PHILIPPE SARDE

That many Sarde scores...Wow!

I would start with TESS ( this is combined with The Tenant ), LE TRAIN ( I absolutely love this one to bits ) and THE BEAR ( aka L'Ours as Althazan mentioned ).

Do you know John Barry, Tim?

Nope! Any good?

It definitely sounds like a score I'll enjoy especially if it sounds like a composer I've never heard of.

Christopher, I would also reservedly recommend La Guerre du Feu ( Quest For Fire ), a great score that employs the full forces of the LSO plus choir but it's not always an easy listen, though I would definitely say one that rewards upon repeat listens; I've never tired of listening to this work.

The choir is used intelligently and sparingly, most notably in the awesome Creation of Fire, the rest of the score veers between quieter moments ( a lovely love theme ) to harsh moments with very atonal writing and yes, there is some good purcussive work in the score too that's very tribal. A fine and complex score.

This is more LSO in Stravinsky mode than LSO in John Williams mode, the score works wonderfully in the film.

As Tintin wrote, it's very lush and romantic. I heard it some time ago, then I have listened it many times and then decided to get... But it's hard to find in reasonable price, so now I'm very happy to get it with other many good scores together...

It was released on DVD for the first time only a couple of years ago Thor so it shouldn't be a problem.

OK, Timmer, based on your recommendation, I rented this on DVD tonight.

Well, it's by far the best I've seen of the "caveman movies". I LOVE the fact that there is no dialogue per se, mostly body language and grunting noises (even though some of those guttural words had an English accent! ). Proves that you don't have to have people speaking in contemporary languages to communicate a story. Also, of course, the scenery shots are absolutely gorgeous, typical of Annaud.

However, I HAVE some issues with it. It seems like they threw every ingredient they knew into the same film. You've got three different human races - one very primitive and ape-like, one intermediary (which contains our protagonists) and one more advanced. All of these seem to live generally within the same area at the same time, that they also happen to share with wolves, lions, bears and mammuts! The topography is also a weird hybrid of Scotland and Kenya (where the film is shot). So in this sense, it's more a fantasy "stone age" than an accurate depiction of how people lived 80.000 years ago.

Another element that adds to the "fantasy" mix is Sarde's score. It's big and muscular with the LSO and choir branching out in quite harsh soundscapes at times. Definitely not a minimal, tribal drumming-type score which could possibly have added to the realism if that had been their goal. Then again, the music takes over the "drama role" from verbal language, so perhaps it had to be so.

I guess I'm still waiting for that ultimate fiction film on pre-historic humans...

Strong words Michael, you have some valid points but at this point in time it's as good as it gets, 'one of the all time classic bad films?', hardly!

The 'dawn of man' sequence in 2001 is great but benefits from being a very short sequence without that much substance.

It is such a subjective thing. For QUEST FOR FIRE never gets away from people a bunch of modern actors grunting their way through some pretty scenery. Somehow men in ape suits felt more credible to me!



It tries to depict one critical moment in the evolution of man, and does so in 20 minutes is sublime filmcraft. I can't think little of it for being so short. The short form is arguably one of its strengths. But yes, that does mean I've not seen a feature length rendering of primitive man that worked. It all tends to look pretty ridiculous to me.

I don't know, but assume the considerable gap between being Stanley Kubrick / Arthur C Clarke and being Dino De Laurentis or Jean Jacque Annuad has something to do with it.

Or it could have something to do with this: while 'Dawn of Man' is a story, it doesn't feel like a story is being presented to us. Does it hurt QUEST FOR FIRE that a lot of theories about early man have been gathered together in narrative form? Possibly. Or perhaps it didn't help that I knew the actors from other films?

Maybe it's hard to buy into grunting? Particularly when it's an actor you know doesn't grunt? (E.g. Ron Perlman!)

Yes, but I think a film like this can only begin to work when there's nothing to anchor you back in the present. Perlman may look Cro-Magnon, and at the time would have been unfamiliar, but I know he's an actor pretending to be a grunting simpleton, and the whole thing becomes more pantomime than simulacrum.