TRENT REZNOR / ATTICUS ROSS

Those are different films with different aesthetics altogether. They're DESIGNED to work without score and instead rely on the musicality of the sound design alone. SN is not. It's very much designed to have a score of this kind to have the desired effect, and to add a human and/or filmic element to the narrative.

Feeling entertained are you now?

Personally, I couldn't give a toss about the Oscars (even though I thought it was well-deserved).

I'm only concerned with how it works as a film -- and the fight for defending alternative ways to score a film.

Who was this aimed at? I'm here because Thor's knocked Powell's Dragon as conventional just because it is more in line with a traditional symphonic score (as if that's a bad thing.)

I like alternative ways to score a film as well... if it's done well.... just as long as it's not a score that a group of pre-school kids could pound out during play time.

-Erik-

Here's the thing.

Forget the friggin Oscars.

1. Dragon has a great score. I don't agree with dissing it.
2. Social Network has a very good score that enhances the movie.

No need to go into the battle of Oscars again, that's my point. Judging the scores alone as they work for the film they were made for, is my point.

Give me unoriginality any day over dreadful boring drones.

Give me Space Battleship Yamato any day over The Social Network.

What's that got to do with it?

I had never heard those themes or motifs before... have you? And an Celtic themed score written for Vikings... have you ever heard of that before? By the way, the Celtic theme was quite fitting. And again, I point to you the Forbidden Friendship cue if you are looking for something different in an epic, adventure score.

And just because a score is original doesn't mean it's good.

-Erik-

Erik, do you know who wrote the score for China Syndrome ( I have a vague recollection it was Michael Small or Dave Grusin ), it's been a long time since I saw the movie but I remember thinking I thought it would have worked better with a score, like I said, it's been a long time so I don't know whether a reassesment would change my mind?

The China Syndrome was indeed Michael Small and his unused score was released by Intrada Records. When I first saw The China Syndrome I applauded the fact that there was no music. There are just some films that are told so perfectly that a score would distract from the drama unfolding on the screen.

Or you get a film like Jaws where the score saves the film completely.

What I don't like are these scores that are just there and don't have anything particularly interesting to say in an outside of the film.

-Erik-

I agree with that. However, I do like the opening "Revisiting Normandy" cue. Love the first use of the main theme "Omaha Beach" but the rest of that cue - the Copland meandering - is fluff. "High School Teacher" is the best cue on the album. And I really like the final statement of the main theme during "The Last Battle." But the rest can go and it wouldn't be missed. Thank God the Omaha Beach invasion was left unscored.

-Erik-

I've just finished reading this thread and I have to say I agree 100% with Erik. I've seen The Social Network three times... once on DVD from Netflix when I first watched the movie, then a second time a couple of days later when I watched it in order to specifically listen to the score, and then I watched it again a couple of weeks ago when it was shown on American TV.

The one thing I noticed, especially in the second viewing, was how much the score was almost entirely inaudible in the movie. With the exception of the opening piece Hand Covers Bruise when Zuckerberg is running through the University, an uptempo dance-music style piece for the frat party, and the rowing sequence, I could barely identify ANY other cues in the film - and I was really *really* listening because I wanted to understand what all the fuss was about with the score.

Erik's point is well made - the film would have been absolutely no different had there been no score. A score's purpose is to enhance the dramatic narrative of the film, to make the viewer feel the right emotions at the right time, and to support the "filmic" nature of the film, as Thor rightly says. For TSN, it fails on every single one of those parts, because you can't hear it, and if you can't hear it, it's having no effect on the viewer, so it might as well not be there. Having a score which is indistinguishable from the ambient white noise of the film, its sound effects and its source music undermines the entire point of the score existing in the first place.

I'm not talking about the album - I actually like the album - but in the context of the film, with those couple of exceptions I mentioned, the score is utterly redundant. They should have just scored it with songs.

Yes, absolutely it has no effect on me, because things which are inaudible have no effect on me! Somewhere in the world someone is using a pneumatic drill right now, but because I can't hear it, it doesn't affect me. That's the point I'm making.

There's a difference between a "hidden" score which affects the viewer silently and without drawing attention to itself (I'm thinking things like David Shire's Zodiac, which has been mentioned in this thread, and which was excellent IMHO), and a score like TSN, which is so buried deep down in the sound mix that it is virtually indistinguishable from the sound effects and the film's ambient white noise.

A hidden score still has to be heard by the audience in order to be felt. How do you feel something you can barely even hear?

Are you sure it was not the encoding? Perhaps you heard the part that is stripped away when the recording was encoded to mp3. I'm just guessing why you didn't hear anything. Perhaps super ears might have heard it?

I'm chipping in with a comment on The China Syndrome. I didn't like Small's score for the film at all and haven't listened to it again after that first listen. A great example of a score that was best left out of the film.

Personally, I love this film and still remember seeing it on TV for the first time. I think that the film was so well made that no music is needed to heighten the tension in the film. And I suppose that the lack of music adds to the documentary feel to the film...and even to making the film seem like real life unfolding - with there being no music.