Examples of movies saved by the score?

[Edmilson 7,466]

Interstellar is a nice choice for this thread. I don't think it's awful (the first two thirds are some of the best Nolan), but the score is really the best thing about it.

 

And yeah, the ending is awful. I never understood exactly what happened: so Matthew McCounaghey goes to the inside of a black hole, which somehow doesn't completely turn him into spaghetti but rather makes him go into a tesseract where he can interact with his daughter's bedroom 20 years ago. Using the robot, he transmits via Morse Code some mysterious data that makes his now adult daughter solve an equation that allows mankind to leave Earth.

 

After that, McCounaghey gets taken out of the time travel machine inside the black hole (!) about 70 years later, when mankind is living in a space station and his daughter is now old. He reunites with her then immediately departs in a space ship to find Anne Hathaway.

 

Is that it? Have I got it right? Because, if so, how could he go inside of a black hole who is coincidentally a tesseract so conveniently placed that allows him to solve all the problems of the movie? Who made that possible? Aliens? Did mankind became so advanced during his daughter's lifetime that they could send engineers inside that black hole to put there the thing that would help McCounaghey later - or earlier? I don't even know anymore...

 

Which is why I prefer a dark theory about the ending of Interstellar: none of this bullshit happened, it was just McCounaghey hallucinating while he was turned into spaghetti by the black hole as a means of his mind to cope with the failure of his mission. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Sure he was already worshipped by his aficionados—the "Kubrickites"—but I'd say it was only after his death that his legend grew to reach the general public. Death, as they say, can be a great career move.

 

Nah, Kubrick was pretty famous in his day. Its more the uniquely godlike stature alloted to him that came posthomously.

 

[Tallguy 3,398]

10 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Interstellar is a nice choice for this thread. I don't think it's awful (the first two thirds are some of the best Nolan), but the score is really the best thing about it.

 

I don't know about the best thing. There are a lot of great things. Maybe I should give it another whirl. (There are a few movies I keep doing that with. "I can't really hate it THAT much, can I?") The problem with Interstellar is that I DON'T hate it. I just hate the ending. SO MUCH.

 

12 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I vacillated between "Is he serious?" and "I'm not sure what he's saying, so maybe he is."

 

Sure he was already worshipped by his aficionados—the "Kubrickites"—but I'd say it was only after his death that his legend grew to reach the general public. Death, as they say, can be a great career move.

 

By the way, I caught a late Halloween showing of The Shining last night at an old movie palace...

 

I was expecting the mostly young crowd to snicker the whole way through, but they were mesmerized, and you could hear a pin drop.

 

The sound system was great, and the selections from composer Krzysztof Penderecki in particular really stood out. Another smart move by Kubrick to mostly go with existant music. Maybe Jerry Goldsmith could elicit some similarly scary sounds from an orchestra, but nothing this impactful.

 

I saw The Shining on DVD on a 32-ish inch TV in the daytime. And it grabbed my eyeballs and didn't let go. This was after trying to watch it at night in my apartment by myself and I got five minutes in before saying

 

Growing up Kubrick was known (in my circles) for 2001, Clockwork Orange, and maybe The Shining. (We weren't cultured enough to know about Strangelove.) And he was legendary. People like Lucas and Spielberg would talk about him. But we didn't actually watch any of his movies except 2001 because we knew we were supposed to.

 

I didn't "get" 2001 until I was much older. (Not the same thing as "understand".)

[Chen G. 3,949]

38 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

And he was legendary. People like Lucas and Spielberg would talk about him.

 

And about John Ford... and about William Wyler... and about Alfred Hitchcock... and about George Cukor...  and about Michael Kurtiz... and certainly about David Lean...

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Nah, Kubrick was pretty famous in his day. Its more the uniquely godlike stature alloted to him that came posthomously.

 

All I'm saying is, my mom didn't know his name until after he died and the tributes began pouring in amidst the publicity for Eyes Wide Shut. 
 

11 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

I didn't "get" 2001 until I was much older. (Not the same thing as "understand".)

