What are your favorite UNIQUE film scores? (No John Williams or Danny Elfman allowed!)
o.k., pee-wee's big adventure is kosher for elfman...but that's it!
― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)
Besides all the obvious ones (Herrmann, Jarre, etc.):
I've always loved Heinz Roemheld's score for Lady From Shanghai. Very powerful, but sadly never released commercially.
Though he's guilty of being very same-y, (and I loathed the score to The Piano,) I really ejoyed Michael Nyman's score for Wonderland.
I REALLY love Jon Brion's score for Magnolia.
All I can think of at the moment.
― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:36 (twenty-two years ago)
The score for "Begotten" sticks in my head, "The Virgin Suicides". Although they have been copied to the point of madness (mostly by glass himself) & no longer seem very original--"Koyaanisquatsi" and "The Thin Blue Line". Also, "Chappaqua" and "Performance," although, again, that style became pretty mainstream for a period in the late '60's, and the innovation and popularization of that style should really be attributed to Stan Brakhage or, even further back, Maya Deren.
I'm ashamed to say I can't remember the score from "Magnolia," but that could be a good thing.
It just seems that scores are so formulaic these days that it feels almost refreshing to hear the casio synth-scores from cheesy '80's teen movies. It's also a shame how much today's composers just rehash innovations of the past, to such an extent that it took me a few moments' reflection to remember just how avante-garde some of Herrmann's scores were back in the day.
― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)
― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)
― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)
― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)
― Mil, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 23:57 (twenty-two years ago)
Popul Vuh, for Werner Herzog.Wendy Carlos, for Kubrick.
― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:09 (twenty-two years ago)
YES! You are so correct.
Although the music itself isn't really that special, it's the way it's used -- these little plinky jaunty tunes underscoring noirish black and white menace and despair and desperation. The visuals are Vienna, and the music is the Joe Cotton character, who cannot or will not understand just how bad things are.
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:51 (twenty-two years ago)
Also, I had no idea that Popul Vuh did Herzog soundtracks--which ones? I've always been a sucker for the Krautrock...
― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)
The score for HEAT is pretty great, and unusally understated for a film of that type. As well as the psychotic Ornette Coleman, Howard Shore fugue of Naked Lunch.
― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 6 February 2004 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)
― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 6 February 2004 02:03 (twenty-two years ago)
Some of Herzog's best - Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo...and Cobra Verde and My Best Fiend, too, possibly more.
Those five plus Woyzeck are in the incredible Herzog/Kinski boxed set from Anchor Bay.
― Ernest P. (ernestp), Friday, 6 February 2004 03:20 (twenty-two years ago)
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 6 February 2004 03:44 (twenty-two years ago)
― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Sunday, 8 February 2004 07:08 (twenty-two years ago)
B-b-but Elfman's soundtrack for Dead Presidents was unique!
― j4n (Wintermute), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 11:30 (twenty-two years ago)