Is your interest in FILM as strong as your interest in film SCORES?

[Bayesian 1,363]

A variation on this question might be, do you follow film news or apply as much of your free time to enjoying films as you do staying up to speed on score releases and listening to soundtrack albums?

 

I've come to realize I spend much less time watching movies than I do listening to music or watching TV (or reading JWFan). In fact, if I know anything about movies, it's mostly because I read it here. Maybe it's just something that happens when you get older (I'm 41) or have seen enough mediocre or repetitive movies -- the art form diminishes in value and you find yourself looking elsewhere. Whatever it is, I just ain't into movies much anymore.

 

But film music, on the other hand, I love. As much as I love classical, which is what I grew up on. Because I came to scores relatively late, I still have an enormous back catalog to explore, and that's on top of everything being remastered and expanded in the present day. And I'm learning to appreciate good scores as existing separately from the crap films they accompany (ahem, Last Airbender, ahem). I have scores I've never heard for movies I've never seen, but at last I'm coming around to the idea that I can enjoy a score as a piece of program music without having to know a thing about the program.

 

Anyone else feel the same way? Or feel exactly the opposite?? (Or something in-between?)

[Bespin 8,480]

Yes and for me they are inseparable.

 

You can't just listen to operas on disk, if you love them, you'll see the plays.

[Wojo 2,453]

Operas? Plays? This is not the male sexuality thread! 

 

  

[Fabulin 3,511]

.

 

[Jay 37,346]

I love both yea.  

 

And I completely understand why some might love one but not the other

[Arpy 4,145]

It depends on the film and the score. I love the scores to films I dislike and love films with music I'm indifferent on. The great thing about scores is that they can take on a life of their own long after the films.

[publicist 4,643]

No, i'm a music guy.

[A24 4,331]

6 hours ago, Bespin said:

Yes and for me they are inseparable.

 

You can't just listen to operas on disk, if you love them, you'll see the plays.

 

As in ... they need each other? Individually, they can't stand on their own feet? Interesting!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,514]

@Bayesian,

You call 41 "older"?

[Bayesian 1,363]

2 hours ago, Arpy said:

It depends on the film and the score. I love the scores to films I dislike and love films with music I'm indifferent on. The great thing about scores is that they can take on a life of their own long after the films.

Yeah, that’s what I’m really figuring out finally. It’s something that’s been said ‘round these parts often, but now I’m taking that to heart.
 

 

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

@Bayesian,

You call 41 "older"?

Well, it’s all relative, right? Compared to my 20-something self, I definitely feel older. (This last decade has for several reasons made me really nostalgic for the ‘90s, for instance)

[GerateWohl 4,355]

It is probably a personal development. I used to be a fanatic cineast when I was in my twenties going to the cinema up to 3 or four times per week (I had no television). But with age and family you have less time to go out and do more things at home. And as well with age you developed a lot of favourites and you have less time for exploring new thing and at the same time enjoing what you know you like.

I know this all sounds terribly ... old. But that's the case at least for me.

 

I would consider myself a cineast still. But at the moment I must confess I am more curious in exploring new music than new films.

 

 

 

[Thor 7,492]

Yes, they are equally strong.

 

Quote

A variation on this question might be, do you follow film news or apply as much of your free time to enjoying films as you do staying up to speed on score releases and listening to soundtrack albums?

 

I work as a film journalist, so I watch hundreds of new movies every year (2020 is obviously an exception; I'll be pleased if I reach 100 new movies in total -- I'm currently on 71). I'm also a film music journalist, so I listen to hundreds of new scores as well. If I had had a 'normal' day job, or a family life, I obviously wouldn't have had the time to nurture both equally.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I'm not interested in either.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Definitely the films themselves, primarily.

[Bespin 8,480]

9 hours ago, AC1 said:

 

As in ... they need each other? Individually, they can't stand on their own feet? Interesting!

Some scores can stand alone yes, more than others. But we have to make the effort to see the movie, at least one time, to see the context where the music comes from.

[Edmilson 7,432]

It depends of the movie and the score, but in general I think I spend more time listening to music than watching movies. 

[GerateWohl 4,355]

3 hours ago, Bespin said:

Some scores can stand alone yes, more than others. But we have to make the effort to see the movie, at least one, to see the context where the music comes from.

I mean, it is a fact that generations of orchestra musicians claim to be inspired or motivated to even become a professional musicians by John Williams score for Star Wars.

But I seriously doubt that this would have happened if Williams had written the music just for fun and the movie had never existed.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,514]

8 hours ago, Bayesian said:

Well, it’s all relative, right? Compared to my 20-something self, I definitely feel older. (This last decade has for several reasons made me really nostalgic for the ‘90s, for instance)

I read you, bro'.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of music covering 1987-1991, which was a time of great highs, and great lows, for me. It's a nostalgia trip, to be sure, but it's also a way of reconnecting with my former self.

[Bayesian 1,363]

4 hours ago, Bespin said:

Some scores can stand alone yes, more than others. But we have to make the effort to see the movie, at least one, to see the context where the music comes from.

 

49 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

I mean, it is a fact that generations of orchestra musicians claim to be inspired or motivated to even become a professional musicians by John Williams score for Star Wars.

