Tuesday, May 20, 2008
MORE ABOUT MORRICONE
Here are two more Morricone themes, again conducted by Morricone himself. The one above is from "The Untouchables" and the one below is from "The Mission." Compare this to the Leone westerns in the post below; the western music succeeds and the ones in this post fail. Of course that's only my opinion, but for the sake of argument let's suppose I'm right. The question instantly comes to mind: why was Morricone so inspired by the Leone westerns?
Come to think of it, maybe what I'm really asking is, "What kind of story lends itself to good film music?" it seems to me that that the answer is, the one with subtext. Composers like to play with subtext because that way they're providing information that the story only hints at. They get to participate in the writing. A good composer lets you know, for example, that "Batman" is really a story about the grandeur of Gotham City and the efficacy of man, even if the writers fail to mention that.
This applies to visuals as well. A good book illustrator doesn't slavishly illustrate the events in the book. He adds to them. Take a look at the book illustrations Steve Worth put up on the ASIFA Hollywood site. Look at the illustrations by Tenggren, Dulac, Nielson, Deitmold and others. The best illustrators added to the text. In their hands Goldilock's forest is full of magic, mystery, and awe-inspiring beauty...all things never mentioned in the text.
The Mission was written by Robert Bolt who wrote the brilliant "Man for All seasons," but he goofed here because because his story had no subtext. Everything you could say about it was in the text. All that remained for the composer was to put happy music under the happy scenes and sad music under the sad scenes. Putting a creative guy like Morricone on a movie like this was a waste of talent. Not so with Leone. Sergio's characters were nuanced and mysterious, and the music helped to define them. In fact a lot of the philosophy in the film was in the music.
I'm tempted to talk about subtext and music in the Clampett and John K films, but I guess that'll have to wait for another day.
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15 comments:
They're not terrible, but definitely not as good as the westerns. The western music adds a whole new dimension to the movie, suggesting so many other worlds and emotions. These well made, but just accompaniment to the movie, like you said. It adds nothing new.
I see what you mean about Morricone needing Sergio to inspire him, Eddie. The difference between this and his stuff for 'Good, Bad...."
This is a great post, because as westerns go, my favorite trilogy is Leone's 'Dollars Trilogy'. So you've made your point for me using stuff I'm familiar with.
Now if only you'd dish on the Clampett/Kricfalusi music subtext, I'd be utterly delighted!
- trevor.
Hey Eddie great post as usual...
I think the Untouchables soundtrack is great. I hear that music and I think cat & mouse hunt - Ness vs Capone - I hear the staccato rhythms of the federal govt. versus the soulful familial clarinet of the mafia... i think it is great because it speaks to a big idea. It is not subtle and neither is Brian DePalma.
I always thought Morricone's western music tended to focus more on the personalities of the movies -- man with no name had his theme, Bronson and his harmonica his theme, El Indio and the music box, the Civil War soldier band. I thought Leone used the music as a supporting character to define the main characters. Is it subtext or making the music into a character? Of course, I gotta agree, his western music is the best.
Henry
There is something to what Eddie is saying -- at least, composers are often inspired by the sense that the movie, without the music, really needs something. Bernard Herrmann told an interviewer that his music for Vertigo was inspired by his conviction that Hitchcock and his writers had made a mistake in setting the movie in San Francisco. A tale of erotic obsession should be set in a more tropical sort of climate, such as that of New Orleans. So he added a sultry, steamy atmosphere that he thought to story would not have had without his score. ... In a similar way, Herrmann's music for Citizen Kane brings out a rollicking, comedic feeling in the film that we might hardly even notice if it weren't for the score.
I think the worst that can be said about Morricone's Untouchables work is that it's pretty conventional in nature. Especially compared to the brilliance of his Leone soundtracks. But it also shows Morricone's grasp of Brian DePalma's story themes. I've always admired the heroic swelling of horns accompanying Ness and company's old-fashioned horse charge along the Canadian border.
That's a textbook example of a film score emphasizing or amplifying what the connections the audience is supposed to make at that point. Classical heroism, elements of the old West, absolute good versus absolute evil. And a grace note of humor.
But not as electrifying in a career context.
