The other day I was listening to David Arnold’s Independence Day score and remembering just how much I loved it back when I first saw the film (four times in theatres) and thinking that it still is great to this day.  I came back to the score for two reasons: 1) I had just watched the last two James Bond films (both scores by Arnold) and 2) While listening to Alan Silvestri’s new score for Captain America I heard elements that reminded me a whole heck of a lot of Arnold’s ID4 work.  So I listened to it the other day on the bus while reading about the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro (see how much fun doing a PhD is kids!), and the thought crossed my mind of not only great Sci-Fi scores (which Constant Readers will know is my bread and butter, go to, all time favorite genre), but also great Sci-Fi films with great scores.

But I thought that a mere Top 5 could not contain such a list, John Williams alone has composed five great sci-fi scores for great sci-fi films.  So I decided to do a Top 10 list, but also with some very strict rules so that it isn’t burdened by too many scores of films from the same people.  I’m not going to try to define a “sci-fi” score here as having the qualities of any type of music.  Rather, this list, I feel, reflects the wide stylistic traits that marks Science Fiction as such an adaptable genre, both in terms of music and film.  Before we get to the list, though, here are the ground rules I laid out:

1) Only one film each from the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises can be on the list.

2) Only one film per director or composer, with the exception of John Williams for which one film each from his collaborations with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg will be allowed.

3) Both the film and the score must be of high quality, classics of the genre in both instances.

4) Film must first and foremost be a Sci-Fi film, not a superhero or horror or another genre with hints of science fiction.

With that said, I’m not going to go into as much detail as I have in the past on each of the entries, but what I will say that each of these films and scores deserve a spot in your collections if you’re a Sci-Fi fan.  I’ll also present at the end my runners-up.  As is tradition, I present these not in order of quality, but in chronological order.

Metropolis (1927): dir. Fritz Lang, music Gottfried Huppertz – A true classic of the silent era, don’t both with new scores  by anyone, pick up the Kind DVD of the new restored cut with the original score by Huppertz.  His score is a tour-de-force of lush, late Romanticism that would make Richard Strauss blush at its sometimes over-the-top, melodramatic tendencies.  But that was par for the course in the silent era, and if you real want to experience what a pre-composed score for a silent film could do, you must see Metropolis.  The film itself is still considered by many to be one of the best ever made and still holds up very well to this day.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): dir. Robert Wise, music Bernard Hermann – I’ve already written about this and the next film before so I will merely direct you there.

Planet of the Apes (1968): dir. Franklin J. Schaffner, music Jerry Goldsmith – If you want to read more about these two films see my earlier post on Influential Science Fiction Scores.

Closer Encounters of the Third Kind (1977): dir. Steven Spielberg, music John Williams – All right, everyone whistle the five note theme of CE3K just to get it out of your system.  Done?  Good.  Williams’ score uses so many different techniques, from his trademark post-Romantic romanticism to atonal cluster chords, and the most whistleable melody ever written by man.  In fact, one of my professors in undergrad had Williams’ autograph and he then wrote out the theme underneath.  I had a bit of a geek out moment when I saw that.  But let’s not forget the film, a great exploration of so many different themes: fear of the unknown, madness in the face of an uncontralable drive, war, peace, and finally family.  Some might say that E.T. would be the better choice for this list, but sorry, my go to Spielberg alien film is Close Encounters.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980): dir. George Lucas, music John Williams – No film and its score has influenced me more than Empire.  If there was a ground zero for me diving head long into film music as a subject of study it was my first time hearing the “Imperial March.”  The film made me appreciate how not all films can or should have happy endings, sometimes evil can seemingly win (as long as they blow up in the next film), and some days you just get your hand chopped out and find out that the evil bastard you’ve been fighting against is your dad.  Hey, momma (or Aunt Beru) said there’d be days like this.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): dir. Nicholas Meyer, music James Horner – For my thoughts on this film and the entire Star Trek franchise, see my earlier post.  But on the film itself, which is considered by many to still be the high point of the franchise on the big screen, it is iconic for so many reasons: a terrific villain who can match the lead tit-for-tat, an epic space battle that still looks good by today’s standards, and a Shakespearean sweep to it that was only approached by Star Trek VI‘s story – and that was only because they had a villain who would quote the Bard almost constantly.

The Terminator (1984): dir. James Cameron, music Brad Fiedel – I might have easily put T2 here instead, and maybe I should have, but everything that was so great about the music and film in T2 is because of The Terminator.  The one-liners, the leather jacket, the great pulse-pounding electronic score (that rhythm in the main theme!), so I made the decision to have the original on the list.

Independence Day (1996): dir. Roland Emmerich, music David Arnold – The film that spawned this list actually gets in to no one’s surprise.  I know some don’t like this film, too much over the top summer disaster carnage, but if there is a film to blame for the glut of disaster films in the late ’90s and early 2000s, it is ID4.  But what it had and others didn’t was a sense of humor about itself and conscious homages to Sci-Fi’s past.  From the ominous shadow ripped from the opening of The Day the Earth Stood Still to the casting of Brent Spiner (better known as the android Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation) as the kooky Area 51 scientist, the film was equal parts comedy and love letter…and the White House getting blown up (though right now I would vote for the Capitol to go first).  And Arnold’s score is both rousing and patriotic along with dissonant and ominous.  I still own my original CD release along with two-disc set released last year by La-La Land records.

Moon (2009): dir. Duncan Jones, music Clint Mansell – I said almost everywhere on this blog that this was my favorite score of 2009, and the film and score have only increased in my esteem as time has passed.  It’s not always the most listenable score on its own, but its tone fits the film so well.  My original remarks on the score are here, though I go into a bit more detail here.

Inception (2010): dir. Christopher Nolan, music Hans Zimmer – I hesitated in putting this one on the list.  One could argue that Inception isn’t pure science fiction like the rest of the entries, but the essential tech that makes the movie work is pure science fiction, so I say it makes the list.  I’ve said so much on the score, most notably this post that single-handedly jumped my view counts  over 100 a day for a solid week.  I’ve heard some that don’t like the score, but Zimmer’s ingenious use of the Piaf song as a template for the trombones was wonderfully done and just adds layers upon layers to the whole dream-within-a-dream motif of the film.  As to the critics of the film itself, I think it will stand the test of time as will Nolan’s entire filmography.  In my opinion, he is one of the best mainstream directors out there today, and I look forward to each and every one of his films.

Finally, to close out, I would like to highlight these films that didn’t make the list for one reason or another: Alien (1979: dir. Ridley Scott, music Jerry Goldsmith), Blade Runner (1982: dir. Ridley Scott, music Vangelis), E.T. (1982: dir. Steven Spielberg, music John Williams), Aliens (1986: dir. James Cameron, music James Horner), Robocop (1987: dir. Paul Verhoven, music Basil Poledouris), Total Recall (1990: dir. Paul Verhoven, music Jerry Goldsmith), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991: dir. James Cameron, music Brad Fiedel), Jurassic Park (1993: dir. Steven Spielberg, music John Williams), Stargate (1994: dir. Roland Emmerich, music David Arnold), Sunshine (2007: dir. Danny Boyle, music John Murphy and Underground), and, of course, many of the Star Trek and Star Wars films.

Okay, enough time-wasting, back to my dissertation.

As many of you may have noticed, I have not been updating this blog nearly as often as I would like.  The reasons for this are many, but most are related to my school work, and increasingly, teaching duties.  If you read my mini-bio under ‘About Me,’ you’ll note that I am working on a PhD, and while, prior to this year, that meant only classes, I have recently embarked down that long, dark part known as the “Dissertation.”  I’ve passed the comprehensive exams stage, passed the defense of my dissertation topic, and now, have been cast into the unknown sea marked only with “Here there be Dragons.”

As such, I have decided to give official notice of a hiatus of operations here at Temp Track Plaza.  This doesn’t mean I won’t surface now and again to give some thoughts, and hopefully even continue with the Tempi Awards but what it does mean is that you won’t be seeing nearly as much of me for the foreseeable future.  I need to concentrate on the task at hand and graduate.  It might take a few years, which is like 10 internet years, but hopefully I’ll come back sooner rather than later.

Until then…good night, and good luck.

I was shocked and pleased that The Social Network won the Oscar for best score. I honestly thought that it didn’t have a chance to win, that King’s Speech would probably win (though I still contend that Harry Potter and TDH, Part I was Desplat’s best score of last year), but just goes to show that sometimes voters do get things right.  Now, having had a chance to listen to John Powell’s How To Train Your Dragon, I wish to revisit my earlier comments that I made in the heat of the moment when the nominations came out.  While I still believe that both Black Swan and True Grit were cheated by the arcane rules of the Music division of the Academy, and both deserved a nomination due to their high quality.  I am no longer as upset by HTTYD‘s nomination.  It is, by all accounts, a good score, and had I seen the film, it might have squeaked into my Top 10 film scores of last year (maybe…).  Do I believe that it was Oscar worthy?  I’m not entirely sold, I think there are moments in it that are of the type that Oscar voters love: sweeping gestures, lush romanticism, etc.  Good, old-fashioned film music, with just enough new sounds and “ethnic” instruments to make it stand out.  And there is nothing wrong with that, I enjoy that, but I guess the more “academic” I get, the more I look for something really different, that challenges my expectations, or really makes me sit up and take notice.  For me, the scores that did that this year were The Social Network, Tron: Legacy, Black Swan, Inception, and True Grit.  All very different types of film music, but each did something that made it stand out in my mind.  Something that How To Train Your Dragon didn’t really do for me.  Even now as I write this, I’m trying to remember parts of the score, but for some reason the music for Avatar keeps popping in my head, a score that is similar in some respects.  But enough of that, onto some new scores.

Battle: Los Angeles (Brian Tyler) – This is the first new score of 2011 that I’ve listened to, and it was mainly due to seeing a theatrical trailer for the film.  I’ve never been all that familiar with Brian Tyler’s work, and I keep switching him around with Tyler Bates (whose work I am more familiar with and don’t hold in very high esteem).  After hearing this score, though, I will never again make that mistake.  The album kicks off with the “Battle Los Angeles Hymn,” which is a wonderful piece of music.  Yes, it falls squarely into such action/sci-fi/military movie clichés of having a piece with chorus that either celebrates the triumph of the human spirit (think the end of The Island among other films), or somehow depicts the military (think Crimson Tide).  This largely holds true for the rest of the score, there is nothing truly “new” here, but it does what it does exceedingly well and is truly fun to listen to.  There are some great action cues mixed in with more moving, solemn cues.  I have yet to see the movie, though from what I hear, it is a fairly standard, by the numbers alien invasion/war/action/special effects picture, but a fairly good one.  I think the score is better than just good, maybe not great, but throughly enjoyable – well worth a listen or two.

