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More on Jack Sullivan and Film Scores










"Common sense should tell us that the divide between film music and classical is artificial..."

Some probably do underappreciate film music as an artform. But they ~are~ fundamentally different animals. Of course it depends somewhat on how the creators (composers, directors, etc) conceive of the score's function, but typically a score plays an obviously supporting role. It's there to enhance moods and provide certain cues. And as such, it often needs to be simplified/made quickly recognizable so as to touch off the right feelings in the audience at the right moment while not distracting them with particularly complex melodies or structures. We might say integrating music with visual action is an artform in its own right, but it is different from creating music meant to be appreciated on its own terms.

~My~ favorite film composers, of course, are the ones who strain at the bit and do draw more attention to the music. I love finishing a movie and thinking "God, the music was fantastic." But sometimes a movie isn't best served that way. Sometimes it's best not to be able to remember the music. It depends on the movie.

As always, good and provocative observations, Austen. And oh how I know the feelings you've described!

I do think they are different animals, to some extent, but the lines do fudge. For example, while the cues for various scores serve a definite function, the totality of the best of film scores often provides us with a kind of instrumental "opera" that evokes a whole "story" that can be appreciated on its own terms. (It's no coincidence that one of the most important composers to impact upon the whole genre of film scoring is Wagner.) Listen to the full soundtracks to "Ben-Hur" or "King of Kings" by Miklos Rozsa or "Spartacus" by Alex North or Jarre's "Lawrence of Arabia," or, in a different genre, Johnny Mandel's "The Sandpiper" (which, quite honestly, is actually better than the film for which it was written), etc., and you'll get a totality that can indeed be appreciated as an end-in-itself.

What I wonder, however, is how we deal with the supporting role of music in other integrating genres. It can dramatize a story (in opera) or provide the backdrop for dance (ballet, etc.) Many composers of opera and suites for ballet have worked closely with those who have written the stories or who choreograph the dance, changing things here and there to accentuate this or that syllable, this or that movement. So I wonder how we evaluate the role of music in these art forms.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome!

Well, we don't ~have~ to separate out a category for "unintegrated music," nor, in any case, does snobbery against any musical genre make much sense, as each genre comes with its own unique constraints and challenges. Rozsa's "Ben-Hur" isn't "less" of an achievement than Rozsa's violin concerto. And I'd say anyone who thinks so hasn't thought about it enough.

I find an "unintegrated music" category useful & important, though, however vague its boundaries. There's something special about that creative space where music is intended to be the sole object of attention. That space both liberates the composer and raises the expectations of the music per se. And, which is natural, I think the most "strictly musically interesting" work tends to happen there.

Opera and ballet, and musical theater for that matter, and thickly programmatic concert music for that matter, differ from film in that they're inherently musical, and most or all of whatever language there is is sung. Indeed, in ballet the dance expresses the music as much as the music supports the dance; in opera, a libretto needn't be the organizing principle for the score, the reverse works too. There's greater story-music balance in those genres than in film. Which is why Verdi can basically make an aria as musically compelling as he wants to, and Ravel can write an arrestingly lush ballet like "Daphnis and Chloe" -- and such pieces do almost always hold up on their own, musically.

Since films tend to be more like plays, there's a pressure--not always or necessarily, but often--against music that might distract more than support. Not to mention that a music track on a film invariably gets broken up into short and incidental fragments; not much room for complex development, unless the score is fleshed out, rearranged and repackaged on a CD, but then we're no longer talking about much of an "integrated genre", are we? I think these pressures on film composition are fine & good, but they are limiting factors on the music.

That's my wordy offhand sense of it, anyway...

Personally I'm inclined to agree that any perceived distinction between movie scores and "proper" classical music is wholly artificial.

The British radio station Classic FM (the only station in the country devoted to ~purely~ classical music) openly embraces the work of Williams, Morricone and Rozsa as a vital part of the classic music heritage, and Williams' Star Wars scores (purely for example) sound right at home alongside symphonies and operatic excepts* from the likes of Beethoven, Bach and Puccini.

It's true that there is a distinction between actual symphonies on the one hand and music for opera and movies on the other, in that the latter two forms are written to accompany visual events on stage or screen.

But, symphonies can convey just as much emotion and meaning as operatic music or movie scores. To my mind, Morricone's scoring of the climax of The Good The Bad and The Ugly (listened to as music) is just as stirring and powerful as say Beethoven's Third and Ninth Symphonies.

*Classic FM has not as yet aried any full length opera performances. BBC Radio 3 (otherwise known as Music Snobs 'R Us) on the other hand includes live opera broadcasts as part of its classical output but barely seems to touch film music with a barge pole.

Thanks for the additional thoughts on this topic, gents.

FYI, the list of Academy Award-nominated scores and songs is finally available at Oscar.com. Check it out here.