Don't forget that "The Mission" and "The Untouchables" were high-brow films, in contrast to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," which was considered at the time to be (in production at least) just another low-budget spaghetti-western. When an artist feels that there is less pressure to produce something great, they tend to approach the work with less reserve and tend to put more ideas into it that are more daring. In my opinion that leads to something better (usually) than when an artist tries to craft their magnum opus, or at least something "respectable," in the case of Morricone. They try safer.
But, then again, the music he made in "Once Upon a Time in America" is also outstanding, and that was definitely a high-brow film. So maybe Leone did have more to do with it.
Part of the answer may lie in the fact that these scores were chronologically written at opposite ends of Morricone's career. You may just not like his later work, which is a very different style.
I'm not sure you need a good film to have a good score, though. Of course it helps, but I think there's some strong film music out there that's better than the films they support.
Examples? King's Row, the Burton Batman, SpaceCamp, Ragtime, The Natural, Hoffa...
Plus, some scores don't 'play' in a concert hall or on CD, but they still support their films really well.
Morricone's score for The Thing is like that, among others.
i enjoy your blog but i think a lot of us are dying to see lots of eddie fitzgerald artwork and cartooning theories or even any stories from when you worked on tiny toons or ren and stimpy. It'd be great to have another animation powerhouse's perspective.
I would love more music theories Eddie! What do you think about the music in Kill Bill? I loved it, especially in the Showdown at House of Blue Leaves.
There's so much music to explore!
CTP: I'm dying to devote more posts to cartoons! As soon as I have a working scanner I'll do that. A frame grab program would also help.
Lester: Fascinating! A sultry, tropical theme for San Francisco! I've gotta see that film again.
A commenter on the last post mentioned the sentimental, nostalgic themes in Morricone's westerns. Not just the music box-watch sequences, but a large part of the films. That's odd because you wouldn't think over-the-top nostalgia would fit with gritty, manly, western stories...but it does.
A long thought on your afterthought, Eddie: the music in Clampett and John K cartoons. (Sorry for the length!)
I have a theory that the combination of music and movement was a huge innovation in the twentieth century; as much as the combination of space and gesture was in the Renaissance. In the early years of the twentieth century, this was still associated with the world of the fine arts, especially the powerhouse that was Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which pulled together composers of genius (Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev) with dancers (Nijinsky, Karsavina, Pavlova, Massine) and painters (Picasso, Matisse, Bakst, Miro, etc.).
By the 30s, it was associated more with popular artists, including the movies of Fred Astaire and the Cotton Club revues of Duke Ellington. It seems to me that this was part of Clampett's genius. What I mean by this is how he intuitively sensed that cartoons at their best are like a ballet, with brilliant caricatures of movement syncopated with vibrant music. Seeing Ellington's 1941 revue 'Jump for Joy' must have really set him off in terms of rhythmic possibilities, since Ellington was at the height of his powers in the early 40s. This is behind the huge range of funny, idiosyncratic musical movements in 'Coal Black'. (Eg. the prince's swaying walk, So White frying breakfast, the Queen's bicycle riding - as well as the dance scene with the Prince and So White which moves from refined 18th century minute into jazzy modern.)
John K has a different sense of music, it seems to me. It's derived more from movie music, and things like film noir. At the same time, it's a caricature of movie music! The best example I can think of is that scene in 'Son of Stimpy', where Stimpy is forelornly wandering the snowy streets of the big city, searching for his lost child, and goes into the police station. He's thrown out and lies buried in a snowbank, and the stink of his fart-offspring wafts into his nostrils. The whole thing is accompanied by Beethoven's 6th Symphony, which we all associate with 'Fantasia'.
It's as though John decided to make fun of Disney's use of the music (a storm scene, where cute little flying horses are separated from their mothers) by showing a different stormy mother-son reunion! And yet, because the music IS Beethoven's, after all, it wierdly enhances the pathos of the scene. Which is all a lot more like 'What's Opera Doc?' than John probably cares to admit!
Eddie, I loved your physics post!
Following up, I found many more exciting episodes of "Horizon" and I arranged them into a post
I think you'll like it!
Dude, Eddie, enough with the youtube videos. Go back to posting comics.
Hey Eddie, check out this sketch me and my buddy made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_pspydHS-U
Jeff: Wow! An interestig effect! It makes you wonder what else you could do with that technique.
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