The Adjustment Bureau (Thomas Newman) – Adequate is the word that springs to mind with Newman’s score here.  It works well in the context of the film but doesn’t do a whole lot for me upon independent listening.  It bears Newman’s trademark minimalist tendencies, well-known from his American Beauty score, though he does seem that he’s trying out some new ideas and techniques: more electronics,  a bit of an ambient feel at times, and maybe a bit more of a pop sensibility.  On the whole, though, these just don’t seem to gel or coalesce in the larger scheme.  Overall, the album just feels a bit uneven and lacking in cohesion.  Also included on the album are two original songs recorded by former Verve frontman Richard Ashcraft and a remix of Sarah Vaughn’s recording of “Fever.”  These add some nice contrast to the proceedings, and “Future’s Bright” is used effectively in the film, though the lyrics are a bit on the nose.  There is, also, Newman’s distinctive dramatic cue that is “weighty” and features copious low timbres (think of the most dramatic moments in Shawshank Redemption or Finding Nemo…) and is featured at the height of the film.  For Adjustment Bureau, that moment happens during the cues “The Illusion of Free Will” and “Escher Loops.”  I’m not saying that this isn’t a good score or effort from Newman, I’m just saying that it is just lacking in certain elements that keep it from being great.  This is not unlike the film itself, which is quite good, but just doesn’t following the plot and story deep enough and in the third act devolves into a lengthy chase scene.  Recommended for Newman fans, but not a must buy.

Heavy Rain (Normand Corbeil) – This is a video game score from last year that I recently stumbled upon on iTunes.  Basically, I had just recently watched the 1995 film Screamers which Mr. Corbeil scored and wanted to check out the soundtrack.  After finding nothing under the title I entered the composer’s name into the iTunes store search engine and Heavy Rain was the only album listed.  I listened to the samples and decided to check out the full album.

I don’t review many video game scores here, though in the first year I did do some overviews of the Final Fantasy games, some classics from the 8 and 16-bit eras, but not too many recent titles (with the exceptions of Mass Effect, whose score I picked up on sale from Borders last year, and Bear McCreary’s Dark Void).  This is ostensibly for two reasons:  the most recent console I have is a PS2 plus I just don’t have time to play many video games anymore.  You know…that whole dissertation and PhD thing.  But I do try to keep up with the major titles released every year, and because of that I had at least heard of Heavy Rain.

For those not in the know, Heavy Rain is a noir-ish murder mystery in which the player investigates a serial murderer known as the “Oragami Killer,” named for the paper figures s/he leaves behind and who always strikes during periods of heavy rainfall which he uses to drown his/her victim.  The investigation uses four different characters and a unique control system that makes the game more akin to old school adventure games for the computer (like Grim Fandango or the Monkey Island games).  And I can’t really say more without spoiling things.

The score perfectly matches the atmosphere of the game from what I’ve seen in video clips.  Like most new games, it features a full orchestral soundtrack, and it sounds as if Corbeil was channeling a sort of ambient minimalism that one hears in many neo-noir films.  Specifically I’m thinking of David Julyan’s score for Christopher Nolan’s remake of Insomnia.  Something like this can work great for a video game because so much is atmosphere and can be looped underneath with varying thickness (meaning the music engine can drop layers like strings, winds, etc., in and out depending on a player’s actions).

On the album, the cues are presented mainly as they relate to the game’s main characters (each of the four playable characters has a theme), though there are some specific cues for what I’m guessing are predefined moments in the game (“Before The Storm” for example).  The tense atmosphere is broken, though, for the action cues on the album, and these are much weaker than the other cues featured, but I understand that the game needs action to keep the player interested.

Anyway, it really is an interesting score and demonstrates just how sophisticated game scoring has become when compared to its brethren in film and television.  And more than that, it almost makes me wish that I had a PlayStation 3.  Anyone want to lend me $300?

Well, that’s it for now from Temp Track Plaza.  Hopefully I won’t wait so long between posts next time.

Now, I’m not saying anything bad about Powell, and I didn’t see How to Train Your Dragon.  I respect Powell and his work, and think that his scores for the Jason Bourne films are great examples of excellet film scoring.  But, in all seriousness: AMPAS – this is what happens when you disallow some scores based on arcane rules about interpolated pre-existing material (i.e. – the rulings on Black Swan and True Grit).  At least they saw their way to actually nominate The Social Network, one of my top three scores of the year (along with Inception and TRON: Legacy).

But now that the nominations are out, who will win?  My choice is for The Social Network, and I honestly think it will win…at least I hope it will.  If not TSN then hopefully Inception.  Both are worthly winners in what was a fantastic year for film scores, even if some of the best were not nominated.

 Good night, and good luck.

It was quite the year, though.  A number of great scores were released, not to mention some great new CD releases.  Let’s discuss the CD releases first.  We had THREE separate Star Trek scores released: new two disc editions of not only the Tempi© award winning Star Trek V, but also Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Michael Giacchino’s new Star Trek score.  On top of which was FSM’s Ron Jones box-set featuring most of his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  We also had Danny Elfman’s two Batman scores released and a new La-La Land edition of Nelson Riddle’s old 1966 Batman film score.  Lost fans were also treated with 4 discs of material covering Giacchino’s final seasons-worth of work on the zeitgeist defining show.  And Varese Sarabande also gave us the hefty Spartacus box-set mentioned previously in the blog.  And that’s only scratching the surface of the great CDs put out by the labels specializing in film scores.

In terms of new scores, it was a wonderfully varied year, with many traditional sounding score released (James Horner’s The Karate Kid and James Newton Howard’s The Last Airbender among others), but if there was a single trend that I took away from this year, it was the growing use and mainstreaming of electronic/ambient musicians in film scoring.  Now, they have been present since the advent of electronic music, but it seems like this year the practice really broke into major filmmaking.  Namely, there were two scores: French electronic-music duo Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy score and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for The Social Network.  Further, Reznor and Ross have already been tapped to score Network‘s director David Fincher’s next project, and if there is a sequel to Tron, you better believe that Daft Punk will be involved.  In my opinion, that movie would not have been anywhere near as watchable as it was without their amazing score.

There were also many pleasant surprises from unexpected places.  Fellow blogger and film music enthusiast Herr Vogler had this to say:

“The biggest surprises of the year?
 
Salt (looks around guiltily) because it’s a lot of damned fun and Robin Hood was actually quite impressive in some ways (I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it and I was pleasantly surprised by it).”

I didn’t see Salt, but I would heartily agree with Robin Hood.  The film was strictly mediocre, but the score had many nice moments, and it makes me less nervous about the prospect of Marc Streitenfeld scoring Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel project (now titled Prometheus).  James Horner’s The Karate Kid score would also make my list of pleasant surprises (along with the film itself).  I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, but I found the film, and his score especially, quite charming.  One of the few remakes that I feel live up to the original…though I was never a huge fan of Bill Conti’s original Karate Kid score.

One of my other favorite memories of the year is excellent trailer for The Social Network that I talked about earlier on this blog (check out the post here for my full analysis).  If you want to watch it again (and I still do), here it is, one last time:

And after seeing the film, I can say that the song brilliantly captures the tone of the film, and in so many ways sums up everything that is so powerful about the film itself.

So, what are my top ten scores of the year?  Well if you’re curious, here they are, in reverse order:

10. The Karate Kid – James Horner

9. Alice in Wonderland - Danny Elfman

8. Lost: “The End” (Series Finale) – Michael Giacchino

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I  – Alexandre Desplat

6. Black Swan - Clint Mansell

5. Human Target: Season 1 – Bear McCreary

4. True Grit – Carter Burwell

3. Inception – Hans Zimmer

2. The Social Network – Trent Resznor and Atticus Ross

1. TRON: Legacy – Daft Punk

And in reality, those top 3 could almost be in any order.  Any of them could be number one and in some way or another, they are all deserving of the honor.

Lastly, I shall once again go out on a limb and make my bold Oscar predictions.  Two of my top scores of the year have already been disqualified (Black Swan and True Grit) and I would be greatly surprised if both Social Network and TRON: Legacy are nominated because of the stupid two composers rule (i.e. The Dark Knight).  So based on other awards and such, here are my guesses for the five nominees: Inception (Zimmer), The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat), Alice in Wonderland (Elfman), 127 Hours (AR Rahman), and - even though I have reservations about them nominating it – The Social Network (Reznor/Ross).  I think academy would be really hard-pressed to ignore Social Network especially with all the positive attention it has received.  Looking over this list, though, I realize that I have just named EXACTLY the same 5 films nominated by the Golden Globes, and those two award don’t always go hand in hand.  Oh well.  We’ll see how it goes.

Well, that’s it for 2010, here’s hoping 2011 is just even better.  So long, farewell, adieu.

First up we have Score Release of the Year.  This award is for a CD release of either a new score or a new release of older material in either a complete, expanded, or otherwise different format from the original release.  The overriding criteria is that the package somehow rises above that of a normal CD release.  This was a tough category this year because there were numerous wonderful release this year, especially from the little label that could: La-La Land Records.  And in fact all but one of the nominees came from La-La Land.  So here we go, the runners-up are:

Jerry Goldsmith – The Edge (Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): La-La Land Records

Alex North – Spartacus: Varese Sarabande

James Horner – Krull (Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): La-La Land Records

And with a tie for the winner, the Tempi© goes to:

Danny Elfman – Batman (Expanded Archival Collection): La-La Land Records

Jerry Goldsmith – Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Limited Edition): La-La Land Records

Quite the group, and three other La-La Land Release received votes from the panel: Batman Returns (Danny Elfman, expanded release), Human Target (Bear McCreary, 3-disc box set of music from the series), and Independence Day (David Arnold, limited edition release).  Also getting votes was the Film Score Monthly release of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Outland.  It was a really tough call, which is partially why two release were honored in the end.  A special mention should be made for the Spartacus set because it is the most complete and over-the-top special edition release ever, weighing in with 6 CDs of material, a DVD of interviews of composers reflecting on the score, plus a 100-page booklet.  But with a price of over $100, it wasn’t for everyone.

Moving right along, next we come to the coveted Tempi© Award for Score of the Year.  More coveted than any Oscar or Golden Globe, this is the award that sets the tone for the award season!  Okay, not really, but this is the internet so an over-inflated sense of self-worth is par for the course.  This year was an especially tough one, with many great scores being release, though many of them might be ignored by various awards presentations because of arcane rules (I’m looking at you AMPAS!).  But here at The Temp Track, we make no such judgements and ask one very important, overriding questions:  is it good?  And in response to that, there were many very good scores this year, though one kept rising to the top or near the top of every ballot counted.  But before we get to that, the four runners-up:

Carter Burwell – True Grit (Paramount Pictures)

Alexandre Desplat – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Social Network (Columbia Pictures)

Daft Punk – TRON: Legacy (Walt Disney Pictures)

But in the end, the award goes to:

Hans Zimmer - Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures)

As one panel member put it, “It’s become a lot of fun for me to watch Hans Zimmer continue to stretch himself out and he seems to have done this mightily over the course of the last few years. First we get The Dark Knight. Then goes and does something completely bizarre and radical in Sherlock Holmes and then creates a brilliant soundscape once again for Christopher Nolan’s Inception.”  Also of note this year are Desplat’s other scores for The King’s Speech and The Ghost Writer, Clint Mansell’s excellent work on Black Swan, and Danny Elfman’s two scores from very early in the year: Alice in Wonderland and The Wolfman (two very good scores saddled with less than stellar pictures).

