Fine, so be it. A lot of the older approach while it created great music might not be right for current films anyway. Just what would a Korngold do with Hustle & Flow or The Fast & The Furious?

However, I'm sure most of us, old & young, would agree on the common ground that certain current practices in the industry are detrimental to producing quality music in current films: dumped scores, temp tracks, short composition times, etc.

Most of the working composers just live with what is being asked of them even if it does try their patience but I wonder what it would take for a reversal. True, a number of current composers seem like soulless hacks just in it for the money so I can't imagine those guys would ever rise up to challenge the situation themselves so what follows is sheer fantasy on my part.

Though wouldn't it be great if the town's composers did get together and say, No More! If they had a real revolution and striked, not for more money, but for more respect.

Instead of two weeks to do a score, every composer is guaranteed atleast 6 weeks if not longer regardless of opening dates (which have to be pushed back).

And the whole practice of dumped scores which means shorter last-minute composition times. Producers & directors have to petition an independent board which decides if the score should be dumped or not. It's not just up to them any longer.

And if faced with a temp track to copy the composers get to say Go To Hell! I'm writing original music or nothing at all. Clear out. You don't get to hear it until I'm finished.

And no more Sonic Wallpaper or synths.

And no scab composers. You try to hire around this and the picket line beats the guys up as they come to the recording stage.

Yes, all a fantasy, but wouldn't it make a nice reality?

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Just what would a Korngold do with Hustle & Flow or The Fast & The Furious?

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That's the best laugh I've had in weeks Lou!!

I'm sure [hoping] that Korngold would have sniffed derisively, and turned his nose up at such crap as those two movies.

Yeah, it's funny that the people that don't know anything about music (the producers and studio flunkies) are the ones that are making the decisions about what music "they" like for a certain film. Heck, they're probably not even qualified to be in charge of anything, having gotten the job via nefarious means.

Composers like Korngold, Herrmann, Goldsmith, Williams, Steiner and the like are rarities and the decision makers dont' really care about the music much anymore. They can get some jerkwad ******* rapper to "score" a film, or some cookie-cutter "composer" who's been playing with a small rock band to make the pablum sounds to track today's crappy movies.

Hollywood is sadly lacking in moral codes, but it would be good if the few remaining composers - those with high standards - could stand up to the suits and say "you want me? I do this music my way."

But I didn't really start this topic to get into another old Golden Age vs Current Stuff debate but to wonder what it's going to take for composers to regain the respect for their work that they've lost at the hands of current production modes.

What's that you say? That's how Brian Tyler scored it?

The question is will it change and how can it?

I agree wholeheartedly with your fire-starter: its shameful the way film composers and film music is treated in the industry. It should stop; it must stop.

As for Korngold, Steiner, North etc. scoring movies today: that'd be awesome! Now, if they were literally immortal (they are, of course, musically), its safe to assume their sound would change and their musical tendencies progress; it wouldn't be exactly like the Golden/Silver Age sound that many of us so desire—it'd be that, and more!

Scores today are like the movies they're attached to: more often than not, bad and deplorable.

Its safe to assume at almost any job bosses will be bosses (in my experience, they tend to be grossly overweight and strangely idiotic for the amount of power afforded to them in the workplace) and those under them will be treated with disrespect (something I took in stride this past weekend on Canada Day [July 1st]) and rarely thrown a bone, or given a kind word, or compliment.

All of us need to be open to past and present music.

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
On a side note, who says all young people like the current output and don't like golden/ silver age film scores?

I'm young (21) and I not only think film scores 30 years ago were far better than today's, I also think 80 % of today's scores are basically rubbish.

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You and I think alike on this. I'm just a few years older than you, but I have experienced first-hand how many young film-music fans think their passion started with Zimmer in the 90s. Waxman? Who? Korngold? Is that some metal? Steiner? A restaurant?

It's very frustrating.

The Sommers films are good examples of how different things are now compared to even 25 years ago. Just compare the amount of sound in "The Mummy" or "Van Helsing" with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Capricorn One".

And the whole inspiration argument loses water. How inspired could Goldsmith have been for some of the drech he had to write music for?

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Originally posted by sakman:
There are a lot of issues why scores are not the same as they used to be. One is that the big adventure movies, or kid-flicks that got us all excited about movie music in some cases, have so much extraneous sound effects to compete with that the music is just more noise. It also has to do with the way the music and non-music elements are mixed in the soundtrack.

The Sommers films are good examples of how different things are now compared to even 25 years ago. Just compare the amount of sound in "The Mummy" or "Van Helsing" with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Capricorn One".

And the whole inspiration argument loses water. How inspired could Goldsmith have been for some of the drech he had to write music for?

