MovieMusic.com Message Boards: Pan's Labyrinth & The Fountain

Message Boards

Movie Soundtracks

Pan's Labyrinth & The Fountain

Archive of old forum. No more postings.

Please visit our new forum, The MovieMusic Lobby, to post new topics.

Author	Topic: Pan's Labyrinth & The Fountain

byron39 Non-Standard Userer	Sorry if this has already been posted but I just rented The Fountain & Pan's Labyrinth, and couldnt believe how good the music was for each. Film wise, I thought The Fountain was not very good, but Pan's Labyrinth was a truly spectacular film. I picked up both scores and listened to them about 3 times each. Pan's really stood out as the better of the two. But I enjoyed both incredibly and are now 2 of my favorite scores. Anyone else heard these scores and liked them? Thanks.
posted 06-04-2007 02:02 AM PT (US)

NeoVoyager Standard Userer	Yep... these two, X-Men 3, and The Departed were my favorite scores of 2006. Pan's Labyrinth is truly a masterwork, and The Fountain is extraordinary for its poignancy. Glad you like 'em.
posted 06-04-2007 06:21 AM PT (US)

franz_conrad Standard Userer	THE FOUNTAIN and PAN'S LABYRINTH have in common this unusual coincidence - my girlfriend started whistling the themes of both in semi-mockery of them during the films. It was she who pointed out to me that the infamous lullaby from PAN'S is a minor key version of 'Mary had a little lamb' (I dare you to fit the lyrics). She does a particularly good whistling version of that ominous three note motif from FOUNTAIN.
posted 06-04-2007 07:08 AM PT (US)

nuts_score Standard Userer	Bleh, I haven't even bothered picking up Pan's Labyrinth on DVD for the simple fact that I have no desire to watch it again. The thing that bothers me is that I'm a tremendous Guillermo Del Toro fan - I would take his early films to the grave with me - but Pan's is his least acomplished film, for me. With its heavy-handed good/evil motif, the film is lost in a dizzying array of too much CGI and too little focus on why the fantasy story is so important to the whole package. Del Toro is an immensely talented director, his writing has been improving (could've gone without the coarse language in parts, again, we get that Vidal is not a moral man, don't hit us over the head with juvenile language that doesn't belong in a film of this nature) but Pan's is his first, and only overrated film. I might rent it again or maybe even pick it up when I can find it cheap. The Fountain however, I'm still in love with. A tremendous film that a lot of critics are refusing to take seriously. The same thing happened to The Prestige last year, which was a tremendous year for film and Genre films especially. The Fountain will be recognized in time. NP> Ennio Morricone's The Phantom of the Opera (***/***)
posted 06-04-2007 06:26 PM PT (US)

scoreguy16 Standard Userer	The Fountain rules. A lot of reviewers didn't like the film (I think it may have gone over their heads, or else they don't like films that aren't completely spelled out for you). And the score was fantastic! I've become a huge fan of Clint Mansell after The Fountain. I am really looking forward to the score release of Smokin' Aces. Clayton
posted 06-06-2007 02:56 PM PT (US)

franz_conrad Standard Userer	quote: Originally posted by scoreguy16: The Fountain rules. A lot of reviewers didn't like the film (I think it may have gone over their heads, or else they don't like films that aren't completely spelled out for you). And the score was fantastic! I thought the film spelt out too much. There almost no ambiguity at all.
posted 06-06-2007 03:20 PM PT (US)

Scorro Standard Userer	We rented Pan's Lab and I was kinda disappointed, considering the enormous buzz the film had garnered. The draw for me was the Labyrinth itself... and it was the banquet table scene that delivered the goods for surreal fantasy. But not enough of that and too much of the military hotshot applying his tools of info gathering. The music didn't register much... not critisizing it, just don't remember it making much of an impression. I expected to be blown away. Typically I watch a good movie twice before I return it. For Pan's Lab I watched once and that was that. A recent movie rental that exceeded my expectations was "The Good Shepherd". Wasn't sure if DeNiro could direct an epic spy tale, and he did.
posted 06-06-2007 03:49 PM PT (US)

nuts_score Standard Userer	quote: Originally posted by franz_conrad: I thought the film spelt out too much. There almost no ambiguity at all. Really Michael? Friends and I have had many an arguement over what exactly happened within the course of the film. I thought that Aronofsky and his editor did a marvelous job weaving the narratives together. I had thoughts on this film back in 2000 when it was originally announced that I felt upset to discover that Izzi was writing a book about the Conquistador's search for the Tree of Life, rather than that event actually happneing; but now, after mulitple viewings, I've found many hints that seem to say that everything that happens in the film has happened for real. Including the future segment. To me, it wasn't his way of finishing her book, it was his way of finishing their life together. He finished the book at the Tree of Life and Tomas becoming a part of the tree and the Earth, because it drew from events that she decribed to him in regards to Mayan myth. But that's still not to say that it wasn't the character in a previous life, which I believe is the ultimate solution.
posted 06-07-2007 11:42 PM PT (US)