Finally, we must award the Alfred Newman Tempi© Award for Composer of the Year.  Last year’s winner, Michael Giacchino, had a rather low-key year, only doing one significant score for Let Me In (worth listening to) along with wrapping up work on Lost, but expect to hear much from him in the year ahead.  This year’s winner, though, doesn’t have many film credits to his name, but truly staked his claim as an up-and-comer.  He’s been on this blog’s radar for sometime, but this year truly came into his own.  This young lad goes by the name Bear McCreary.  This year Bear continued his fine television scoring work and really reached a new level of composition with scores for Caprica and Human Target, though the former has been cancelled and he is no longer scoring the latter for some unfathomable reason.  He also completed his first video game score for Capcom’s Dark Void and even inadvertently let to the creation of the throw-back Dark Void Zero, which has a wonderful, retro 8-bit score.  He also continues to score Eureka and has just started in on two new series: The Walking Dead for AMC which debuted in October and NBC’s new superhero show The Cape, which aired its pilot earlier this week.  He has numerous projects lined up for this year, and everyone here at The Temp Track is looking forward to hearing what he comes up with next.  Congratulations, Bear!

Well, that’s all for now from the basement suite at Temp Track Plaza.  It’s been a tremendous year for scoring and we can only hope that 2011 is even better.  Look for my own personal 2010 wrap-up in the next few days.  Last one out hit the lights!

Burwell’s score is melodically based on a number of Christian hymns, most notably “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”  The melody is used as a musical analogue for Mattie’s search for justice, a stern biblical justice that will see her father’s killer brought before God’s court.  The hymn has a 19th-century western quality to it that reminds one of the sound of the Ken Burns Civil War documentary series.

Burwell weaves this main hymn in and out of different variations and settings, but using a very restrained orchestration all building out of the simple piano presentation that opens the film.  He also uses a few other hymns in the film, including “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  The composer, according to an interview with Film Score Monthly, wanted to convey Mattie’s church background, which is present in the book but not seen as much in the film.  He originally tried his hand at writing a few hymns, but eventually him and the Coens decided to use the pre-existing hymns he had already identified in research.

But it is this fact that might, unfortunately, might keep this fine score out of the Oscars, which could also happen to Clint Mansell’s Black Swan (see previous post).

This is all to say that you should see this film and listen to the score.  Heck, my parents even enjoyed it and they rarely notice the music that much outside of a John Williams score.

So stayed tuned as my next post will be my year-end awards and wrap-up.

As with films themselves, there are two major seasons for new score releases (at least for the American film industry and to a lesser extent Europe): summer and the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Yes, you’ll have to odd film/score release elsewhere, but most of the major contenders will be from one of those two periods.  Now, two of my favorites for top score of the year do fall outside of that time frame (Alice in Wonderland by Danny Elfman, and The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), but the majority of those that I might put on a top ten list would come largely from Summer or Christmas.  In the spirit of that, I would like to offer some first impressions on three recent releases with the caveat that I have not seen any of the three films in question: Black Swan (Clint Mansell), The Tempest (Elliot Goldenthal), and TRON: Legacy (Daft Punk).

Black Swan: Director Darren Aronofsky once again teams up with Clint Mansell, who has scored all of his films, and the result is one of Mansell’s most interesting scores to date.  It’s impossible to remove the score, though, from the plot of the film, so I’ll give you a barebones run down:  the plot involves two ballet dancers and a production of Swan Lake.  Got it?  Good, because that’s all you’re getting.  As such, Mansell’s score is full of interjections, interpretations, and quotes from Tchaikovsky’s ballet score.  What’s intriguing about the score is what Mansell quotes (most of the most famous material is here) and how he then distorts elements, changes others, and at times morphs the music into a haunting reverie or chilling nightmare.  Being that the score is based on pre-existing material might keep it from Oscar contention, but it won’t keep it off my list of favorite scores of the year.  The first time I listened to it, I wasn’t exactly thunder-struck by it (like Inception), but the second time around I found myself more drawn into its grasp…which is always the sign of a good score.  A side-effect of the use of Tchaikovsky is that the score is Mansell’s most orchestral effort to date (at least of what I’ve heard of his), it will be curious to see if he begins to adopt the idiom more in his future scores.

The Tempest: Again, we have a composer teaming up with a long time director/collaborator, this time Elliot Goldenthal with partner Julie Taymore.  As with most Goldenthal scores, the music itself is challenging and hard to get into upon a first listen.  The standout parts of the score on initial listen are the songs which are taken from the original songs in the Shakespeare play.  But just as with Black Swan, the score opens up a bit more on a second listen and begins to reveal a few of its secrets.  Like other score by Goldenthal, the music oozes atmosphere rather than “melody” most of the time.  I use scare quotes because melody is a bit of an archaic term in much contemporary concert and film music, but that doesn’t mean the score lacks things to latch onto.  Like I said, the four included songs (there are seven in the film) are the most immediately accessible, with the album’s closing track, “Prospera’s Coda,” really being a standout entry.  It’s dark and haunting, fragile and terrifying, and plays almost like a Radiohead or other similar rock track at times.  It just shows that even though “melody” might not be the point of Goldenthal’s score, the guy can write a tune when he needs to.  And clocking in at over seven minutes, “Prospera’s Coda” really has room to expand and explore the musical space Goldenthal creates.  I do recommend at the very least purchasing this track on iTunes, if not giving the rest of the album a shot.

TRON: Legacy: What might be the most impressive score of the bunch here is the result of a collaboration between a first time director (Joseph Kosinski) and first time film composers (French electronic music duo Daft Punk).  So what makes this score so impressive?  It is a question that vexes me because it’s hard to put a finger on it.  First, in comparison Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos’ score for the original, this score feels much more cohesive.  The score for the original was intended to be purely electronic, but the producers felt the need to have some orchestral sounds in there and the resulting mixture doesn’t always work.  And while many of the electronic sounds on that score are good and interesting, they never blended together well with the orchestra in the grand scheme of things.  Fast forward to now where it is hard at times to distinguish between electronic manipulation and live and Daft Punk has succeeded in blending their electronic music with a live orchestra and the result is impressive.  The main “theme” of the piece soars in both French Horns and digital space, there are deep bass thuds and Glass-ian minimalist touches in strings and (electronic?) organs.  There are cues on the album that make me feel “giddy” because the sound is something unique and new…or maybe it’s just the kid in me loving the retro-cool nostalgia of it all.  It sounds like every ’80s electronic score you’ve ever heard (Tron, Blade Runner, and The Terminator to name just a few) all thrown in a giant pot, mixed with a heathy dose of Hans Zimmer and his Remote Control crew, with chunks of Phillip Glass added in for meat, and all brought to a tasty simmer on the stove top.  If you haven’t already bought it, do yourself a favor and don’t delay any longer.  And think that Daft Punk can’t write orchestral music?  Check out the track “Adagio for TRON” and then get back to me.

So what about my top ten for the year?  Well, if we consider both Film and Television, the list would go something like this:

1. Inception (Hans Zimmer); 2. TRON: Legacy (Daft Punk); 3. The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross); 4. Human Target (TV Series, Bear McCreary); 5. Alice in Wonderland (Danny Elfman); 6. Lost -  ”The End” (Series Finale, Michael Giacchino); 7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I (Alexandre Desplat); 8. Black Swan (Clint Mansell); 9. The Karate Kid (James Horner); and 10. Robin Hood (Marc Streitenfeld).

Well that’s all for now, make sure to check back in a couple weeks for post #100!!

Composer Alexandre Desplat has joined the Potter crew for both part of the final adventure, much to the dismay of those wanting a return of John Williams, but also causing the rejoicing of those who disliked Nicholas Hooper’s less than stellar efforts.  I, for one, was greatly impressed by Desplat’s efforts here, not being overly familiar with his previous work, and liked the darker tone he invoked for the film.  Given the film’s dark tone in general, it would have been very disjointed if we were to return to the bright sounds of the first two films.

There has been one recurring critique of the score that I wish to address here, and that is the almost total lack of recognizable themes as were found in the previous films.  This is true, about the only returning melody I could hear was “Hedwig’s Theme” which was barely used at the beginning of the film.  I didn’t find this to be a knock against the score, though, as Desplat gave us a nice, tragic-tinged melody for Harry and Ginny early on (one that seems to be a distant cousin in some ways to Hedwig), and some wonderful musical material throughout the score.

The film and album both begin with an epic and sorrowful scene and cue setting the stage as the players of the film move to their places.  Hermione sends her parents away after wiping herself from their memory and Harry’s family gets the heck out-of-town while the getting is good.  The cue that acompanies this, “The Oblivation,” has a eight-note motive playing underneath and long melody, beautifully juxtaposing the two rhythmic tempi and getting the film off to an anxious and unsettling start.

Another nice addition to the score and instrumental pallate is the use of non-traditional instruments.  Williams did a similar thing with Prisoner of Azkeban by introducing musical colors akin to the Renaissance, but Desplat here takes us to the other side of the globe.  In the score Desplat makes good use of the Japanese Shakuhachi among others, using the breath sounds and timbre of it on a number of tracks, most noticeably “Bathilda Bagshot.”

In the pantheon of Potter scores, I would say this is definitely the best score we’ve had since Goblet of Fire by Patrick Doyle, and maybe even second best, behind only Williams’ Azkeban.  It’s hard to compare this score to the first two, though, because of the vastly different tenor of the films.  Just as Azkeban required a radical shift in mood because the darkness of the film, Deathly Hallows, Part I is miles away from the happy-just-to-be-out-of-the-cupboard Harry Potter of Sorcerer’s Stone.  It would strange to heard all the carefree and wonderful Hogwart’s themes in this film given that there is not a single scene in the film takes place at the school.

In the end, while Desplat is no John Williams, he does a great job on this score in using instrumental colors to paint a bleak and dark picture for our not-so-young-anymore triumvirate of heroes.  This film is dripping with sounds and energy that conveys to an audience just how bad things are and just how much worse they’re going to get before the final victory is won.