But I seriously doubt that this would have happened if Williams had written the music just for fun and the movie had never existed.

I think you both make a great point—film music is written in response to a story or a scene provided by someone else. It’s the ultimate program music. And so much of what we enjoy in film scores comes from composers solving musical quandaries invoked by the story or scene ( the “program”). So in a certain sense, watching the film itself seems mandatory.

 

But after awhile, you also realize that much of what’s being written is mood-setting rather than action-specific. Or even if it’s the latter, you realize you don’t always need to know exactly what the composer was responding to on screen. That’s where I am now regarding many scores I haven’t heard. 

[Fabulin 3,511]

.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Yes. I watch two films a week, also because I want to get to know more scores. I'll never listen to scores I don't know the story to again.

[publicist 4,643]

2 hours ago, Bayesian said:

So in a certain sense, watching the film itself seems mandatory.

 

Why? Is there a law or some Geneva convention rule? Many movies I saw later actually spoiled my appreciation of the music I knew and loved, just because they made something earthbound that already took flight in my imagination - for what finally was just another chase scene and so on.

 

We all saw enough movies, especially in these saturated times, that i do not believe for a minute that people need the crutch of the movie to really appreciate a great score, that's mostly a rationalization for lame ones. There are very few examples where a great score needs the pictures to become even greater, though it happens sometimes.

 

 

 

 

[Datameister 2,041]

I'm a fan of both. I'd say my love for films is broader, while my love for scores is deeper. In other words, I enjoy more films than scores, but for the scores that I do enjoy, I often get more deeply interested in them than I typically do in films. (I also tend to listen to a score I like much more often than I would watch a film I like.)

 

There's a special kind of magic that happens when I love a specific film and its score, but I also love plenty of scores for shitty films - and films with shitty scores.

 

As far as brand-new works go, I'm much more surprised by a great score than by a great film these days. But I admit I don't follow either business/art form that closely. There's still so much I haven't seen and heard from the vast bodies of existing work.

 

Overall, I'd say I'm more of a film music fan than a film fan.

[KK 3,307]

Love both, for sure. Though contemporary film might pique my interest more than film music these days. But the latter was definitely my entry into the lexicon of film.

 

And while yes, film music can easily stand on its own feet, I think it's also a matter of how our memory is tied to certain kinds of music. Many of the old classics resonate and linger because of the films they're tied to. But in the same way, some of the early Zimmer scores still manage to resuscitate some of that former youthful passion because of how often they used to accompany me on my walks to school and whatnot.

[Bellosh 3,408]

I listen to scores of films I haven't seen and don't like.

 

And I like films that have scores I don't care about.

 

The one constant in my film scores that I like is simple: Good themes.  If the score doesn't have theme I like, I usually don't care for it.

[Bayesian 1,363]

9 hours ago, publicist said:

 

Why? Is there a law or some Geneva convention rule? Many movies I saw later actually spoiled my appreciation of the music I knew and loved, just because they made something earthbound that already took flight in my imagination - for what finally was just another chase scene and so on.

 

We all saw enough movies, especially in these saturated times, that i do not believe for a minute that people need the crutch of the movie to really appreciate a great score, that's mostly a rationalization for lame ones. There are very few examples where a great score needs the pictures to become even greater, though it happens sometimes.

All I meant by that was that a film score is pure program music and that seeing the film would give the detailed program that the composer was responding to when he wrote it (in terms of things like orchestral stabs or abrupt appearances of leitmotifs or whatever).
 

If a score can stand apart from its film as a rewarding aural experience, that’s something to cherish. But it’s also technically extraneous, since the score serves the film exactly the same way something like costume design serves the film. The fact that relatively few composers seem to be able to reliably write scores that serve their purpose and also stand alone as quality listening experiences speaks to how hard it is to do. 

[publicist 4,643]

1 hour ago, Bayesian said:

All I meant by that was that a film score is pure program music and that seeing the film would give the detailed program that the composer was responding to when he wrote it (in terms of things like orchestral stabs or abrupt appearances of leitmotifs or whatever).
 

If a score can stand apart from its film as a rewarding aural experience, that’s something to cherish. But it’s also technically extraneous, since the score serves the film exactly the same way something like costume design serves the film. The fact that relatively few composers seem to be able to reliably write scores that serve their purpose and also stand alone as quality listening experiences speaks to how hard it is to do. 

 

 

But that's semantics: if a separate album program is released, you can reasonably expect it to stand on its own feet. We know that this isn't true a lot of times, but this doesn't mean we should use the film as a crutch when justifying this hobby.

 

Case in point: recently Intrada released the film program of War of the Worlds. I haven't heard that nor have i read the threads about it here, but my guess is that Williams probably did musically sound cuts and shufflings to present his vision, not the least of which is having the centerpiece 'The Ferry' as part 2 of the album program, like he usually presents his concert pieces (and probably he cut out a few bars). That is now out of the window, because most guys will destroy that structure to tie it slavishly to the movie sequence. This is typically of film score fans, and it's a reason why i will always defend the musical vision: most of the time, it's better for listening.

