Supergirl, King Solomon's Mines, First Knight, The Trees, Powder (although the last two aren't love themes per se, rather themes conveying a sense of nostalgia or poignancy).

 

It's a pity he didn't really go for the concert arrangements approach like Williams (except for Ilia's Theme - yes I know it's technically an overture but it works as a standalone love theme arrangement).

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Speaking of Ilia this thread serves no purpose.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,537]

You are the JoeinAR unit. You will assist me.

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

13 hours ago, Thor said:

Earlier, you mentioned a few JG scores you weren't fond of, but that seemed to have more to do with certain idioms rather than an admission of limitations. What were Goldsmith's limitations as a composer, in your opinion? Did he have any?

 

I'm pretty sure I indicated that I thought his love of synths, sometimes a strength, could also be his greatest weakness, (for me) marring some otherwise great scores like Under Fire. It might be looked at more as an unfortunate *lack* of limitation I suppose, not having that little voice in his head which said, "maybe this isn't going to age well". Like how another favorite composer of mine, Elmer Bernstein, didn't have a little voice in his head that said, "y'know, maybe you've used the ondes martenot one too many times in a row and it's starting to get a little conspicuous and weird now".

 

Goldsmith did indeed love to experiment, and in my view sometimes those experiments, particularly when it came to synths, didn't work. (Sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, they did! I'm not going to be one of those people who says, "Goldsmith didn't have a clue how to use a synthesizer.") Occasionally he would display a lack of judgement when it came to synth usage which I felt bordered on poor taste.

 

In terms of extreme stylistic versatility however (while still somehow maintaining a strong and recognizable compositional style), I don't think he did have limitations -- or at least, fewer limitations than any other composer I've encountered. That is one of the main reasons why he is my favorite composer: The Blue Max, Seconds, Studs Lonigan, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Lonely Are the Brave, The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint, Poltergeist, Warlock, The Shadow, The Russia House, Looney Tunes: Back in Action -- they are all him, all incredibly different, and despite how prolific he was he rarely repeated himself, always trying to stretch himself further and try new things when he could. No two of his western scores are really alike in the way that many Elmer Bernstein scores are alike, for example.

 

Maybe if you outline some of the limitations of a favorite composer of yours like Williams, I can better understand what you want from me when it comes to Goldsmith. But I'm not going to say something preposterous like "Jerry Goldsmith couldn't write a lush sweeping love theme" or whatever.

 

Yavar

 

[Bespin 8,483]

I just posted something about my very recent discovery of Nemesis's OST.

 

It's a great achievement of minimalism from a composer of the quenching of Goldsmith.

 

Nemesis is after all, a score from his late period.

[filmusicfan 24]

What makes Jerry Goldsmith's music so great? Think of Jerry Goldsmith as a more ambitious Bernard Herrmann. If Herrmann pushed the boundaries of cinematic harmony and orchestral color, Goldsmith destroyed those boundaries. He had no limitations as a composer and he was not afraid to take risks and try something new with each project. His early scores show a tendency toward a modernistic approach like the music of Boulez (Planet of the Apes), but there are also clear influences of Bartok, Stravinsky, and especially the French composers. There are passages in Poltergeist and Star Trek: The Motion Picture which are very impressionistic. After Star Trek: The Motion Picture ("The Two Jerry's"), he tended to lean more toward late Romanticism, but there are still scores like Total Recall whose harmony is influenced by the augmented scale that Bartok used. In the end, his scores through the 90s tended to be less complex than earlier efforts because of changing tastes of moviegoers.