Dear reader, it’s almost Thanksgiving, so that can only mean one thing: Star Wars.  “What,” you ask?  You see, fearless reader, it was at this time of year that the darkest day in Star Wars history came to pass: November 17, 1978.  On that day, lo those many years ago, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special aired on CBS stations nationwide.  And it is for this reason that every Thanksgiving-tide, it is the duty of all Star Wars fans to remember the day with a celebration of all that is good with the saga…in the hope that one day the black stain of the Special shall be removed – though, in all honesty, if you watch the Special with RiffTrax commentary, it is almost bearable…almost.  

To this end, I have been working over the past year to assemble the ULTIMATE Star Wars marathon.  Beginning with the question of what material is available on DVD that a fan can watch to completely immerse one’s self in Lucas-verse, I have scoured the internet and Amazon.com to cull all relevant materials together into one uber-listing.  Obviously, one can select to watch various materials as they wish, and one can even mess with the ordering itself.  One interesting variant I’ve read about is to watch Episodes IV and V and then hop back to watch I through III, in this way the big reveal of Vader as Luke’s father is not foreshadowed, and the events leading to Anakin’s fall is played as a flashback of sorts.

But if you are a purist and want to view everything in chronological order based on events in the films themselves, then I have assembled a list achieving just that.  Included, for your amusement/enjoyment/torture are: all six main theatrical films, all materials related to the Clone Wars (two animated series and one film), the DVD releases of material from the Droids and Ewoks animated series from the 1980s, the two live-action Ewok films (Caravan of Courage and The Battle for Endor) also from the 1980s, and in the name of being complete…the infamous Holiday Special.  I have also indicated future material where it has been speculated, just leave room for future growth.  So without further adieu, the ULTIMATE Star Wars Marathon (with my own “chapter” titles):  

It’s a lot of material, I know.  At last count, with the continuing Clone Wars series, it is pushing over 40 hours.  Let that sink in…over Forty Hours.  And once both The Clone Wars and the untitled live-action series are done with, there will be well over 100 additional hours of material to watch (that’s if the live action series ever materializes).  

The hardest part about this marathon, though, is navigating the Clone Wars materials.  There are two different Cartoon Network series to work through, and the current series likes to jump around in time so that new episodes sometimes take place before prior episodes and one has to remember earlier material to put them in the proper context.  And while the Clone Wars film that was released in 2008 is basically taken as the zero point for the series, there have been two episodes that take place just prior to it.  To assist in any chronological viewing of the Clone Wars materials, I have assembled rough chronological listing of the episodes, one that adheres to the airing order as closely as possible, but also putting later episodes in order should they come before earlier ones.  But I will freely admit, I am guessing at some of the ordering, but it should at least demonstrate some logical coherence.  Though if anyone can help refine parts by pointing out little details, I gladly welcome it.

In the PDF linked below, I have divided the episodes into story arcs (the names are my own), and you’ll notice there are a few single episodes that are part of a larger grouping (the Pantora and Senate Intrigue arcs).  I have also grouped together two second season episodes that are homages to films by Akira Kurosawa, a major influence on George Lucas.  These are mainly stand alone episodes that are part of a larger trend in season two towards episodes that reference genre films and styles (noir, western, monster movie, and submarine films).  This is also why I titled the final arc of season two as “Once Upon a Time in Space.”  The story is of young Boba Fett’s quest for revenge against Mace Windu, and the score has a theme that is a call out to Harmonica’s theme from Once Upon a Time in the West. 

Finally, if you need a break from heavy drama or lame 80s cartoons, you can watch one of a number of Star Wars related media.  There is the Empire of Dreams documentary (available in the first box set release of the original trilogy in 2004) or the recently released film Fanboys, which makes one nostalgic for the optimism surrounding Episode I prior to its release.  There are also the numerous episodes of either Family Guy or Robot Chicken that spoof/parody the Saga.  Think of these as a way of stepping back from the abyss and gaining perspective during what is undoubtedly a major undertaking. 

Below you’ll find links to PDF files listing all that films and TV episodes that I’ve talked about.  Note: The Clone Wars episodes are current up through November 19, 2010, though I’ve speculated on how the latest and the following episode are to fit in based on information found on StarWars.com. 

Good luck, and may the Force be with…always.

Ultimate Star Wars Marathon

Clone Wars Ordering

P.S. – For those curious, the two Kurosawa homages, “Lightsaber Lost” is taken from Stray Dog and “Bounty Hunters” from Seven Samurai.

N.B. – The episode numbers in the PDF film are in the standard 3 digit number format where the first number is the season and the second two and the episode number in the season sequence.

I tangentially talked about higher education a few months ago, but there have been two recent columns by Stanley Fish in the New York Times (Part I and Part II) which have once again made me worry about not only my own future as an academic and scholar, but also the future of academia and by extension intellectual discourse in this country.  To summarize the impetus behind Fish’s columns, the Albany campus of the State University of New York (SUNY) recently announced that it was giving the axe to the French, Russian, Italian, classics, and theatre programs due to budget cuts in the Empire State.

Fish’s main question is about this “crisis of the humanities” in public education (it’s not just a university problem, but also primary and secondary schools).  How do school administrators validate the existence of such programs when the benefits are not as tangible as, say, computer sciences, medicine, business, etc.  Not to mention the point of that so many of the departments are havens for trouble makers, boat rockers, free thinkers, and, god forbid, liberals!

Fish offers some rationales and possible arguments for administrators and the public, and finally comes down to a somewhat circular argument of that it should be funded because that is what a university is.  I will set his arguments aside for the time being and rather meditate on why this entire trend troubles me so.

There is a fundamental contradiction in today’s society in relation to education and knowledge that keeps me up at night now that I’m lecturing in front of a class on a tri-weekly basis.  At the same time that we have unprecedented access to knowledge thanks to the internets and the Google, people have seemed to stopped thinking about things in lieu of surface level thought and analysis provided by others (in forums such as the one you’re reading).  And while the blogosphere is great for things like instant analysis and for getting a conversation started, to many treat it also as an end.  Instead of thinking for themselves and doing thoughtful analysis, they just spout out what others say.

The humanities are exactly the subjects that give us the tools to do our own analyses, but our culture and economy are so focused on end products and results, the rather meta-level tools that such things as critical theory and philosophy give us are seen as unproductive because philosophy begets thoughts begets theory begets philosophy, and theory begets analysis begets theory.  And so on.  Academic for academic sake is not seen as a valid argument, though it is exactly the one put forth by Fish in the end.  And as I mentioned in my earlier post, it is exactly this dilemma I struggle with, asking myself (as I prepare another exam or counsel students on paper topics), “what is it I want them to take from this that I hope they can use in their everyday life.”

I see or hear loud political ads during this midterm election season and I wonder what happened to thoughtful discourse.  It seems like the loudest person wins, or at lease that is what the advertisers think.  And the “rhetoric” (I question if it’s even worthy of the term) tossed around seems to be only angry, loud, and used to instill fear into the electorate.  It’s a sad commentary when the sanest voice in politics and media is a comedian.  And this loss of thoughtful, intelligent discourse in the public sphere is, in my view, a direct result of the lack of quality education.

One of the bedrocks of a democracy is a well-educated electorate, and now that we truly have an electorate that embraces all citizens (not just wealthy, land owning, white males), it is the duty of the government to provide and support public education.  Don’t believe those that say that the American educational system is among the best in the world.  Yes, it better than many, and the universities are among the best, but if we, as a country, do not demand that states like the one I’m living in, and the federal government, work to increase that funding, those universities will go the way of so many rural or inner city school districts that suffer from a small or poor tax base in which to fund them.  And quality education will one again be only within the reach of those same wealthy citizens.

Education is supposed to be that great leveler in our society, the belief that free and public access to education is the means through which anyone can improve their socioeconomic status.  But if public universities lose all their public funding, that access is going to be dependent on either student loans (which cause such crippling debt that some believe it will cause another economic crunch soon), the kindness of endowed scholarships (which sometimes come with many strings attached that cause money to go unused or wasted), or a return to country where only a the privileged few have over a basic level of education.

I find none of those option particularly appetizing.

To bring this rant around to something resembling a point, I come finally to the title of this post, “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood…”  To those who were awake and paying attention in English class, you will recognize the opening line of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”  It’s a popular poem and well worth anyone’s time and reflection, especially given the divergence of popular interpretation versus the more ironic and critical interpretation.  A fine example of how humanities program can teach critical thinking skills, especially given how the word “irony” is tossed around with little care to the actual meaning of the word (of which Futurama did a brilliant study on in its final episode prior to cancellation back in 2003).

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

But the image, too, is a powerful.  Which path should we choose in terms of our treatment of public education?  Both paths are difficult and worn about the same (which is what the second stanza says, “Had worn them really about the same”).  We have done public funding, we have done private funding, but which is the better path that can show the way for the future?  I personally think that if there is such a funding shortage and budget shortfall that maybe we should, as a country, reexamine some of the spending and look at what is truly for the public good.  Ask, “what is the function of government?” just as Fish asks us to consider “what is a university?”  You can probably guess my feelings: cut military and defense spending and dump those trillions into public education, problem solved (so many research and defense contracts go to public universities such as my own, at least this way the money might great spread around). 

But another way could be a return to true liberal arts education such that courses in the humanities might receive higher enrollment and help fund the departments.  Have required courses in all of the major subjects, have more language classes required (I had to do two years in my undergrad).  Maybe we shouldn’t even offer classes in a specific major until the third year of college, the first two years must spent doing core and basic classes and that one cannot even select a major until year three. 

I’m not sure the best course of action, but whatever it is, I’m sure that it beats the hell out of standing at the crossroads yelling at each other and achieving nothing at all.

I must first admit that while I’m familiar with Trent Reznor and his work as Nine Inch Nails by name, I have never actually heard any of his work prior to this score.  As a teenager growing up during the period when NIN was among the most popular acts, I did not listen to them.  After hearing this score, though, I am curious enough to possibly check out some of his more recent work.  The film, after a prologue, and score album opens up with what is my personal favorite track, “Hand Covers Bruise.”  The track begins with what sounds like ambient noise or distorted guitar, giving the listener a very unsettled feeling.  It gives no hint of tonality and leaves one prepared for a much different melody than what eventually enters.  When that melody enters, the noise is revealed to be a sound texture that provides a backdrop for what is a very melancholy piano melody.  It is spare and lonely, much like the erstwhile protagonist of the film, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The melody itself might give one a feeling of innocence if it were not for the ambient noise underneath, which is really how the whole film is shot and structured.  The color palette of Fincher and Cronenweth is very subdued, dark even (especially in the Harvard scenes), which really makes the blues of the Facebook logo, when seen as in the shots of the Facebook office, pop off the screen.  As Fincher has stated in interviews, he wanted to do an “odd John Hughes-style movie,” and this is a perfect example of it.  The film and its score is dark and ambient, but tracks like “In Motion” (second on the album and used during an early montage juxtaposing Zuckerberg hacking and building a “Hot or Not” type site with party scenes taking place at the Harvard Finals Clubs that he so badly wants to join) manage to combine modern-day ambient/electronic sounds with those that sound more at home in an ’80s film like Hughes made or even War Games.  In many cues from the album, it almost sounds like like Reznor was purposefully trying to evoke sounds that would be at home on an 8-bit NES soundtrack, which would fit well with the generation under examination in the film (which is also my generation, though I am 4 years older than Zuckerberg).