That's the fun part for me with some of his films, to guess at the meaning and come away with your own understanding. Same thing with cryptic song lyrics... Sometimes I'm disappointed to find out what the actual meaning of the lyrics are, and prefer the one I gave them.

 

To add some piquant, the guy who introduced the movie last night mentioned that The Shining was the subject of numerous theories—including the infamous "Kubrick shot the moon landing". I had to roll my eyes... I don't mind some analysis, but not that far-fetched.

 

We may never know exactly what Kubrick's intentions were, but I think he must've enjoyed seeing all of this deep analysis infusing his every shot with meaning. He just sat back and let the film analysts grow his legend.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Just now, Mr. Hooper said:

We may never know exactly what Kubrick's intentions were, but I think he must've enjoyed seeing all of this deep analysis infusing his every shot with meaning. He just sat back and let the film analysts grow his legend.

 

I think its pretty obvious: its a paean to the (then up-and-coming) space age. The Kubrickians obviously don't like that reading, because to them its an obscene suggestion to propose that Kubrick was caught schoolboy-like in the enthusiasm to do with sending a man to the man and what implications that might entail...

 

And yes, I think Kubrick very much encouraged and leaned into this more esoteric view of his (to put it bluntly) travelogue, even if in my reading of the situation such esoteric interpertations were not on his mind as he made it.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

Oh, I was talking about his movies in general—not '2001' specifically.

[A24 4,338]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

 

We may never know exactly what Kubrick's intentions were, but I think he must've enjoyed seeing all of this deep analysis infusing his every shot with meaning. He just sat back and let the film analysts grow his legend.

 

Some go too far into thinking everything has a deeper meaning.

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

50 minutes ago, A24 said:

Some go too far into thinking everything has a deeper meaning.

 

I so hate when Kubrickians do this! Its so royally missing the point, too! Its treating movies as a literal puzzle rather than as an aesthetic experience.

 

I've seen people read into the shape of the conference room where Floyd holds his briefing ("Oh, but you see, the backwall has the same profile as this obscure renaissance paintings!") or looking for reports of where the film-reel glitched in the premiere, as though they're somehow clues as to the inner meaning of the work.

 

Preposterous.

[Tallguy 3,398]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

And about John Ford... and about William Wyler... and about Alfred Hitchcock... and about George Cukor...  and about Michael Kurtiz... and certainly about David Lean...

 

That's pretty much making the argument for legendary.

[JTN 2,030]

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

And about John Ford... and about William Wyler... and about Alfred Hitchcock... and about George Cukor...  and about Michael Kurtiz... and certainly about David Lean...

And worshiped Akira Kurosawa.

[enderdrag64 624]

11 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Interstellar is a nice choice for this thread. I don't think it's awful (the first two thirds are some of the best Nolan), but the score is really the best thing about it.

 

And yeah, the ending is awful. I never understood exactly what happened: so Matthew McCounaghey goes to the inside of a black hole, which somehow doesn't completely turn him into spaghetti but rather makes him go into a tesseract where he can interact with his daughter's bedroom 20 years ago. Using the robot, he transmits via Morse Code some mysterious data that makes his now adult daughter solve an equation that allows mankind to leave Earth.

 

After that, McCounaghey gets taken out of the time travel machine inside the black hole (!) about 70 years later, when mankind is living in a space station and his daughter is now old. He reunites with her then immediately departs in a space ship to find Anne Hathaway.

 

Is that it? Have I got it right? Because, if so, how could he go inside of a black hole who is coincidentally a tesseract so conveniently placed that allows him to solve all the problems of the movie? Who made that possible? Aliens? Did mankind became so advanced during his daughter's lifetime that they could send engineers inside that black hole to put there the thing that would help McCounaghey later - or earlier? I don't even know anymore...

 

Which is why I prefer a dark theory about the ending of Interstellar: none of this bullshit happened, it was just McCounaghey hallucinating while he was turned into spaghetti by the black hole as a means of his mind to cope with the failure of his mission. 

