--Kyp

December 7, 2000?

Typing about commercially available works in the public domain of apprehension is a different but related issue. Anyone putting work out there for consumption might as well expect to be scrutinised, and I'm sure Zimmer has ego enough to dismiss anything he doesn't agree with. If I have next to no respect for something like Zimmer it's because his dramatic and musicological approach is boring and mundane, usually outlining the obvious and voiding detailed communication about anything-- just a technique of selling his products like so many commercials. That style of soundscaping is so commonplace as non-specific textural dressing that it is the mainstream, docile and impersonal-- just like most directors, producers, sound effects engineers, and by now the general public prefers. It's not an issue of old-school expository symphonism versus the next generation, it's about communication and expression within a commercial entertainment format. In film score criticism there is little in terms of serious writing for bunches of reasons, among them the fear of alienating a potential interviewee or contact by writing something that might hurt some composer's feelings or make him or her mad. This politikking does not contribute to the health of the form.

[This message has been edited by mlw (edited 17 February 2000).]

It's tough being acerbic sometimes. *Otoko wa tsurai yo, ne?*

Your analysis of Zimmer is interesting -- you've actually given more thought to him than I ever have, although I also suspect I enjoy his work more than you do. But you HAVE idenified what I believe makes him successful in the commercial sense, if not the artistic (and, again, I DO like a lot of his stuff, particularly BACKDRAFT, although that's one that even some of his proponents sneer at as being a pseudo-Horner score -- Horner was asked, but not available, to do BACKDRAFT, and it was clearly temped with GLORY, among others).