It’s hard for me to compare this score to previous work because, as I said, I don’t know Reznor’s catalog at all.  But within the score I heard brief moments that reminded me not only of other scores, most notably The Dark Knight, but also pop/rock tracks like Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” (off of their Meddle album) and also the electronic work done by Radiohead.  Reznor and NIN are roughly contemporary with Radiohead so I’m guessing there is more back and forth going on there rather than clear influence.

But that isn’t to take anything away from this score.  It has quickly entered into my short list for Oscar nominations, though I worry about the whole “two composer” rule with the Academy, not to mention that supposedly two tracks are reworked from Reznor/Ross’s previous work Ghosts I-IV along with the arrangement of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”  All of these things might give the Academy a perfect excuse to disallow yet another great score by a non-traditional film composer.

And speaking of the Grieg, that is probably the most curious choice made by the composer and filmmaker.  According to an interview with Pitchfork, Fincher wanted to have a piece of music that would fit the Edwardian setting of the Henly Royal Regatta Club.  But neither the piece nor the composer has anything to do with the Edwardian period of Britain (roughly 1900-1910, though some include up through the end of WWI), but it was a choice by both parties, and despite this anachronism, I do enjoy the arrangement.  A better choice, though, might have been something by Holst or Elgar.  Could you imagine “Mars” or the middle section from “Jupiter” in an electronic version for the scene?  This small misstep aside, though, both score and movie fly along as the actors deliver what is one of Aaron Sorkin’s best scripts since the days of Sports Night and The West Wing.

If you haven’t already seen the movie or picked up the score album (only $7.99 on iTunes), I highly recommend both.  Along with both the film and score for Inception, this is one of the best film/music experiences of the year and really demonstrates what can happen when both filmmaker and composer are on the same page.

If you are curious, my Oscars short list so far includes: Alice in Woderland (Danny Elfman), Robin Hood (Marc Streitenfeld), The Karate Kid (James Horner), Inception (Hans Zimmer), and The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).

The term “film musicology” or “film musicologist” has been tossed around for about ten years to describe what it is I and others like me do, and while “film” might seem to limit the scope to just that, it is a useful catch-all term (I prefer the term “media scoring” to describe the object of my study, personally, but to each their own).  I have just recently encountered an article by William H. Rosar in the Journal of Film Music (which has an annoyingly irregular publishing history) entitled “Film Studies in Musicology: Disciplinarity vs. Interdisciplinarity” which traces some of the history and trends of the field.  I have yet to finish the article, but in what I have read he really strives to get to a core problem of the field and how it relats to this term, “film musicology:” many of the people working within the field are not trained “musicologists.”

Now, I feel that this should in no way hinder people working in the field, Herr Vogler is a trained composer and theorist but is a very intelligent and insightful scholar who has helped me greatly as I’ve delved into the field.  What Rosar is talking about is how the field developed and the “interdisciplinary” nature that the field has.  At any given Music and the Moving Image conference you’ll have scholars from musicology, music theory, film studies, literary studies, and any other field that might have a tangential connection to film or music.  What this has done, though, has made it hard to find a consistent way in which scholars approach the subject.  Since the field developed in an era already familiar with post-modern critical theory and interdisciplinary approaches, it was a sort of academic Wild West.  To that end, I would recommend looking at the Rosar’s article (found in JFM Vol. 2, No. 2-4, 2009, p. 99-125) for a sort of overview of how the current field developed in the 1980s up to the present, and hopefully some ideas for new directions (I’ll let you know how it all turns out once I finish reading the article).

But for the new scholar trying to get a feel for the field, or good reference materials to have handy, I would recommend some of the following titles.

“The Core” – Books that I would recommend for everybody:

Mervyn Cooke – A History of Film Music and James Wierzbicki – Film Music: A History: These two books were released around the same time and I really do view them as complementary titles that one should at least flip through and know the basics of.  The Cooke is a “great composers, great scores” chronological approach that is a very traditional way of doing history while Weirzbicki takes a cultural/technological viewpoint to telling the history.  Both volumes are easily available in paperback from Amazon and are a great starting point for the bookshelf.

Rick Altman – Silent Film Sound: Silent film music was always a problem in earlier studies (see Predergast – Film Music: A Neglected Art and other earlier works), but what Altman achieved in his study is a more complete understanding of how music interacted with early films and developed into the form that would give way to sound films.  It is an exhaustive study that I still haven’t read every word of, but while Cooke and Wierzbicki treat the subject at some length, Altman focuses exclusively on it.  To really understand the complete history of film music and sound, Altman has to be included in the discussion.

Michel Chion – Audio Vision: Translated from the French by Claudia Gorbman, Chion lays out a model for talking about sound in relation to film and really helps to add to the overall terminology  and approach to audio-visual studies.  As a bonus, it is relatively short, though it can be a be a bit obtuse at time.  That could be a by-product of translation, though.

A Book on Semiotics and Music – I can’t really recommend one book here because there are many different approaches to musical semiotics.  You might want to begin by obtaining a basic book that covers many different approaches to semiotics in general and from there find the method that makes the most sense to you.  I personally go by Nattiez’s Music and Discourse but I know that it does not work for everyone.  But is a basic understanding of semiotics strictly necessary?  Maybe not, but it does help to have a basic model under which to analyze the relationship between music and image.

Other Books that provide models and ideas:

Royal S. Brown – Overtones and Undertones: Brown covers a lot of film theoretical ground here, but his prose can be a bit dense.  What is really great about this book are the interviews with composers at the end.

Claudia Gorbman – Unheard Melodies: Most scholars point to Gorbman as the starting point of the field in the 1980s, and reading Rosar it is easy to understand why.  The book is out of print and expensive to get a hold of, but it is worth tracking down through your local library via Interlibrary Loan.  She lays out a good theoretical model for talking about narrative film music that still largely holds today, though some have challenged it.

Scholars whose work you should search out:

Not everybody has published a book or even a book that is easy to get a hold of, but if you have access to a good library with ILL services and subscriptions to databases such as JSTOR or RILM, then you can find a wealth of articles to read.  Names to look for, besides those already mentioned, include: Kevin J. Donnelly (or K.J.), Robynn Stilwell, Caryl Flinn, David Neumeyer, James Buhler, Kathryn Kalinak, Gillian B. Anderson…and that’s just what some call the “first generation” of film music scholars.  Another good resource is the on-line journal Music and the Moving Image which is edited by the same people who run the yearly conference of the same name at New York University (Anderson and Ron Sadoff) along with the above mentioned Journal of Film Music.

There are some other books that are about specific composers and scores (such as those listed on Herr Vogler’s list), and I would at least checkout the Scarecrow Film Score Guides series.  I’ve only looked through the ones for Batman and Forbidden Planet, but they both seemed like good ways to approach film music from a musicological perspective.  One that is as concerned with the music itself as it is the history of the composer, film, and the  circumstances surrounding the project.

As with any academic discipline, there is a balance to be struck between global knowledge about a field and more specific knowledge related to your defined niche.  That is why I have the “core” books which provide a global view (and do it very well), and have left out more specific books related to composers, periods, etc.  And since “film musicology” is still a new field that is interdisciplinary by its very nature one will also need books on film theory, music theory, and many other possible fields depending on the film subject.

I hope this has been of help to you, my readers.  Your humble blogger has yet to publish anything outside of this web space, but stay tuned as my dissertation begins to take shape – over the coming years…

So I make this list in pure nostalgic bliss for the bygone era of the power ballads.  I truly miss you.

#5: Highlander – “Who Wants to Live Forever”:  All you need to know is that this was recorded by Queen, and while it feels like it never really gets started, it does feature a sweet power ballad guitar solo.

#4: St. Elmo’s Fire - “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)”:  Oh my, this song is just 80s cheese through and thought.  It’s so cheesy that it should come with a doctor’s warning.  The 80s-tastic synths, the earnest vocals, pleading with the listener.  It’s not quite a power ballad – though it is a ballad - but it’s just too good to pass up…

#3: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)”: I used to love this song as a kid – who am I kidding I still love it.  I was but a wee lad when this film came out, and I listened to this song over and over.  It has everything a great power ballad needs: a great bridge, epic guitar parts, and the slow build to the moment when the singer screams out his pain and love…oh, and it features a piano being played in a forest.  Epic.

#2: The Running Man - “Running Away With You (Restless Heart)”: From the man who brought you “St. Elmo’s Fire” comes this earnest track about running away with the woman you love, which plays after Ah-nold tears through an evil game show, killing all that get in his way.  Kinda clashes, but the song is ”great”…

#1: Armageddon - “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”: The previous songs all reach for epic-ness, and many get darn close, but none reach the epic level of Aerosmith’s contribution to Michael Bay’s film.  We have orchestra, we have the epic guitars, bridge, plus it’s written by Diane “Over the Top Song” Warren.  She also penned the theme song to Enterprise and many other epic songs.  Besides, with this song, the entire world was in danger, so how could that not win?

Honorable Mention:

These songs were left out mainly because they weren’t really ballads, but they do have power and rock!  Cue the montages!

Rocky III – “Eye of the Tiger”: If there is one song from the annals of film that screams “training montage” it is “Eye of the Tiger.”  If you can’t get psyched listening to this song, you need to have yourself checked for a pulse.

Footloose – “Holding Out for a Hero”:  Ah, Jim Steinman, you knew I had to include at least one of the songs he wrote on this list.  Enjoy.

I promise, next week I’ll get back to serious discussions of an academic nature…maybe.

Take us away Kenny Loggins!

While I was studying, I had the chance to view Hot Tub Time Machine – hey, I needed some “stupid” in my life considering I was trying to learn and remember over 2,000 years of music history – and there is a scene towards the end in which one of the lead characters performs the Black Eyed Peas song, “Let’s Get it Started.”  But you see, these guys are back in 1986 and obviously the song doesn’t come out for another 20 years or so.  Well that reminded me of another classic movie music performance, Michael J. Fox’s “Johnny B. Goode” from Back to the Future.  So that got me thinking, what other good music performances from films can I find?  Well, in a rather short, but I feel awesome edition of FSFT5, that is my task.  But it is late and I’m tired, so I’m making it short.

