NP: Edward Scissorhands, Danny Elfman

NP: Dangerous Liaisons, George Fenton

[This message has been edited by SFT (edited 04-18-99).]

[This message has been edited by PeterK (edited 11-14-99).]

HD

[This message has been edited by James (edited 04-19-99).]

NP Wilde

James: Yes, Delores Claiborne is also very sad, but more in the nerotic, manio-depressiv kind of way. Maybe thatīs why you had to go to therapy after listening to it
Are you that unstable?

SFT

NP - Emma

Audacity
N.P. The Last Starfighter, Craig Safan

Also, How the West Was Lost (Volumes One and Two) also have very, very sad music.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 04-21-99).]

[This message has been edited by Dan Brecher (edited 04-22-99).]

NP - Matilda ("The Haunting")

"When I saw this at the cinema I wasn't over-impressed with the score. I hadn't heard any of the music beforehand and as the lights dimmed I thought, "Cue the solo trumpet". You know what? It was a French horn (I think), but you get my meaning. About twenty minutes into the film I was already suffering from shell shock and I bagan wondering which Monty Python sketch I was being reminded of (they do mention Monty in the dialogue, but they rwere probably talking about another one). I also began trying to imagine the effect an avant-garde score would have had, maybe something along the lines of the weird percussion and organised sounds that Williams wrote for Robert Altman's Images, way back in 1972. Then, when the music made a reappearance, it became clear that it was going to be completely tonal, and in fact my impression when leaving the cinema was that John Williams had provided another of his impeccable but predictable scores. In a way I was right, but I was also doing him a huge disservice. Here the composer doesn't highlight or dramatise the the individual events as such, but rather he is reacting to the events from a distance of half a century, when all that's left are memories. He did this in Schindler's List too. The beauty of that score was that it was almost unbearably heartrending whilst being completely dry-eyed, like a funeral on a cold sunny morning in winter. In that film it was like Williams was asking "What is there left to say?" whilst brilliantly summing up that very feeling. Here it's similar, and the bulk of the music works as an elegy for the dead, or to quote the title of the opening and closing track on the CD, a Hymn To The Fallen. The language he's using is familiar enough: it's that of JFK and Born On The Fourth Of July, and that is why it is in some ways predictable from the start. But the brilliance of John Williams is that, using the same old tried and trusted methods, and without having to resort to gimmicks, he has come up with another absolute masterpiece. There are no hysterics here. The pace is funereal yet never tedious. There's not a wasted note. It's to Williams' credit that even the ten-minute tracks are utterly compelling. The ghosts of the past communicate through the call of distant trumpets and far-off drumrolls, and if the idea of this sounds a complete downer, don't be put off. Although it's true that Williams largely refuses to get into the action and actually be there with the soldiers, when he does (for example in the track Defense Preparations, all nerves and agitation) the results are stunning. This score speaks to us with the utmost dignity and compassion and is an intensely moving experience. At the end of it you're actually grateful to John Williams for making you a better person, and that alone confirms him as one of the most important artists of his generation."

later

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