I think the intention is that some future humans developed the technology to do so, and created the tesseract there so that he could contact his daughter and save everyone. Its deux ex machina to the nth degree, mixed with a bit of bootstrap paradox

[A24 4,338]

12 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

I so hate when Kubrickians do this! Its so royally missing the point, too! Its treating movies as a literal puzzle rather than as an aesthetic experience.

 

 

And I'm pretty sure that is exactly how George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron (all fans of the first hour) look at it. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

3 hours ago, A24 said:

And I'm pretty sure that is exactly how George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron (all fans of the first hour) look at it. 

 

I wouldn't know, nor do I think it validates this kind of, frankly, extremly simple-minded, unsophisticated and almost anti-poetic way of looking at cinema.

[A24 4,338]

36 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

I wouldn't know, nor do I think it validates this kind of, frankly, extremly simple-minded, unsophisticated and almost anti-poetic way of looking at cinema.

 

I think you misunderstood my post (but I understand why). I was referring to the last part, the aesthetic experience part.

[Schilkeman 964]

I once read an attempted analysis of the mathematical angles of the opening crawl to Star Wars and how it was functionally relevant to the movie. Obviously, I felt this person had left the realm of reason. At the same time, I’ve read a thoughtful write-up of the symbolism in Padme’s wardrobe in Attack of the Clones that is well-reasoned and generally holds up to scrutiny.

 

I don’t think film needs this sort of reading to be entertaining, or deep. It can engage us emotionally as a purely aesthetic experience, but also, I feel, in the great films at least, the aesthetics are there for a reason, and engaging with them thoughtfully can be an enlightening experience.

 

That said, I can’t think of a film that was made at least watchable by the score alone. Maybe The Last Jedi? I don’t know. I can think of several where the opposite is true.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

22 hours ago, A24 said:

 

OMG! How did I miss this?! It explains everything! 
 

 

[Tallguy 3,398]

I don't always remember what threads I'm looking at. Were any of Kubrick's films considered "saved by the score"?

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

I'd argue—with all due respect to Alex North's efforts—that '2001' was "saved" by not having an original score.

[A24 4,338]

43 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

OMG! How did I miss this?! It explains everything! 
 

 

 

Respect to the one who noticed it!

 

10 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I'd argue—with all due respect to Alex North's efforts—that '2001' was "saved" by not having an original score.

 

One of my favorite scores of all time (the Jerry Goldsmith version).

 

29 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

I don't always remember what threads I'm looking at. Were any of Kubrick's films considered "saved by the score"?

 

No movie was ever considered saved by the score.

[Tallguy 3,398]

1 hour ago, A24 said:

No movie was ever considered saved by the score.

 

Now this thread is awkward.

[JTN 2,030]

Uh… PSYCHO? 🥴

[A24 4,338]

30 minutes ago, JTW said:

Uh… PSYCHO? 🥴

 

Psycho without score is 4/10? And with score 7/10? Something like that? 

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

Psycho definitely owes a lot to the score. A friend once said that for the longest time until that scene, this doesn't look like the movie we signed up for, but it sure does sound like it!

 

But ultimately it doesn't owe its success TO the score, as such.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

'Psycho' for me boils down to that one scene: the shower. And without those slashing violins, I don't believe it would've imprinted itself in the public consciousness as indelibly. When people imitate a killer by doing a stabbing motion, they make that screeching sound—like the 'Jaws' theme is used to signal danger.

 

I'm going to pull a "Spielberg" here and boldly say that 'Psycho' owes 50% of its success to the score. And by "success" I don't just mean helping the film realize its full potential, but also how it's lived on in our collective memory.

[Tallguy 3,398]

38 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

but also how it's lived on in our collective memory.

 

 

I think the three pieces of film music that are known through the whole world are the stabbing from Psycho, Jaws, and mayyyyyyybe Star Wars.

[Andy 4,138]

I’ll repeat myself. I think horror films are most likely to be saved by the score. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,537]

14 hours ago, A24 said:

 

Psycho without score is 4/10? And with score 7/10? Something like that? 