In at #5 is the aforementioned sequence from Hot Tub Time Machine.  The movie pulls so many tropes from Back to the Future (and even stars Crispin Glover) that a music sequence like this was inevitable, and, like the movie itself, they managed to actually pull it off.  “This song’s from the future, but since you’ve been good…you get it early.”

#4: There are some movies I pull out just to watch certain scenes, and 2005′s Hustle and Flow is one that I watch just for the song scenes.  There are three great sequences in which the lead character’s songs are made, but I still like the first the best, “Whoop That Trick.”  That it shows the act of song creation adds some power to the whole thing, and I love how it slowly comes together is great.  Unfortunatly I couldn’t find a clip of it on the youTube so you’ll just have to find the movie yourself.  It’s a good film, so watching it will not be a waste.

#3: And speaking of songs coming together, the scene in Ray (2004) in which the titular character records his first hit song, “Mess Around,” is also great, if only to hear the producer try to sing.  Warning: the audio sucks on this.

#2: The Back to the Future scene slides in at the two spot.  My favorite line is still, “You know that new sound you’ve been looking for?  Listen to this!”  Unfortunatly I could not find the exact clip from the film, so this will have to do:

#1: And coming in on top is one of the best scenes from Casablanca in which the Nazis get the smack down music style!  Two things before the clip: 1) if you haven’t seen this movie…go now and see it, and 2) if you don’t understand the relevance and significance of the two song, well…you really need to learn your history.

Well that’s all for now.  I hope to see you all in the near future.

Before I get to the list, let me preface these proceedings with this thought.  On the whole, each and every one of these scores is good, obviously some are better than others, but on the whole, the Star Trek scores are remarkable in that they all have some good qualities that help them rise above most film music.  Not even the Trek films can make this claim (I’m looking at you Final Frontier…oy what a crap fest).  So it was actually kind of difficult once I left the top five to rank the remaining six scores, there is wiggle room and the scores could easily be ranked higher or lower depending on which way the wind blows. 

And one final caveat, since there have been so many releases of the scores, not to mention bootlegs floating around, here is a list of the scores I used in my listening evaluations:

So, with all of that said, let’s go the tape:

#11: Star Trek Generations – Dennis McCarthy:  McCarthy was one of the most frequently used composers on the many Star Trek TV series from Next Generation all the way up through Enterprise.  And since he had worked so much on the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise-D it seemed natural that he would score their first big screen adventure.  The result was a mixed bag to say the least.  There are a few good moments in the score, and some good themes, but on the whole…well it seems like McCarthy wasn’t really sure what to do now that he had such a big canvas to work with.  The opening track on the album, “Star Trek Generations Overture,” is a great fanfare and deserves to be on any Trek film score retrospective album, but after that…*shrug.*  The Overture contains the two good themes, the fanfare and the contrasting theme featured  in the next best track, “The Nexus/A Christmas Hug,” but two good themes and a few good tracks aren’t enough to lift this score from the No. 11 position on our countdown.  The biggest problem it seems is that McCarthy wasn’t sure how to develope the themes once he wrote them.

#10: Star Trek First Contact - Jerry Goldsmith: Though really it’s Jerry and his son Joel Goldsmith, which does make it feel slightly uneven at times.  And while I do enjoy much of Joel’s TV work, he’s not his father.  The score has many good moments, but it also relies heavily on a four note motive that Goldsmith recycled from his Final Frontier score, of which I don’t begrudge him, it is his theme after all, and given the shortened post-production schedule that necessitated his bringing his son into the mix, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is partially why the motive got reused.  But despite this, there are things to like in the score, the cue “The Dish” is vintage Goldsmith, deftly mixing electronic instruments and sounds with orchestral instruments, and his music for the titular first contact of humans with aliens is a beautiful moment, albeit it is a moment that features the recycled theme from Final Frontier.  Some days, I guess you can have your cake and eat it too.

#9: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Leonard Rosenman: There are many moments to like in this score.  Rosenman’s main title theme is a great addition to the Trek pantheon, and the “Whale Fugue” is a nice musical moment, but this score has always been dragged down for me by the inclusion of the 80s-tastic tracks contributed by the Yellowjackets.  They kind of work in the film, but I didn’t think they were really necessary, and I always skip them when I’m listening to the album.  They just clash with everything else, and I guess the producers deemed it necessary to help establish the time period, but considering that it was contemporary to when the film was released, did we really have to?  Maybe a proper score release might change my feelings, but for now, it’s No. 9.

#8: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock – James Horner: Most of the thematic material for this film is recycled from Horner vastly superior score for Wrath of Khan, which is okay since the film is largely an extension of that film, but the one new theme he does bring in, his Klingon theme, is not very good and is but a shadow of Goldsmith’s Klingon theme from The Motion Picture. But there is one thing that does help this score, and that is the cue “Stealing the Enterprise.”  It’s a great cue for what might be the best scene in the entire movie.  I won’t say that it alone validates a purchase of the new release, but it is a good excuse none the less.  I actually had a good moment during my drive home with this score  As I’m listening to “Stealing the Enterprise,” the rest of my family, whom I had passed some miles back coming out of a rest area while we were on our way to visit family elsewhere, finally caught up to me.  I happened to glance in the rear view mirror to see the mini-van coming up behind me right as the cue was building up.  It was a wonderful geek moment.

#7: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – Jerry Goldsmith: Terrible movie, good score.  A familiar formula, though still not Jerry’s best on the Trek franchise, but still a worthy entry.  As mentioned, one of the primary themes of the film makes many appearances in First Contact, and to a lesser extent Insurrection and Nemesis, but this is where it began.  There is so much wrong with this film, that I had forgotten most of it until I went back and watched it for the first time in years a few weeks ago.  But Jerry wrote some great themes for this score that still hold up, and the cue “A Busy Man” utilizes them to great effect.  One of the best parts about this score is that Jerry brought back his Klingon theme and his version of the main title (which had since become the Next Generation main title), and we missed them both greatly.  As Jeff Bond argues in his book on Trek music, hiring Goldsmith was one of two good ideas that Shatner made when making Final Frontier.

#6: Star Trek Nemesis - Jerry Goldsmith: I sometimes go back and forth and to what is my favorite score of the NextGen movies.  Some days it’s Nemesis, others its Insurrection, but for today, Nemesis is in the sixth position.  There isn’t a whole lot to say about this score.  Once again, Jerry comes up with great new material, his Reman theme is especially a delight and takes full advantage electronic sounds.  One could say that Goldsmith was cribbing from Howard Shore’s Isengard theme in his over the top trombones in this score, especially during some of battle scenes with the Reman battle cruiser Scimitar.  It is notable that Nemesis was one of Goldsmith’s last scores.  Only his rejected Timeline score and Looney Tunes: Back in Action came after it.

#5: Star Trek Insurrection – Jerry Goldsmith: So why is Insurrection currently my favorite over Nemesis?  Because I find Jerry Ba’ku theme so charming and lovely.  Okay, that’s not the only reason, but it is the primary reason.  The version of it found in the Main Title cue as the camera is panning over the idyllic Ba’ku village and then following the people through it is a great sequence and Goldsmith scored it so perfectly.  It is essentially one theme repeated several times, but his shifting orchestration keeps it fresh and interesting.  It is a good score and is tonally consistent with the other NextGen films, which thanks to the changing composers of the Original Series films, could never find a steady sound, with the exception of the two that Horner scored.  If there is one flaw with so much of the Trek music, it is that so many different composers worked on them.  Thanks to that, you had many different themes floating around and a new main title for almost every film.  Well, that was until Jerry took the reins again.

#4: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Cliff Eidelman:  Following the script that worked so well for Wrath of Khan, the director and producers of VI went out and found a young, unknown composer for Undiscovered Country and it worked out quite well.  Eidelman, was told to model parts of the score on Gustav Holst’s The Planets, which is very evident in the open title sequence, but Eidelman really does make the material his own.  What is also so remarkable is just how dark this score is.  With the exception of moments in the main titles and the sequence in which the Enterprise leaves spacedock, the score is pretty uniformly dark until the very end.  Eidleman also borrows from some of Horner’s sound in his music for the two vulcans in the film, Spock and Valeris, played by future Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall (and yes, hopefully that is the first and last time that show will ever be mentioned in this blog space).  If there is a score I would love to be the next official expanded release, it is this one.

#3: Star Trek - Michael Giacchino: I keep talking about this score, so I won’t belabor the point.  I know some people don’t like how campy and kitschy it is at times, tounge-in-cheek reference to older scores, but I find it works and fits the tone of the film well.  In that respect, I guess part of how you feel about the score also comes down to how you feel about the film itself.  And while I do have some minor quibbles with the film, I was largely pleased with the effort and am looking forward to the next one. I’m hopeful that Giacchino will stay aboard the franchise as long as Abrams and Co. is on board so that he developes the musical themes begun in this film.  If you haven’t picked up the Deluxe Edition, you better hurry up because it’s a limited run and has already sold at the Varese Sarabande website (You might still be able to pick one up from Screen Archives Entertainment, though).

#2: Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Jerry Goldsmith: So far, the only Trek score to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, and numero dos on our countdown.  I know, last summer I put it number one, but after much reflection and wrestling with my feelings, I finally decided that as good as it was, it couldn’t beat number one (of which the identity of is pretty obvious at this point).  The score has much the same flaw as the film itself, a lack of action.  And while I don’t find it to be the fatal flaw that other perceive, it does keep it from rising any further on my new list.  I still love almost every moment of the score, from the opening titles, Ilia’s theme, the Cloud sequence, and, of course, the five-minute love affair with the Enterprise itself.  It’s a great score and very much deserved its shout out from the Academy, but it’s no…

#1: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – James Horner:  KHAN!!!!!!  KHAN!!!!!!  A single fifty-nine second cue on the expanded release is what put me over the top with deciding to place Horner’s effort number one.  “Buried Alive” is just as iconic in my book as Kirk’s shout to the heavens and one cannot exist without the other.  Of course, I also love Horner’s sweeping main title theme.  I find it amusing that so many people call it “nautical” when that is exactly what Goldsmith was told to avoid in The Motion Picture.  Well, different director, different tastes, right?  There is really so much to love in this score that it is one of my go to albums on my iPod, and that is high praise indeed.

Well, that’s it.  A long list, but a necessary one.  I will be entering semester hibernation soon, so this well likely be my final Film Score Friday Top 5 for a while, but I still have some reviews to put up, especially of Varese Sarabande’s epic new Spartacus set, which might just be the single most over-the-top score release of all time.  Along with that, there are new editions of Danny Elfman’s Batman, Independence Day by David Arnold, and Outland by Jerry Goldsmith to talk about.  So there is still content to be had, but you might have to wait awhile for it.

 Basically, if it was released in theatres, I’m considering it here. 

