The current state of film music

I did like the film Demetris for what it was. I found it to be very entertaining. It was a nice escape from life for a short period of time.
Thomas

To me the music was used to suggest a scale of drama that the film-makers couldn't afford to capture visually. It worked fine for me. As you say there's a certain psychological relevance in the cue as well - it's the climax of a montage in which Hawke's character reflects on all his reasons for anguish.

Well, then...after spending a couple of hours of reading through this mammoth thread, I'll give my two cents.

First, my usual meta-comments:

This topic has been brought up a million times before, at FSM and any other soundtrack forum, and I try to avoid them the best I can (unsuccessfully this time). Not only because I've grown tired of it, but because I find very little constructive debate to be had. Why? Mainly for two reasons:

1) It becomes an older generation vs. newer generation thing. Nostalgia has always played a crucial role in our value judgements, and whether or not we grew up with the music in question, what we listened to in our formative years becomes the point-of-departure; the template. And what is current; what is NOW, is always easily targeted for scorn. You usually don't have to go more than 10 years back in time before something is automatically "artistically heightened" today. I wrote a term paper/article on this phenomenon once. See:

http://celluloidtunes.net/nostalgia.htm

2) The debate becomes riddled with hopeless generalizations and "term expansions". For example, what is meant with 'film music' in this particular context, anyway? It seems that people are AUTOMATICALLY using 'film music' to describe ONE SPECIFIC PARADIGM, namely the classical, mainstream Hollywood film (and score). Not only that, when they're saying that "film music today is such and such", what they are REALLY talking about is ONE SPECIFIC SUBSET of this paradigm, namely the Zimmer/MV sound, mostly evident in Hollywood action films! THAT is what they're criticizing, yet they're expanding it to mean all of film music today. A little nuance wouldn't hurt here. There are MANY other types of film music being composed today, both inside the Hollywood paradigm and outside. Zimmer's sound was influential, but it's not everything.

Which leads me to - yet again - say my opinion on this whole thing:

I think film music today is WONDERFUL. Great. Versatile. But what, then, lies within MY use of the umbrella term 'film music today'? Well, for starters, there's...

....the classical, neoromantic sound that has been with us since the Golden Age, albeit in "updated form" - Williams, Desplat, Silvestri, Horner etc.

....the Zimmer/MV sound that the German composer established in the late 80's (I personally enjoy this very much, but I don't really want to get into another Zimmer debate here, as that is even MORE repetitive and annoying than the "old times vs. new times" thing): Zimmer, JNH, Badelt, Powell, Glennie-Smith, Tyler etc.

...composers with their own, idiosyncratic sound with very special or unusual timbres - Elfman, Goldenthal, T. Newman, Morricone

....composers, especially imports from the rock/pop world, that utilize their own sound in a fresh way, often with minimal means - Santaolalla, Mansell, Martinez

....imports from non-American countries that bring their own flavour to the Hollywood product - Desplat, Marianelli, Navarette

...DIRECTORS who are using existing songs or music in an innovative way that underline some "message" or style - Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderson

And that's just for the CLASSICAL, MAINSTREAM HOLLYWOOD PARADIGM. I haven't even BEGUN to talk about the Southeast Asian market, Bollywood, independent cinema in the US and elsewhere, you-name-it.

The diversity of today's film music scene is unprecedented in history. You may have issues with some of the categories above (which are just SOME I mentioned), but that doesn't negate this fact.

The Golden Age is a term that obviously belongs to one particular period in Hollywood history with its own, unique meaning, but I do think it could have been applied to today as well - from the aforementioned diversity to the proliferation of soundtrack releases from the entire history that satisfies not only seasoned fans like us, but also exposes the artform to a wider audience. A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a three-segment feature on the history of film music in one of Norway's most popular radio programs on Norway's biggest radio channel. This could never have happened if it weren't for these factors.

Call me the eternal optimist, if you wish! I've been called worse.

Also, using Thor's terminology, which I guess is the right one here indeed, I would say that each European COUNTRY has its own paradigm. British scores sound different that French, which sound differently than, say, Italian or Spanish. Or indeed Polish.

I guess it is for at least one reason. American music is kinda "defined", even if the interstate differences are not too small (starting with, say, accent). Except European (obviously) influences - we must not forget that the Golden Age was very inspired by especially German/Austrian and Russian late Romanticism (think Wagner, Mahler, Tchaikovsky), which defined the idiom for years. Also Prokofiev had a LOT of influence, though not much more (or even less!) than today (to prove it, listen to Braveheart's Falkirk and King Arthur's Do You Think I'm Saxon? and that's not all, Prokofiev's influence in film music warrants a whole ARTICLE, not only a paragraph or indeed a sentence). In the next years more composers become inspirational.

The Golden Age era was a source in and of itself, of course, with the most influential composer being actually Bernard Herrmann. Maybe the actually was a wrong word here, but he seems to still influence the genre, with Alfred Newman being basically left only to Williams and James Horner.

