Surprised no one mentioned Ennio Morricone
They were a great band for a while, humour never far away, their dancing was not so good.just choked on a glass of water. What a title.
Morricone, never forgotten.Surprised no one mentioned Ennio Morricone
These are new to me. Will check them out. Thanks!Jacques Rivette's 'Le Pont du Nord' (North Bridge) was made as a kind of sequel to Fassbinder's 'Die Dritte Generation'. It had a fairly traditional soundtrack using mostly diegetic sound effects and music by Astor Piazzola. But Rivitte's previous 70s films had more interesting soundtrack experiments. In the 13 hour Out-1 (my all-time favourite movie) the only music is a tape of some bongo drums used by one of the featured theatre troupes. In 'Duelle' the music was improvised live on set by pianist Jean Wiener, often visible in the backround of each scene. Even in the protagonists bedroom! In 'Norôit' the music is again played live on set by a string quartet, also mostly improvised I believe. And in 'Merry go Round' the music by bassist Barre Phillips and clarinetist John Surman (stalwarts of the free improv scene) appear as live improvised commentaries on the action but not live on set.
I had missed Fellini. Amarcord too!Fellini. His sound signature is distinctive throughout his work, and perhaps never more beautiful than at the end of Nights of Cabiria:
Rivette is the most interesting (IMO) of the original Nouvelle Vague auteurs: Godard, Chabrol & Rohmer. Although they can all be good on occasion. But Rivette's films are another acquired taste. They are often (very) long, slow with obscure indecipherable plots, little action, and sometimes largely improvised.These are new to me. Will check them out. Thanks!
By the way, the songs by Julee Cruise in several of Lynch's films have shared composition credits by Lynch himself as well as Badalamenti.Someone above mentioned David Lynch, without naming Angelo Badalamenti. IMO Lynch’s films are not the same without the atmospheric Badalamenti scores. Also Lynch gave Badalamenti an all-time weird cameo in Mulholland Drive. Someone else mentioned John Carpenter. I will give a plug to his recorded synth music (soundtracks, plus Lost Themes 1 and 2).
Reading the thread made me think of great shots/scenes/sequences using recorded music. I am not talking about the montage where our protagonist prepares for the big event over any random pop song (I’m looking at you Rocky 3) - that is film cliche, but rather a conscious use of sound and image by the filmmaker. I thought of the village attack sequence in Apocalypse Now (who knew Ride of the Valkyries was the soundtrack to American Imperialism?), or 2 sequences from Goodfellas - Henry and Karen walking into the Copa accompanied by the Wall of Sound, and Nilsson’s Jump Into the Fire perfectly illustrating Henry’s cocaine paranoia.
Her Floating in the Night album is a collaboration between the 3 of them, and it's great. The twin peaks soundtrack is really good to.By the way, the songs by Julee Cruise in several of Lynch's films have shared composition credits by Lynch himself as well as Badalamenti.
Renaissance men.
A prolific Composer/Producer who has developed Scores for many films. Hans Zimmer!
That documentary on the sound design of Apocalypse Now is fascinating. Thanks!Not directors, but sound designers:
Walter Murch, Mark Berger, Richard Beggs, Nathan Boxer
Peter Pennell, Bud Alper, Graham V. Hartstone,, Gerry Humphreys
About the sound design of Apocalypse Now.
Since I was a child i loved to record the sound of movies on compact cassette and play it to me while imagining the picture. It later turned out that this habit was a perfect film school preparing my professional life as an editor and filmmaker. Anyway. what was tape back then is now mka files today. The app Neutron (a catastrophy when organizing playlists) can play DTS or AAC sorround tracks and also mix them down to stereo. Listened to Blade Runner the other day and it is still fascinating how seamlessy music, dialogue and sound effects do blend. Those who were around in 1979 might also remember, that the soundtrack of "Apocalypse Now" was a 2-LP Set that more or less worked like a radioplay with music and dialogue. I only remember that "The Black Hole" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" also had soundtrack versions with dialogue and larger than life sound-effects. BTW. taste in Music is not everything. Walter Murch always shows a scene from the Godfather to film students, when Michael Corleone does his first murder. No suspense musicc at all, just the screeching of the subway. But in the moment when he drops his gun, the music works almost as a relief, watch after 6:40:That documentary on the sound design of Apocalypse Now is fascinating. Thanks!
... and from sound designers back to the director: Francis Ford Coppola. What a towering figure.
This is kind of why I place the focus on directors: you need a person with terrific taste making sure all aspects of the movie work together, as opposed to one aspect taking over.
It may be a bit sacrilegious to say this, but I find Blade Runner, and Ridley Scott's work in general, to be an example of lack of balance. Scott generally has high quality components, (and the sound in Blade Runner is terrific no doubt,) but he does not have the taste, or perhaps the skill, to bring them into balance.