The other problem is that the New Age movement in the 1980s led to a new view of music as ambient background. You add a little world instrument to it, give the hint of a melody, or a repeated motif, and you have your Media Ventures film score...or a host of other similar things.

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Good points here sakman. Now I always wonder how Sommers' gets such good scores for his dreck films . . . considering how much he thinks he "gets" classic filmmaking and constantly gives us endless barrages of dumb filmmaking and lazy storytelling. Like you said, "How inspired could Goldsmith (and Silvestri) have been for some of the dretch he had to write music for?"

But my feeling is if you are going to have music in a film at all it might as well be good music you can appreciate not some New Age ambient.

I was just watching The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (new to DVD) with it score by Bernard Herrmann. Towards the end of the film, the wife is upset over some news and drives away from home. Herrmann chimes in with a very bold "frantic" motif. There is a break in the sequence, a cut elsewhere for some dialogue, and then the film returns to the wife. She's stopped the car but is still upset and her head is buried in the steering wheel and Herrmann re-introduces the bold motif as if to say even stopped the emotional turmoil within is still going on.

Today, all of this scoring would be considered too on the nose and way over the top, but the idea in 1955 was that the score was a part of the drama/story, it was collaboring in telling you what was going on, and there is no way an audience of 1955 could take this as background music or not notice it was there. The idea is that you did notice and it was a part of the proceedings. Woman+music=an understanding of the situation. This is a completely different attitude towards film music than we have in the current era. Everyone is so afraid of the kiss underscored by 101 strings and making the audience laugh that they've relegated the film score to the basement.

As I thought about this some more, a lot of this may have to do with composers who come out of a different musical tradition. So many of the early film composers worked in musical theater, or came from classical roots. And in the 1930s the lines between art and pop music were a little less clear than they seem to be now.

Many of the younger crowd are practically thrust into a career without much toothcutting as orchestrators or much else. The rare talents eventually rise out of that.

The other thing to look at is the age of the composers. I always wondered why Mizzy's music was so distinct until I realized that all the music I knew of his was written towards the end of his career when he had fine-tuned his style. That generally happens in an artists late 30s into there 40s most of the time.

I'm not sure age has much to do with a composer developing a distinct style. John Williams music from the 60s sounds very much alike even though it doesn't sound much like the music he does today. Herrmann's radio music from the early 30s sounds as much like Herrmann (albeit a little thinner) as his 50s film scores.

At first Newman, Young, Steiner, and the Golden Agers do sound alike. In fact, one episode of the Music for the Movies series is entitled "The Hollywood Sound" and it does lump a number of composers together as sharing & developing a consistent sound. I'm sure even in older Hollywood this was something Industry production modes favored. I wrote a topic here a while back about the reviwer in Holiday Magazine Al Hine who discussed film music in the late 40s and brought up the same issues that composers today have to deal with showing that "only the names change" indeed.

I think what happened was guys like Herrmann, Rozsa, Waxman, Bernstein, Tiomkin, and then Goldsmith showed up with their own unique sound that couldn't be tamed or homogenized. You either took it or you didn't. And once these guys established this at the a-list level then even the more generic guys came through with scoring that had a personal sound to it. I don't think it's just that they got older and fine-tuned a style. I think they saw other composers being allowed to express their style in a less diluted form and followed suit. In a way they always sounded like themselves even before but didn't have to hold back as much as long as the producers were ok with it. Most were, some weren't (think of Newman losing so much of his music for The Greatest Story Ever Told).

Today, I do see a difference. Producers don't want any personal style in their scoring. Even guys who have "brands" like Elfman get hired and then told to dilute everything they were hired for in the first place. He has a distinct style that is already fine-tuned but you'll only hear it when someone allows him to use it.

sean--Goldsmith's best period was the 60s: The Twilight Zone, Thriller, Freud, The Prize, Adrian Messenger, Lonely Are The Brave, The Blue Max, In Harm's Way, Our Man Flint. Of course he had many great scores to come in the 70s & 80s. By the time we get to Goldsmith's final years, we find him trying through his professionalism to comply with the new way of doing things in Hollywood, watering himself down and working on a lot of bad films (nothing new as he did a lot of TV and weaker films over the years anyway). But I see Goldsmith as a special case. He had a very disinctive fingerprint but he was also the ultimate compliant professional doing what the task required and doing whatever he was asked to do. If he was given Mr. Baseball or Rent-a-Cop, he didn't balk, he scored them with the sound those films required and with the scoring those producers wanted for the them. You want a jazz score for The Russia House, fine no problem. You want electronics & techno for Runaway, I can do that. You want it to sound like Williams or you want it more generic, I can do that too. In fact, the only thing he couldn't do towards the end was write more than two minutes of music a day and I'm sure he tried.