Unfortunately, the hoped for information about the third Nolan film was not released at Comic-Con this past weekend, but it has been confirmed that the third film will start shooting in April of next year with a release date of July of 2012.  So, even though it’s not much, we do know that it is a go.

Despite this lack of new information, it is still well that I tackle this list this week for I have been reunited with my comic book collection.  There isn’t enough room at my current residence for the collection (especially my beloved Fantastic Four collection) so it has lived with my parents and was moved with them a month ago to a place even further away from me.  But they are none the worse for wear and after spending a few hours checking the boxes and putting things in order, my collection has established its new home.

But enough reflection on my geekdom.  Onto the five best Batman scores.  This time in countdown form.  Now, I know I’m going to make some people upset with this list, so I’ll just say sorry up front.

#5: Batman Begins (Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard) – The first score for the Nolan films, it introduced a new sound to the Caped Crusader’s universe and gave us a modern score for the films.  Zimmer/Howard gave us a score that eschews the heroic themes of Danny Elfman or Eliot Goldenthal’s scores and one based more on short motives and focused much more on sound.  It is almost minimalistic at times and the Batman music sounds like the old 1960s tv series theme passed through electronic filters and reflected through the lens of late 20th Century aesthetics.  It was a new sound for a new kind of Batman film.

#4: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Shirley Walker) – I’ve gushed about Shirley Walker’s Animated Series scores before on this site, and Mask of the Phantasm extended all that was good about them into the theatrical realm.  With the increased budget of a larger film, Walker added a chorus to the mix and even a 90s-tastic pop song, “I Never Even Told You,” performed by Tia Carrere.  Yes, that Tia Carrere, aka the Hot Girl from Wayne’s World.  Whatever happened to her?

#3: Batman Forever (Eliot Goldenthal) – The Joel Schumacher era of the Batman franchise is dark time for Bat-fans, but one bright light of the films were Goldenthal’s scores.  They took the dark, gothic sound of the Burton/Elfman films and made it to fit the over-saturated, pop world of Schumacher’s Gotham.  And I also love some of Goldenthal’s track titles, especially “Nygma Variations,” “Batterdammerung,” and “Fledermausmarschmusik.”  The Batman & Robin is a bit of a mixed bag, though, as much of the music seems to be recycled from Forever without much change, and I’m hard pressed to find new themes for Mr. Freeze or Poison Ivy.  But for as bland as Batman & Robin is in terms of new music, Forever is a score that fresh and innovative, but also respectful for the Elfman scores that came before it.

#2: Batman Returns (Danny Elfman) – This is where people might get angry with me.  I selected this over Elfman’s original score, and then decided to put Begins on the list instead of Batman.  Well, here is my reasoning.  First, I simply like Returns more than the original.  I like the children’s chorus and Christmas feeling to the score.  Second, I love the Penguin’s theme.  One of the things about the original Batman score is that there is no Joker theme.  Go back and listen, there is tons of Batman music, snippets of “Beautiful Dreamer,” but no Joker theme.  The waltz music can be said to be associated with him, not to mention many of the Prince songs, but still, no Joker theme.  This is what you get with Returns, some great villain themes…especially the Penguin.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Batman score, and Danny should have gotten an Oscar nomination for his efforts, but alas, I was only 9 at the time and had no power over the Acamdey…and I still don’t.  If anything, my #2 here should be combined Batman and Batman Returns, but I decided not to take the coward’s way out.  Lastly, if you haven’t already, go order this right now.

#1: The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard) – Two words: Joker Theme.  Okay, two more words: electric cello.  Seriously, in one, distorted note Zimmer establishes an entire character.  One beautiful, distorted, note.  That alone is an achievement, but to then weave that note in an out of the score so effortlessly, never let it feel old or repetitive, and never losing the menace established at the beginning of the film is nothing short of brilliant.  From that note, he builds a theme that is in many ways the evil foil of the Batman music established in the first film, full of strange accents and a dark, falling chord motif.  It is a score fit for what might go down as the best superhero film ever made.

Well, there you have it, love it or hate it.  I know this post is a bit lighter on content then some of my recent ones, but please forgive me, I’m on vacation.  Hopefully next week I’ll give you a revised list of the Star Trek film scores, but as I’ll just be getting back home on Thursday, I might be a bit late in posting.  Hope you have a good week ahead, and while these might not be the scores you deserve, they are the scores you need.

But never one to rest on my internet laurels, I have been hard at work this week in preparation for today’s edition of Film Score Friday Top 5.  And this week we are tackling film score albums by Temp Track favorite Michael Giacchino.  Mr. Giacchino has had quite a run of success lately, as chronicled elsewhere in this internet space.  He released four film scores last year along with continuing work on Lost and Fringe.  Oh, and he won a duffle-bag full of awards for his score to Up.  So, it seems that now would be a good time to look back at his still young career and give you a list of five Giacchino scores you should not be without, along with some thoughts on the rest.

In all, Giacchino has scored 17 films (that is including the end credit music for Cloverfield, the only score in the film), and ten of those can easily be had from your local iTunes store – with the exception of the deluxe edition of Star Trek.  (A list of his credits can be seen here.)  Of the remaining seven, the CD for Sky High doesn’t really have much of his music, and The Muppet Wizard of Oz has other music on the release, not to mention the disc is out of print, and the rest I can find no trace of.  Thusly, the scores under consideration here are as follows: The Incredibles, The Family Stone, Mission: Impossible III, Ratatouille, Cloverfield, Speed Racer, Star Trek (both the original and deluxe release), Up, Land of the Lost, and Earth Days.

So, here in no real order, and the five Giacchino scores you should have in your collection.

The Pixar Films: This kinda goes without saying, but I’ve gona and said it anyway.  The Incredibles was Giacchino’s first major studio work and really brought him to the attention of the rest of Hollywood.  That was back in 2004, and was released just as a little show called Lost was in its early days.  Of course, J.J. Abrams knew him from Alias, but Incredibles, with its wonderful ’60s jazz/James Bond score made many people sit up and take notice.  Prior to this, he had only four other films scores, none really notable, a number of video games credits, and his work with Abrams to his name.  Also, think that with the long development process of animated films, Giacchino was most likely brought on board as even more of a real unknown.  Ratatouille (2007) brought Giacchino his first Oscar nomination and features the composers signature wit and style.  That style and his ability to adapt to fit any genre and do so in a charming manner has helped make his a stable of the Pixar word.  This was further demonstrated with Up (2009), for which composed a score that is nostalgic and wistful, a signature of his work.  Even Incredibles can be seen in this manner, a throw back ’60s style score.  But what he captures in the scores is what can be described as the Pixar magic.  That thing that makes these films not only enjoyable for kids, but for adults also.  More importantly, though, each one of these score albums are well done and gives one a great sense of the film and scope of Giacchino’s music.  As a bonus, the purchase of Up from iTunes includes a short video interview with the composer about scoring the film.

Speed Racer (2008) – This film, directed by the Wachowski Brothers (they of The Matrix fame), was a much overlooked, CGI-in-overdrive live action film that was in and out of theatres faster than you could say, “Go, Speed Racer, go!”  I’ve mentioned the film before, and I’ll state once again that I believe it is vastly underrated because people were viewing it in the wrong way.  Go in with an open mind and some Dramamine and you might actually find yourself enjoying it.  As for Giacchino’s score, it pays its respects to the themes and sounds of the original anime series, but also features much of the Giacchino flare.  It revels in the impossibility of it all, from the fighting and flying cars to the evil corporations ruining sports…okay maybe not all of it is so impossible.  Best of all, every cue feels fresh and different from much of his other work.  Where sometimes, after listening to many of his scores, you’ll hear elements of some of his other work (mostly Lost), Speed Racer stays true to its world and is a great ride from beginning to end.  Since I first picked up this score over a year ago, it has rarely left my iPod’s rotation, and I can think of no better compliment given my Nano’s 8GB capacity.  And speaking of paying homage…

Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition (2009): I recently reviewed this, so I’ll just summarize my thoughts here.  First, do yourself a favor and if you haven’t bought either the Deluxe version just released or the original,  just splurge for the deluxe.  As an album, it holds together much better and gives you a much better feel for the breadth of Giacchino’s music for the film.  It also gives a listener familiar with all the Trek scores a sense that Giacchino is calling back to not just the music of the original series, but music from all of the franchise’s history.  It is a great score, and a great set.  In my opinion, some of the composer’s best film work.

The Best of the Rest:  Should you have some extra credits lying around, I would also recommend pick up “Roar!” from Cloverfield.  It is a twelve-minute long shout out to Akira Ifukube’s Godzilla scores that is featured during the film’s end credits (as the film proper has no score), and at 99 cents, you have no excuse.  You might also consider checking out Land of the Lost, if only to hear Giacchino references to Jerry Goldsmith’s classic Planet of the Apes score.  It has some nice moments in it, though a few times towards the end it veers a bit too close to some of his slow Lost cues.

Now, as a special bonus for those who have made it this far, I offer you a list of my top five favorite Giacchino cue titles.  I know some people don’t like his humorous titles, but I for one enjoy them.  And away we go…

5. “World’s Worst Last 4 Minutes to Live” from Mission: Impossible III

4. “Galaxy’s Worst Sushi Bar” from Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition

3. “52 Chachki Pickup” from Up

2. “End Credits Can Suck It!” from Land of the Lost

and coming it at number 1…”Matter? I Barely Know Her!” from Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition

Well, that’s it for this week folks.  I hope you tune in next week for my countdown of the Batman feature film scores (all eight of them…”Eight?” you ask, you’ll have to come back next Friday to find out).  This weekend is the yearly San Diego ComicCon and hopefully there’ll be some news on the next Bat film slated for a July 2012 release – like a title, casting…please? – so no better time than now to look back on the franchise.  So come back next week…same Bat-time, same Bat-station.

When I first saw it, it took me a bit to identify the song used, but after a minute I recognized Radiohead’s “Creep,” but in a, for lack of a better phrase, hauntingly beautiful choral arrangement.  And despite everything that I talked about in yesterday’s post about Inception, that song also stuck in my ear and I finally had to look it up.  It is done by a Belgian girls choir called (confusingly) the Scala & Kolacny Brothers.  But that’s not what I really want to talk about, I want to parse the trailer itself, because when a song is used well in a trailer, such as it is here, it pays to take about how it is used.  For me, it helps to identify why I had a particular reaction to the audiovisual content.

First, the song itself.  “Creep” was Radiohead’s breakout hit in 1993 (though first released the year before) that brought them to the attention of the alternative rock scene.  It features an interesting chord progression for the verses, G major – B major – C major – C minor, that -  for me – is one of the most interesting features of the song.  The arrangement itself is fairly standard, with a falsetto bridge by Thom Yorke being one of the few defining features, along with Jonny Greenwood’s guitar crushes leading into the chorus.  If you don’t know the song, just type it into YouTube and you’ll get numerous videos.

