Ben Heckel wrote:Some really good selections here, Alex. I’ve been rather busy with college lately, so I haven’t been able to actively post as much (I wouldn’t be posting now if I wasn’t on a break!), but I have read some of your posts with great interest. I’m a pretty big film score buff myself, and it’s cool to hear from someone as knowledgeable as yourself.
Aw, shucks, thanks man. 
Nah, seriously, it’s cool. I haven’t seen you post around here, but I just started hanging out here a few months ago. It’s always nice to get to talk with people really into stuff you’re interested in, too! 
Hopefully we can talk more.
Ben Heckel wrote:I would soundly recommend Patton by Jerry Goldsmith. It’s a very economic score (less than an hour of music for the epic film), but it’s pitch perfect. A particular scene I’d point out is the one in the attack montage where the working soldiers ask Patton where he’s off to, and in his own characteristic way (
) tells them he’s off to Berlin to shoot Hitler, and they all cheer to the tune of the B theme of Patton’s march. When I first saw the film, I was literally laughing in glee at how perfectly Goldsmith scored that moment. I would consider one of the top 5 best scored moments I’ve seen on film. THAT is what scoring is all about. It takes a fair moment and just makes it absolutely classic.
I haven’t seen Patton, but I hear it’s really good, and I hear about Goldsmith’s score pretty often. I’ll add it to my Netflix queue. The way I usually hear the score referenced is indeed how proportionately little music there is in such a lengthy film. I guess I’ll have to check it out for myself. Thanks for sharing!
Ben Heckel wrote:In the case of POTC, I think that in film score fan circles, the anachronistic approach was compounded by the dissapointment that Silvestri had been replaced. I know when I had seen that, I was really looking forward to what he’d come up with, as Silvestri has excelled at robust orchestral action music.
The music itself (in the first score; I’m only familiar with bits and pieces of the latter two) I actually quite enjoy—and in fact, I think it would be much better if they had left out a lot of the synthetic “enhancements” and rather focused on solidly orchestrating the music that was there. As it is, I listen to a track like “Swords Crossed,” in the section where that bell is tolling, and the sounds make it seem like mediocre video game music. If I ever get the time, I’d actually like to try tackling a reorchestrated suite of POTC music—the suites I’ve heard played orchestra-only sound like there was little to no attempt to adjust the orchestrations so as to sound like it was meant for a symphonic setting. One of these days…
Yeah, I was excited about Alan Silvestri scoring it. I missed the film in theaters and didn’t see it until it came out on DVD. Then, I was certainly confused when I heard the music and swore it sounded like watered-down Hans Zimmer ... of course, all was made clear in the credits.
On a side note, isn’t it ironic that Zimmer based his “music box” theme for Davy Jones and Calypso on Alan Silvestri’s theme to The Polar Express? How’s that for adding insult to injury? You get fired from a project, and then the replacement composer is told to base his music on yours.
The first POTC score is my least favorite. I mean, it’s a decent score (leaving its controversial nature aside for now ), but the recording/production/mastering quality is so trashy compared to the second two scores that I hardly ever listen to it. I enjoy the second two scores much more! “Jack’s Theme” and “The Kraken” from the second score are excellent. I really like how Zimmer writes another theme for Jack (on a solo cello, no less), and weaves it in and out of Jack’s original, more whimsical theme from the first film. “The Kraken” is interesting to me because he obviously based it on the music of Led Zeppelin and Johann Sebastian Bach. How’s that for a pair of influences?
Anyway, and I absolutely love the love theme to the third film. Wow! Powerful, gorgeous, and wonderful. Full of sequences and some nice (even if very basic) counterpoint.
I’ve heard live bands and orchestras perform POTC music, and it doesn’t sound good. At least, it doesn’t measure up to the awesome performance and recording on the soundtrack, which I hold to be the standard. Even if the orchestra does an amazing job, it wasn’t conceived to be performed in a concert hall without the Zimmer “enhancements” you mentioned. I actually played a suite from Gladiator in a youth orchestra back in high school, and there was the same issue. The main problems are akin to other MIDI-to-orchestra transcriptions: string divisi and percussion sounds. With Zimmer, add to it that he uses 391 horns and 17 cello sections. 
Ben Heckel wrote:The Zimmer/Howard Batman scores are a complicated, frustrating case for me. I didn’t expect or think they should have used an ‘89 sound for these films. However, I feel like they went too far in the other direction, to the point where the music gets to sounding bland. I hear good thematic ideas—the two-note call (my favorite rendition remains unreleased, the moment when Bruce hears the horn of the ship and runs to it in Begins), the-theme-that-I-thought-was-Batman’s-theme-but-I-guess-it’s-not-‘cause-Zimmer-said-they-didn’t-give-Batman-a-real-theme (LOL, the one you hear in the “I never said thank you,” “And you’ll never have to” exchange), the family/love theme, the Gotham/Dent theme…all of these are good ideas potentially. However, the variations are often either non-existent or disappointing. I WAS glad to hear the harmonic alterations to the call in TDK (“Like a Dog Chasing Cars” starts off very strongly until it falls back into the gliding over the Narrows to Ducard music from Begins). The music often very chord/rhythm based, with minimal melodic/counterpoint work—it’s not that’s not there, but I get a very rigid vibe when I listen to the music (again, there was some improvement in TDK). I’m not saying it has to be a Tchaikovsky symphony or something, but it gets a bit on the boring side.
I feel that even though the approach is much more grounded in these films, Nolan is still very much making Batman films, and they deserve more richness in the music. The way the electronics are used with the orchestra, though sometimes successful, often end up giving a muddy, generic flavor IMO. To hear a sound much closer to what I would have liked to hear for these films, check out the excellent score to Unbreakable by James Newton Howard.
I also feel like the music leans too heavily on the “This is a serious movie, don’t you know that?!” button. While this is a more serious take on Batman, less cartoony, that doesn’t mean the filmmakers rejected the mythical, adventurous, humorous, or lighter elements of the character either. Alfred still cracks jokes, Batman still drives a crazy car around, chasing and beating up bad guys in the theatrical fashion of a bat creature. It’s all there, but the score is too busy telling us to take the films seriously to enhance the other facets.
Sure, some of it (ok, a lot of it) sounds a little bland and runs together. But remember, film music is written to make the film better, not to be listened to on its own! As an audience member, I think The Dark Knight score works pretty well in the film. As a composer, I find myself simultaneously amazed at the quality of the recording and mastering, and disappointed at the overall lack of musicality. It’s mostly cellos and basses playing quietly, occasionally with a few horns, and the action parts are mostly just pounding drums (as awesome as they sound!). It’d odd; I find myself wanting to listen to it often, but when I do, I’m usually not that interested in it.
I must say, I do really enjoy the last track on the OST (CD#1 of the 2-CD set), “A Dark Knight.” If I let go of all the things that bug me about it (such as the almost humorously simple theme), I find myself listen to it over and over again. I also really like the 2-note call you mentioned. I like it best when it goes from i to VI (such as D minor to Bb major, with D and F being the 2 notes). Occasionally, they’ll play around with it and give it variations (such as staying on D minor for both notes, or doing that chromatically-altered-submediant chord that’s been popular since “Darth Vader’s Theme,” the D minor to Bb minor, or they might even do a “slide” down from D minor to Db major for a “pumped up” feel). I like the “heroic” way it’s used, though, just a simple i to VI. But that’s just me.
Alex Beard, composer
http://www.composeralex.com
http://www.myspace.com/composeralex
We’ve already talked about The Dark Knight as a not-very-compositionally-interesting score and how well it works in the film. 