I understand what you're saying. An interesting case of adapting for Goldsmith is Extreme Prejudice: Having to constantly change his original material to fit the needs of the director (Walter Hill)... in this case, I believe, to have the score a little more electronic than orchestral. I'm sure there's also an element of fun in doing a score like The Russie House where he doesn't have to totally rely on his orchestral sensibilities to score the picture; jumping through different genres in music for film music is one of the best things about scoring, IMO.

All that aside, Jerry Goldsmith is my favourite composer, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the score I keep coming back to, time after time, its his best work.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Even guys who have "brands" like Elfman get hired and then told to dilute everything they were hired for in the first place. He has a distinct style that is already fine-tuned but you'll only hear it when someone allows him to use it.

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Elfman is an interesting case. He comes with a hefty $1 million price tag, and I always wonder what producers think when they pick up that tab. On the one hand it could be like a movie star, "Hey, this guy's expensive, so let's respect his wishes," but on the other it could be, "Hey, we paid $1 million here, so for that money we better get the score we want."

For his part Elfman seems unwilling to bow to temp score pressure and things like that. But even as one of the few "star" composers left he is definitely starting to feel the sting of the trends discussed here. Raimi pitched a ton of the Spider-Man 2 score in favor of re-using cues from the first film and now Elfman's not scoring the third one. And now there's that whole Nacho Libre fiasco. I wonder how much of a presence he'll really be in Charlotte's Web.

You could say that in a decade's time Elfman will be like Williams is now and only do scores for directors who are established friends, but even that trend is called into question by the split that happened with him and Raimi.

Only marginally related, perhaps, but here's a bit of a press conference with Gus Van Sant and Danny Elfman talking about scoring methods. Significantly, Elfman says at the end of the clip that he doesn't want the director to play him music or even talk about music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GP63-5rs4

And Sean, great mention of Goldsmith and The Mummy; the funny thing is, I loved that movie as a young teen and I still find it to be rather amusing, although not too memorable in an way that Raiders or any of the classic Universal monster movies were. Besides, Goldsmith has scored much, much worse (*cough, cough* Congo) . . . but I don't blame him for not coming back for the dull and lifeless sequel(currently holding the record as the only movie I have walked out on; I went straight home and listened to Silvestri's score again ).

Although he and Tim Burton go back forever, they have had differences and a short falling out. Raimi sent his old composer Joe DeLuca to TV work and has been with Elfman since Darkman. I don't know what kind of hell Raimi put Elfman through on Spiderman 2 but Elfman was vocal about what a rough going it was. I'm not a big fan of Raimi films anyway so I figured Elfman was probably right over whatever happened.

I'm reminded of a Tom Lehrer lyric about integrity just maening you have a higher price. Well, maybe Elfman has both.

As for a director having input about the music he wants, yes. But there is a difference between hiring a guy and letting him compose and forcing a temp-track on him. Elmer Bernstein said one of the hardest aspects of the job under the new production mode was that people were always looking over his shoulder. Play me the theme. Give me a sample. I don't like it. Try something else. He said the only way he could compose was to go off alone and do it without interference. Actually, interference isn't anything new. Control freak David O. Selznick wanted Waxman to write a proto-Rebecca score so he could hear it, check it, and approve it before Waxman wrote the actual score. Thankfully, Waxman was able to shoot down the idea. If not, he'd still be working on score corrections today!

Part of the reason for the new mode (if we can call it new, maybe it's just the return of older studio interference--someone recently said that he was optimistic and felt this was just a cycle that would pass and in some future period things would go back to how they were before) is lack of trust. Producers simply don't trust composers. If they could, they'd write the music themselves. They are afraid that the composers will produce music that won't do what they want it to do, that could make an audience laugh unintentionally, that could destroy their film & their investment. Rather than let the composer alone to do what he does, they act like nervous fathers pacing outside the maternity ward, impatient for any news. So they lay down the rules. No more originality. No more surprises. Just compose the sonic wallpaper that we don't have to worry about.

Well Elfman & Williams seem to be able to buck the trend to a certain degree but not entirely. Both of them have sounded more generic for certain films in an attempt to head off conflicts. Or maybe its that give them what they want professionalism that I so prize in our best versatile composers.

But bucking the trend also means bucking the system and with only so many films to score each year to begin with.....Of course, people with artistic integrity only want to work with those who will trust & respect them to begin with no matter what the price tag. And maybe their price tag is high because they aren't working as many films as the Simmers & Whore-ners and need to make it up somewhere.