 

 

You mean: without score is 5/10, and with score is 10/10.

[A24 4,338]

12 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

You mean: without score is 5/10, and with score is 10/10.

 

That is more than just saving the movie.That's uplifting it from 'meh' to a 'masterpiece'. I'm not sure if that is realistic.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

16 hours ago, Tallguy said:

I think the three pieces of film music that are known through the whole world are the stabbing from Psycho, Jaws, and mayyyyyyybe Star Wars.

I'd say Star Wars for sure, and add the 'Raiders March' to the list.

 

5 hours ago, A24 said:

 

That is more than just saving the movie.That's uplifting it from 'meh' to a 'masterpiece'. I'm not sure if that is realistic.

How about elevating it to a "mehsterpiece"?

[Tallguy 3,398]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I'd say Star Wars for sure, and add the 'Raiders March' to the list.

 

I've found that there is music that I think "everyone" knows that they just don't. I mean, everyone in MY house knows it.

 

I always figure the only composer that everyone knows is Williams. But I mentioned his name to a coworker and got a blank look. I said "You know, Star Wars, Jaws, Raiders, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List". The reply was something like "This person had something to do with all of those? Who would know that?"

 

We're not like normal people.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

 

5 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

But I mentioned his name to a coworker and got a blank look. I said "You know, Star Wars, Jaws, Raiders, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List".

 

When I mentioned to anyone that I was making a trip to see John Williams at Tanglewood this year, I'd preface it by saying: "You probably don't know his name, but you know his music." And that was mostly the case.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,537]

7 hours ago, A24 said:

 

That is more than just saving the movie.That's uplifting it from 'meh' to a 'masterpiece'. I'm not sure if that is realistic.

 

It is a minimalist masterpiece, Alex.

It was never "meh", but Herrmann made it so much more.

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

On 01/11/2023 at 12:08 PM, Edmilson said:

And yeah, the ending is awful. I never understood exactly what happened: so Matthew McCounaghey goes to the inside of a black hole, which somehow doesn't completely turn him into spaghetti but rather makes him go into a tesseract where he can interact with his daughter's bedroom 20 years ago. Using the robot, he transmits via Morse Code some mysterious data that makes his now adult daughter solve an equation that allows mankind to leave Earth.

 

After that, McCounaghey gets taken out of the time travel machine inside the black hole (!) about 70 years later, when mankind is living in a space station and his daughter is now old. He reunites with her then immediately departs in a space ship to find Anne Hathaway.

 

Is that it? Have I got it right? Because, if so, how could he go inside of a black hole who is coincidentally a tesseract so conveniently placed that allows him to solve all the problems of the movie? Who made that possible? Aliens? Did mankind became so advanced during his daughter's lifetime that they could send engineers inside that black hole to put there the thing that would help McCounaghey later - or earlier? I don't even know anymore...

McCounaghey's character (was it Cobb? No that's the one from Inception) says in the Tesseract that humans did evolve to understand time differently, and so put the tesseract in the Black Hole because he was the only one who could find a way to send the information from the Black Hole to his daughter through the power of love (literally), solving the gravity problem that Michael Caine lied about being closed to solving it, creating a loop. What happens next is that as soon as he manages to put the information in the watch, the tesseract closes because it served its purpose and sends McCounaghey all the way to the other side of the whormhole that they first entered (and through some power of love manages to also be that anomaly Anne Hathaway encountered).

 

And honestly, his daughter basically demanded that he went after Anne Hathaway, which, I mean, don't need to ask it twice.

 

All of that is told by the characters, expositing not very discreetly.

[Tallguy 3,398]

Damn it. I love those last scenes. "You told them I loved being a farmer!" It's just the handwavium (above and beyond the call of duty) that gets them there.

 

 

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

1 hour ago, Tallguy said:

 

Not to set this thread on another tangent, but this reminds me of the last time I was excited for more Star Wars. 
 

I'll take my lamentations to the "Star Wars disenchantment" thread...