Golden Age Film Composers

I actually recently finished a chapter of a collaborative monograph on a Kawalerowicz film and for another thing I had to finally get to know Mother Joan of Angels... so yes, I know who Jerzy Kawalerowicz is .

When it comes to Kawalerowicz's early films, some of them didn't really have scores. Mother Joan has all but choral songs, same with Pharaoh.

Not being an expert historically yet (becoming one, however), I would say that Polish Golden Age ended in the 1960s like in Hollywood. Kieślowski and Zanussi come from a different school of filmmaking, which could be described as Polish New Wave (we call it "moral unease cinema") and under the possible influence of the French. That means heavy use of hand-held camera, a less outwardly visual approach (more urban and gritty), till Kieślowski turned to metaphysical cinema later on.

Education-wise Wajda could be called Polish Ridley Scott, as he trained to be a painter/art director first. That's why he is heavily inspired by, especially Polish, visual symbolism and Polish 19th century paintings. Polanski came from the same time as Wajda did (actually his first film work was... acting in a Wajda film!). He and Skolimowski started out doing more contemporary cinema (of course, Polanski made only one feature in Poland, Skolimowski - like 3 or 4). But the Polish School, largely focused with the war and its aftermath ended in the 1960s and directors like Wajda and Kawalerowicz changed their approach a bit (Wajda went full on "moral unease" quite a few times when that movement was in its prime, even). Of recommended directors, I'd recommend you Andrzej Munk, especially his Eroica. Stanislaw Rozewicz, who I'm PhD-ing in at the moment is a great director, but he's more zero-than-zero style and his symbolism is mostly through subtle use of weather, for example, but I don't think except perhaps his 1961 film about children during war (Świadectwo urodzenia, which you could call "The Birth Act", I don't know the English title, though), a harrowing masterpiece. He is, pretty much, anti-style though. Contrary to Wajda, who used to be all about visuals.

Good question. I personally am not aware of much pre-1950s Polish films. I get the feeling that '30s & '40s Polish cinema - as with other countries' cinema as well - tended to be romantic, nationalistic, patriotic, etc.
[such as the 1937 Yiddish item entitled Der Dibuk/The Dybbuk]

The films I've come to associate with Poland hail from about 1954 onwards by such directors as Aleksander Ford, Wajda, Munk, etc. (which also paralleled the Communist situations that were then affecting Eastern European countries).

Tom, I have a question. I am due Wednesday with a review of Friedhofer's The Best Years of Our Lives and I found a passing remark (a piece of IMDb trivia, really) that Wyler "despised" the score. Do you have any information on the subject? Are any William Wyler remarks on the score widely known?

Sure, I know Prendergast's analysis of the score (not sure I will go with it, as I want to do it as independently as I can, though I do want to mention the book).

Saw the film yesterday. A beautifully told story with psychology as subtle as 1940s would allow. Today perhaps they would go a bit deeper with Fred's nightmares, but I found the actual lack of flashbacks very classy.

Could it have to do with the film being fairly low-key and the score being not exactly too far from being the best score Alfred Newman did not write?

According to Tom's review, he wanted either Copland (based on Of Mice and Men) or Newman to do the score and Newman recommended Friedhofer.

It's actually interesting, how the jazzy bits sound like Gershwin. Also, film-wise, I love how in this rather sad and poignant (especially for its time!) story, they didn't mind some unadulterated comedy in the form of Fredric March waking up half-conscious and forgetting to take his clothes off before getting a shower (and that while singing!)

Listening to it now (the original recording, as I'm not aware of a re-recording just yet), I'd say that maybe it is a "traditional" score in the structural sense, I think the sense of playfulness is, after Taras Bulba, quite Waxman's. It was a different epic model than Rozsa's for example.

Waxman is a revelation for me. We had a review action on our website, which I participated in, partly because it made me watch films that I didn't watch before (most prominent being Citizen Kane, but also Sunset Boulevard and The Best Years of Our Lives) and I stayed in the Golden Age for last few weeks and I intend not to leave for a while (there is an occasional listen to Beyond Rangoon or something like that after a review, but I am coherently with ye olde times). I could make a comprehensive list of what I remember checking out (not all for the first time, for example, some of the Rozsa classics I of course knew before and in one case even own it on CD). I also started out with Max Steiner finally and Dmitri Tiomkin. I will definitely end up much more knowledgeable than I was before.

It's not that I am completely unknowledgeable of older cinema and scores. It's just that I want to discover it, I am not often in the mood and frankly, contrary to Thor (obviously), I usually can take these scores only in complete and chronological form, as any selection (that said, Tiomkin's Fall of the Roman Empire yesterday and Prince Valiant as we speak, I'm listening to in more-less original albums), because they aren't just about the orchestral sound, they're about the structure where the genius of a composer like Steiner or Rozsa (them in particular) lies. And I don't want to be forced to know anything, I just have to discover it at my own pace. So I'm using the new interest I have to find scores and composers I haven't heard before .

Tom, have you heard of Rozsa's critique of Alfred Newman's Song of Bernadette?

When I reviewed Greatest Story Ever Told a friend of mine wrote in a comment that Rozsa considered Newman's approach to his Oscar-winning work as "wrong". 10 years later, sadly, he doesn't remember why. Do you know something more? As I'm listening to the score on Spotify, I have no access to any liner notes possible.

One of my favorite top ten scores of all time. A must have for any collection

It is true, but there are no details given. There was a meeting with Rozsa in the 1970s, where in the summary the author said that Rozsa found Newman's approach "inappropriate", but no details were given. Rozsa was also very critical of Newman caving in to George Stevens' demand to record Haendel's Hallelujah for Greatest Story Ever Told, that he didn't fight for his own vision of the score.

Rozsa was also highly critical of Tiomkin. He claimed that Tiomkin's Oscar speech featuring thank-yous to classical composers led him to quit the Academy.

Intriguing.
Without any kind of context or explanation though I have no idea what to think of this.

I miss Tom's regular inputs on Golden Age cinema and scores. Last I heard, he was in a home with Parkinson's, but if you're reading, Tom, it would be great to get an update from you!