Silver Age brought popular music influences to the genre, which are still active. In the 60s we had especially jazz. We must not forget that film scoring is not really up to date with the genre popularity, mind you. Case in point? Hans Zimmer STILL refers to the popular music of the 1980s and merely orchestrating Europe or Van Halen is what he basically did on scores like Black Rain (Final Confrontation) or The Rock (Crimson Tide is a slightly different beast, as is Backdraft). Of course he also has his style (very distinct one, don't get me wrong, I am a Zimmer fan) and his own set of inspirations (namely Gorecki, Wagner, Mozart, Barber).

Also specific convention have their specific references. You won't write Christmas music without channeling Nutcracker and you won't write American patriotism without knowing Aaron Copland. Tribal and barbaric orchestral music will 90% refer Stravinsky and in more emotional dissonant music for sad suspense scenes it is very possible that we will hear Shostakovich, especially if the composer is James Horner (though I've heard him in Zimmer works - Gladiator, Hannibal - and Williams works too - Revenge of the Sith, A.I.)

I know so much about Hollywood, but I would want to know what defined French scoring or Polish (with French music, I guess that the impressionists and Cesar Franck played quite a role, but that's all I know).

I must say I agree with Thor's above comment completely!

One could take a score such as She or King Kong and easily adapt an opera.
Thomas

From what I hear hardly a note from the actual film score is included in the Opera.

You just don't hear action cues like "Village Raid/Helicopter Flight" in Goldsmith's Rambo: First Blood Part II anymore and it's a great shame.

As I said something similar in another post, Goldsmith has/had no equal in action scoring.

Not as far as my golden waxy ears are concerned.
Thomas

I also realize that what I am familiar with growing up are things I will usually return to.
Thomas

I think the most crucial aspect of commercial film music today is the fact that the authority has been moved further and further out of the music departments and higher up into the system - to various executives, producers, directors, and other investors who are anything but musicians. It has for instance become an unwritten rule that music can never overrun the images, i.e. the music is always underlining the images and not vice versa. Even where there is no dialogue music almost never siezes the opportunity to make an "active" musical statement in modern cinema - because nobody longer expects it to, or even wants it to. And the education of composers is based more and more on experience with audiovisual mediums (f. ex. tv commercials and computer games), and less and less on experience with concert music.

Rhetorical question: How many of today's film composers are capable of writing concert music that stands on its own without any aid from a programmatic content, versus film composers of past eras, who had their education from qualified music conservatories and came from a background in concert music (and especially opera)?
A more important question however is does this necessarily hurt the industry? And what is the difference between a good "composer" and a good "film composer"? These questions have been debated for as long as I can remember (my memory goes back to 2004 when I first signed up to "scorereviews").

I won't say the quality of film music has declined since the "golden age", it is rather that the musical changes in the film industry have happened as a result of the changes to the film industry at large. And the currently active film composers are actually doing a wonderful job of serving that particular industry. Much if it is very shallow, and intentionally so. It is aimed at a mass audience, an even wider one than ever. And it is more than anything the box office results that define who is and isn't a good film composer in a commercial industry, and who gets to score which project.

But despite its banalities and many issues concerning quality, the best film music is still american, simply because they have the largest budgets. I recently heard a story about Hans Zimmer getting so much money for his films, that he couldn't always figure out how to spend it and actually had to return it! In European and other world cinema however, the low budgets often dictate a dominating use of more or less randomly selected popular music (of which the rights are easily purchased), and cheap, anonomous piano driven background scores, which typically features one or two accompanying string instruments for emotional resonance.

1... There is little or no money in writing concert music. My opinion is that many could but don't.
2... Read about the mad producer Selznick sometime in regards to sticking his nose into music.
Thomas

Whether concert music is good or bad is one thing Demetris, but my point was that the art of creating a complete musical narrative that doesn't depend on help from extra-musical sources, is a discipline many modern film composers have no relation to at all - contrary to the situation in the past, where training in composing so-called "serious" music, or "pure" music, was the only school available for students of composition. I believe the impact this has on the industry is severe, but I didn't say whether I thought it was for the better or worse, I was trying to analyze the symptoms and share some views.

The last film I saw was "The Dark Knight", and thought the music was in a dramaturgical sense very correct, properly structured, and even provocatice as Zimmer himself explains in interview (slow ascending glissandos performed electronically with an increasing dynamic curve seemed strangely out of proportion sometimes - which I appreciated!). But not once in the entire two and a half hour film does the music free itself of its underlying ostinated rhythms or minimalistic two chord alternations and attempt to project itself towards the viewer with a more "musical" statement - something to listen to and experience on a musical level, not just be felt in terms of its dramatic effect on that particular sequence of images. It is music that gets the job done in regards to the market it was created for, but despite the undeniable skill and experience these composers have (and in part prove once again in this film), I see it as a wasted oppertunity. Because when I see a film that has two hours of music in it, I expect to hear something musical once in a while, not only be told what mood or pace the visual narrative has. thats not music to me, it is rather more related to sound effects than music. But this is one of the many symptoms of a blockbuster film, and understandably so.

My stand is that while the industry has many great "dramatists" who can construct extremely clever devises to manipulate an audience, it sorely lacks musical talent. And musical talent is for me the thing that can make a film timeless, and most importantly, re-watchable and re-enjoyable!