The choral arrangement featured in the trailer strips the rock instrumentation down to a lonely piano to provide a gently rocking, chordal accompaniment to the choir vocals (click here for a full video of their performance).  The overall effect is hard to put into words.  It helps to emphasize the lyrics, gives it a quasi-religious overtone, but also evokes the feel of piano artists like Ben Folds or Elton John or Billy Joel.  Also, acoustically, there is something about the nature of the range between the register of the choir voices and the piano and the differences of the timbre that gives it a space that also reinforces a quality of hearing a performance in a cathedral.  Further…there is an almost collegiate glee club quality to the fact that it is a simple choir and piano arrangement fitting with the film’s Harvard University setting.  In and of itself, it a beautiful arrangement and performance, but when it is melded with the images of the trailer, it takes on new levels of meaning.

But how is the song itself manipulated?  How are the lyrics used and interpreted?  Well, for the trailer, they begin the song with the second verse and proceed into the bridge, but then cut off at the end of the bridge to allow for some final dialogue and then end with the last line of the final chorus.  The lyrics as heard in the trailer (with famous radio edit of “very” instead of “fucking”) are:

I would hope that it is fairly evident from the editor’s careful lyric selection why this song was chosen, but I’ll go ahead and put in my thoughts.

The first two stanzas used are played against a montage of Facebook like screens: pictures, images of mouse cursors, status updates, etc.  Each scene of the montage is related in some way to the lyric itself.  For example “I want a perfect body” as we see an athlete after finishing a raise and a woman in a bathing suit climbing out of a pool, both examples of “a perfect body.”  Then for “I want a perfect soul” as we see a wedding photo and the picture of a just born infant (prominently featured the “soles” of his feet…a bit punny for my tastes).  The large implication of the two pictures is that of a wedding as a merging of two souls and that of a just born human soul.  The bigger picture of this verse being selected is a commentary on the whole idea of a “social network.”  The idea that all of our lives are so special that it warrants status updates and such informing friends and whoever what we are doing minute to minute (in my case, today announcing that I was getting an oil change…spread the news!).

The song is about longing for inclusion in a group, but eventual exclusion, “I don’t belong here,” because they’re a creep, a weirdo.  The somewhat voyeuristic first four lines of the second verse, someone longing for someone else’s life, body and soul, contrasted with their own sense of loneliness in their longing (in the second stanza) for someone, anyone, to notice when they are not there, is exactly the nature of Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites.  We want to be noticed, we feed off it.  Even blogging is a facet of this need for attention and validation of one’s life.

The last two lines of the verse, “You’re so very special / I wish I were special,” play as a digitized photo of actor Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg comes into focus.  Implying, possibly, that he created Facebook out of his own loneliness and fears, something that is somewhat hinted at in the scene that follows in the trailer as the song segues into the chorus.  He explains his wanting to do something so that he would be invited into one of Harvard’s exclusive clubs (this is a Harvard thing, like fraternities and sororities…but more Ivy League).

The balance of the trailer is a standard montage of scenes to give the audience a sense of the film’s plot, but are edited quite well to follow the pace of the song, especially as it moves into the soaring falsetto bridge (“She’s running out the door,” etc.).  The final “I don’t belong here,” is heard as the film’s title and logo, in a Facebook style, is seen.  A wonderful juxtaposition of meaning, a statement about exclusion against an image of modern society’s ultimate expression of inclusion.

A wonderfully made trailer that has made me interested to see the film itself.  Hopefully it won’t let me down like Watchmen did.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!  If you haven’t seen the film, you might want to wait to read on until you do.  Don’t worry, it’ll still be here waiting for you.

In many ways, what is referred to as “inception” in the film – the planting of a new idea into a mind in the hopes that the dreamer will accept it as their own – is like how Nolan constructs many of his films.  He shows you something right from the beginning, usually something key to the plot, if not THE key, but then leaves it.  Lets it worm into the viewer’s mind and allows them to try and figure it out.  He might return to it in flashes, but not always.  He might show it from some different angels, but not always.  But no matter how he does it, it’s there, just waiting to be explained.  The Batman films aren’t as explicit about it, but do it to some degree, but Insomnia, The Prestige, and now Inception all follows this model much more closely – Following and Memento do so also, but not as well, I think Nolan was still honing his craft.  In Insomnia, it was the image of blood seeping into cloth and for Prestige it was a forest full of top hats.  With Inception, it opens with Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Dom Cobb washing up on a beach, meeting with an old man and spinning a top (something that was also part of the film’s early, cryptic website).

I have the sense that in all three of the aforementioned films that musically the composers (David Julyan for the first two, now Hans Zimmer) have tried to achieve something similar.  The Julyan scores are a bit harder to get a handle one, especially Prestige…so I’ll leave those for later and lets focus on Hans’ latest and greatest.

The first cut on the album, “Half Remembered Dream” actually begins while the logos and are on the screen.  It’s the first time since Batman Begins that a Nolan film hasn’t opened in almost utter silence (and even Begins was only a “sound” of wings flapping).  As I mentioned in my first post, this cue introduces us to two of the main thematic ideas of the score.  The first is a four note motive that has a few different harmonic settings and weaves in and out of the score and the second is what I shall call “the trombones from hell” even though I know there are more than just trombones being played.  But…eh.

Let’s pull apart that opening track for a moment because it does something very interesting.  The four-note motive is basically a pair of ascending perfects fifth a half-step apart.  Most often heard as C-G-B-F#, which means that it ends exactly a tri-tone away from the first note.  In music theory terms, that F# is exactly equidistant away from both a higher and lower C and musically doesn’t really have a logical resolution.  If the F# had come from C, we would want it to resolve up to the G, but instead it’s coming from a B, so we could hear it as merely the fifth of B.  There are two conflicting tonalities built into the motive that are never resolved because the four notes simply fold back to the beginning like the never-ending staircase that is one of the visuals present in the film.  But there are variations, at times of great stress, occasionally the motive will change to C-B-B (an octave lower)-F#, heightening the tension and maybe emphasizing the B more, but no, it loops back around to C again.  It is also heard, the first version followed by the second and then back to the first.  So C-G-B-F#-C-B-B-F#-C-etc.

Both of these versions are present in the opening track and are also the versions most heard in the film, but there is another transposed version heard only once (at least that I’m sure of, explained later)…at the very beginning of the first cue over the first logo.  This version is the motive, but transposed down a fifth to begin on F:  F-C-E-B.  This is followed in the cue by the first appearance of the trombones from hell that will soon become the most iconic part of the score.  After that cacophony subsides though, we get the motive again, but now in the soon to be familiar C version and then followed by the second variant with the high B, though the final F# is not played (at least on the album, I’ll have to see the film again to confirm that is how it plays out, again see below for more).

Given that the trombones are most associated with the dream world itself, could this cue during the logos be our movement into the dream world of the film – one that we never come out of?  Unless the motive starting on F is heard again at the end of the closing credits…which is possible.  More research is required.  It’s actually plausible that Hans does play this game because towards the end of the credit the French song that I mentioned as being present in track ten of the album (“Waiting for a Train”) comes back.  This song, “Non, je ne regrette rien” (No, I regret nothing), is an important plot device in the film, and I would like to talk a little about it because it shows just how cagey a director Christopher Nolan is.

This song is best known in a 1960 recording by singer Edith Piaf.  This is notable on a few levels.  First, in the recent biopic about Piaf, La Vie en Rose, the song is used in the final sequence when Piaf is signing it for the first time as her death is also shown via parallel editing.  Now, as many other reviews have mentioned, Dom Cobb’s wife (who is dead when the film begins) is played by Marion Cotillard, who portrayed Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.  Layers upon layers.  Some may think that it is a cute inside reference, but given how the song as used in Inception as a cue that it’s time to get out and also for Dom is a reference to his dead wife – who still haunts his subconscious for reasons slowly explained in the film – I believe it’s more than an inside joke.  It was a cagey move on the part of Nolan about how dreams can work, how the outside world can intrude and infect them, as shown in the film when a character is dunked in water in a higher level and it starts flooding in the lower dream.  It could be that in reality that Dom’s wife looked nothing like Marion Cotillard, but because,  for him, that she is associated with the song, which is linked to Piaf’s death in La Vie en Rose, she has come to look like her in his dreamscape.  Layers upon layers upon layers.

The song itself is used as a cue for those inside the dreams to get ready to leave.  The person’s whose dream it is has headphones placed on them which are connected to an mp3 player with the song.  Then the song itself emerges into that dream, so it is in this capacity that it is heard throughout the film.  And in the end credits, if one stays long enough, it is heard towards the very end, right before a final statement of the four note motive…I think.  I wasn’t listening as intently this morning becuase I was just getting a sense of the film.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve actually put most of these thoughts together while typing this post.  The very act of writing has helped me to sort some of this out…and I have one more thought for you, loyal reader.

On the album, the first and last tracks end much the same way, with the sound being, in effect, choked off.  It’s actually not unlike an effect used in The Prestige, but that is for another time (are you watching closely?).  This sound could indicate a second level movement in the dream space.  If the first sound choke occurs right after the logos (which I can’t remember exactly) it could be our movement into the dream space of the film.  And as the sound occurs again at the very end before the credits, it is also our movement out.  So the film itself could be seen as a dream within a dream.  First is our movement into our dream space (represented by the modulation via trombones from hell of the four note motive) and then via the sound choke into the dream space of the film, which can be seen as Dom’s dream.  In this sense, then, the music of the credits, if the motive does indeed move back into the “home” F version after the last occurence of the Piaf song, moves us back into reality.

I guess all the people who left before the end of the credits are stuck forever in limbo. (See the movie to understand that)

I’ve spent most of this time on the finer technical details of music’s use in the film, ignoring the bigger picture ideas of how the music conveys the sense of the film.  I addressed that, in part, via my earlier posting, but it would help to reiterate that the music really does help to convey the sense of dreams.  From the “dreamy” guitar licks to the trombones from hell, everything is either amped up or slowed down to some sort of extreme, and the most pedestrian cue, “Mombasa,” occurs, ostensibly, in the real world of the film’s characters – though the levels of reality in the film are open to debate.

In conclusion, Zimmer’s score for Inception is a multi-dimensional work that, to an astute listener, is an integral part of the film, as is the Piaf song “Non, je ne regrette rien.”  They both assist in Nolan’s execution of the film which is a fitting conclusion to what can be seen as a trilogy of film meditating on the nature of reality and illusion: Insomnia, The Prestige, and Inception.  And these films also furthered themes present in Nolan’s first films, Following and Memento.  It is well-known that his next project with be the conclusion of his Batman trilogy and it will be interesting to see where the filmmaker and his team go from there.  Here’s hoping that Zimmer is along for the ride.