[Holko 9,517]

...what's wrong with having the centerpiece be the center piece, now blow your load early but release it more satisfyingly when it's been built up to?

 

JW destroys his own perfectly well written structures all the time for his OSTs, it's only fair he gets it back by showing the actual thing he wrote!

[publicist 4,643]

That's an idiot argument, because it describes the movie's structure, not the music's. And no, they don't go hand in hand, because Williams only scores a limited amount of the thing and certainly he doesn't enter because of musical but filmic considerations.

[Holko 9,517]

...that music is written for the movie, its structure is crafted to support and deepen the movie's structure if the composer knows what they're doing.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

2 hours ago, Bayesian said:

All I meant by that was that a film score is pure program music and that seeing the film would give the detailed program that the composer was responding to when he wrote it (in terms of things like orchestral stabs or abrupt appearances of leitmotifs or whatever).
 

If a score can stand apart from its film as a rewarding aural experience, that’s something to cherish. But it’s also technically extraneous, since the score serves the film exactly the same way something like costume design serves the film. The fact that relatively few composers seem to be able to reliably write scores that serve their purpose and also stand alone as quality listening experiences speaks to how hard it is to do. 

 

You see anyone else here collecting costumes from movies and wearing them? Aside from those cosplay weirdos.

[publicist 4,643]

blablabla...the a-musical film fan will always slavishly recreate films and claim bs as above, but that doesn't make it any truer. There are instances where that works and probably more instances when it doesn't. To make a Thor-ian thesis out of this is just stupid.

[Holko 9,517]

Blablabla the self-proclaimed "musical" film score fan will always claim the album is much better just because it's reordered but that doesn't make it any truer.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

The unscored T-Rex sequence is a prime example of how the musical structure of a score can get destroyed, when the only thing you care about is chronological order. The movie has images as well as sound effects and dialogue which the music doesn't have. That doesn't mean that the music can't stand on its own, but that it possibly needs to get cleverly restructured. To think that the complete and chronological way is always the best is a purist's belief, just like Thor claiming every OST is pure gold.

[Holko 9,517]

Falling Car and T-Rex Chase is just enough to make the buildup still work.

[publicist 4,643]

16 minutes ago, Holko said:

Blablabla the self-proclaimed "musical" film score fan will always claim the album is much better just because it's reordered but that doesn't make it any truer.

 

To humbly quote myself 

Quote

There are instances where that works and probably more instances when it doesn't. To make a Thor-ian thesis out of this is just stupid.

 

so stop lying. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

If someone simply prefers C&C to albums, and some flexibility here and there, that's fine. But Holko zealously treats Williams' meticulous album arrangements as some kind of personal attack and repeats his nerdy OCD blah blah about Williams not respecting his own divine creations or whatever. No doubt he'll just hurl abuse at me for raising that point because it touches a nerve and he struggles to articulate anything else.

[Holko 9,517]

You stop lying. You were the one who started with "Intrada WotW bad because... uhh... JW didn't put that cue there on the OST."

[publicist 4,643]

Stop lying, Holko. You have it quoted above what i was saying and it is obviously not true what you are saying. It's bad enough Trump does it all the time.

[Holko 9,517]

What am I lying about?

[publicist 4,643]

You obviously and visibly misrepresent my statement above to serve your own own-sided argument. It's just bad style and you know it.

[Holko 9,517]

I threw your own biased misrepresentative comment ("a-musical", "slavish", "claim bs", "that doesn't make it any truer") back in your face. Sorry if it hurt.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

7 minutes ago, publicist said:

Stop lying, Holko. You have it quoted above what i was saying and it is obviously not true what you are saying. It's bad enough Trump does it all the time.

 

 

On 10/8/2020 at 3:10 AM, Jay said:

Political opinions as always are not allowed, in this or any thread. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,054]

[Brundlefly 2,385]

13 hours ago, Holko said:

Falling Car and T-Rex Chase is just enough to make the buildup still work.

You sound like there would definitely be better options, but you cannot accept them because that would be out of order.

[Holko 9,517]

Putting Falling Car in front to recreate that stupid OST edit and leaving that buildup now truly to nothing is not a better option. The OST flipflopping between moods is not a better option. Having anything more there is not an option since JW didn't record anything. So, no.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Can't remember who said it first, but film music albums are essentially a form of memorabilia from the movie: they are meant to recreate (through aural association) the impression of certain moments from the movie.

 

Film music is a form of programatic music, and the music is SUBSERVIENT to the program. Whether or not it can stand on its own is a novelty; nothing more.

[Jay 37,346]

Can you guys express your own opinions of how you like music to be arranged for listening without attacking others for having different opinions than you do?

Everyone, just BE NICE TO EACH OTHER here.  We're all here to share our love of film music with each other.  No need to get nasty with each other.

 

Thank you.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Can you guys express your own opinions of how you like to be arranged for listening without attacking others for having different opinions than you do?

I don't wanna engage people to be nasty with each other, but stupid opinions have to be addressed sometimes.

[Arpy 4,145]

A film score and its album can only be as musical as the film allows. OST assemblies may make listening more palatable but you can't hide the obvious incidental nature of it completely.