In any case, as Otto Lang said about Herrmann, he wasn't easy to get along with but he was so good he was in demand anyway. It goes without saying that Williams is one of the nicest guys on the planet. I don't know much about Elfman's personality though. But it's obvious Elfman wants to compose and not just copy a temp track. That puts him on the difficult to deal with list, an artist, someone who can't be molded easily. Well good for him. I just hope he can survive that way. And, as I said when I started the whole topic, it's a shame every composer in Hollywood doesn't follow suit and demand a Bill of Composer's Rights to counter the disrespect they've been getting despite the high pay & benefits the job offers.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
Raimi sent his old composer Joe DeLuca to TV work and has been with Elfman since Darkman. I don't know what kind of hell Raimi put Elfman through on Spiderman 2 but Elfman was vocal about what a rough going it was. I'm not a big fan of Raimi films anyway so I figured Elfman was probably right over whatever happened.

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And it's also possible that Elfman was having a bad hair day and didn't want to do any of the things Raimi wanted him to do on Spidey2. I shouldn't assume Raimi was being oppressive and Elfman was being abused though that's pretty much how Elfman described it. Elfman could have been the pain in the rear in this case.

But it still doesn't alter my opinion that I don't like Raimi's films for the most part.

And as I've said before I consider Elfman good but not great too. He just has a name built up from high profile scores that the public has taken a shine to be it Batman or The Simpsons theme. But I do like that he's willing to ask for big bucks and demand freedom to compose without a temp track. That shows he respects his own work and isn't just a hack. This may make him a prima donna but I prefer that to hackery.

In fact, that's the whole point....that being a prima donna like say Herrmann was, being irascible and willing to walk away from situations that won't work (Lolita, doing a pop theme for Torn Curtain, The Exorcist, Day of the Dolphin) is the way I want composers who work in the industry. Stand up to hacks, to tin-eared producers, to directors who don't know what they want, to temp tracks, to doing replacement scores, etc. All of this potentially shows you have a personality and care about the final output (though it would be sad to be like this & still produce crap).

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
....For Love of the Game has an ever-too-rare Poledouris score....

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:

But it still doesn't alter my opinion that I don't like Raimi's films for the most part.

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Oh, HAHA! This is good. Lou, we agree. Not speaking for you, of course, but I can't stand Spider-Man and the sequel (and the 3rd looks just as terrible), and the music is forgettable.

And The Quick and the Dead--never have I seen a film completely waste a cast that really could have done anything. I mean Crowe, Hackman, Stone, DiCaprio and this is the worst film all of them ever made! This silly faux Leone rip-off that any third rate spaghetti western is actually better than. I only wish it were Sam with the sunlight shining through those bullet holes instead of Hackman.

I watched about 20 minutes of Spiderman 1 and I only kept watching because I couldn't believe how utterly bad it was and wanted to see if it would remain consistently bad from moment to moment and it did!! But after 20 minutes, enough was enough.

But I have such a prejudice against his films that I may have missed possible good ones in A Simple Plan, The Gift, and For the Love of the Game, but no matter how good they actually are, I know that they'd be better under almost any other director.

But to be fair, Raimi has a cult following, people who love these films. I knew a guy who considered Spiderman 1 one of his favorite films period (of course he was a janitor). So maybe it's just a case of me not getting it.

You know certain films when you see them they just click with how you think and what your sensibilities are. And some films just don't work on you at all. So maybe I just don't get the Raimi thing is all.

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
even though I went to high school with his brother Ted, I can't say I've ever been that fond of Raimi's output.

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Oh, wow! That's cool. You should talk to him about SeaQuest DSV at high school reunions! I know I would haha... no joke, I think that's cool and a little funny, too.

I've seen him in a number of mostly low-budget films & various TV shows over the years. The best thing I think he ever did was Lunatics a Love Story if you ever get a chance to see that one anywhere.

I don't do class reunions and he was one grade below me in any case. I haven't seen him since then but because he took over the high school film theater I started and worked on it with me for a while, he'd probably remember who I was more than the other guys (who I only met once or twice) would.

Oddly, Bruce Campbell has been through Ann Arbor to speak a few times (and I didn't go) and Ted even returned to the Detroit area to appear in some play but I just haven't had any contact with any of them in about 20+ years.

In any case, my memories of these guys aren't all that great to begin with. They liked to hold court and be the center of attention. It was great if they cracked a joke and everyone laughed but if you told one and got laughs they wanted you gone because you were taking their steam away. They could be touchy in that way.

My best memories are of Scott Spiegel who I went out to lunch with once and spent the whole time talking about Vic Mizzy (in their first office in the Detroit area he had placed a still from The Night Walker on the wall) and Elmer Bernstein. And if I'm not mistaken his name is listed somewhere on the Percepto release of TNW.