franz_conrad Standard Userer	I might answer the issues you raise at a time when I have a bit more time to. My dissatisfaction with the film ran a little bit deeper than the feeling that it was obvious what was going on... 1. Mansell's music is all over it, but it's too repetitive to sustain a whole film, to me at least. And the semi-poppish nature of it feels a bit light for the film's sense of gravity - this film needs Corigliano or Goldenthal, for me at least. 2. I didn't like repetition of scenes - particularly the Isabella scene, which is repeated in a way that doesn't seem to impart any fresh information or emotion. 3. There was a scene quite late where the Conquistador reached the tree of life... and drank its sap. I joked to the person next to me that it would be funny if he suddenly burst out in flowers... and he did, to my humoured amazement. I couldn't help, it came across as comical to me, like something Monty Python would have done if one of their knights had found the Tree of Life.
posted 06-08-2007 12:23 AM PT (US)

scoreguy16 Standard Userer	Not to joke around about the film, but what the hey, why not. There is this shot late in the movie where Hugh Jackman looks up at the camera, and I swear, he had this look on his face like if you were to give Jesus a new toy that would make him the happiest person ever. Clayton
posted 06-08-2007 01:53 PM PT (US)

sean Standard Userer	The scene in The Fountain that had me laughing hard occurred when they're trying to play doctor on the dying monkey! Funny scene, terrible film, and silly score; Clint Mansell is a snob.
posted 06-08-2007 06:38 PM PT (US)

nuts_score Standard Userer	What Isabella scene? When she was the Queen of Spain? To me, that was Tomas the Conquistador's driving nature to find the Tree. He had seen the betrayal that his fellow soldiers brought with them on the quest and he needed a reason to push harder to discover the Tree. Now, if Jackman's character were to repeat to himself that scene, I might find a problem, but visual memory serves more purpose in a film. I don't think it was necessarily a repitition in spite of the audience, to constanly remind them of what was going on - both Aronofsky, his editor, and Warner Bros. are smarter that that - but rather kept the theme of the number 3; as I recall, the particular scenes that we're shown again and again are not shown for more than three times. Perhaps you're referring to the red dress sequence. To me, it establishes a very important moment between Tommy and Izzi; perhaps the night of their engagement, or wedding, or maybe even their first night in their house. Either way, it's a scene that tells me that the biggest thing affecting Tommy is the fact that he and Izzi weren't together long, and her illness will most definitely take her from him too soon. They still hadn't shared their life together, just as the Conquistador was unable to do with Queen Isabella; only Tom in the future was able to understand what death was all about when he says the line, "I'm going to die." Truly, to me, one of the most heart breaking scenes in a film I've seen recently. I'm hoping to discuss this with your further Michael. P.S. And I do agree with you on the score comment; while it is a very good score, there isn't much to do with it, thematically. It exists, to say the least - and on it's own is quite a listen - but the film really calls for a greater talent than the lead member of Pop Will Eat Itself. NP> Thomas Newman's Angels in America
posted 06-08-2007 09:58 PM PT (US)

mellow Non-Standard Userer	quote: Originally posted by sean: *The scene in The Fountain* that had me laughing hard occurred when they're trying to play doctor on the dying monkey! Funny scene, terrible film, and silly score; Clint Mansell is a snob.** Oh ye, that was so funny my sides spilt... What in Gods name are you wittering about?! Clint Mansell is a snob, wtf? The Fountain and its score is one my favs from recent years...
posted 06-12-2007 06:32 AM PT (US)

sean Standard Userer	quote: Originally posted by mellow: Oh ye, that was so funny my sides spilt... What in Gods name are you wittering about?! Clint Mansell is a snob, wtf? The Fountain and its score is one my favs from recent years... I was writing about Clint Mansell's interview at AintItCool.com/ where he talked very smugly about other film scores, as if he is the one to put down other people's film music given his limited and not-so dynamic output. There was a piece in Smokin' Aces that sounded almost exactly like a lift from his Requiem For A Dream score; if he's gonna' talk smack, than he better deliver the goods, and he hasn't done that to my satisfaction yet.
posted 06-12-2007 09:21 AM PT (US)

Old Infopop Software by UBB