Hi! Today’s Saturday Free-For-All is a quick one because I’m prepping something that’s just for subscribers right now.
I was writing last night, and I was listening to the Lust, Caution score while I did so. I’ve probably listened to that score 100 times or more by this point. I’ve seen the film once. I liked it quite a bit, but that this point, my feelings about that music are so strong that I’m not sure what I’d think if I watched the film again. That music means something specific to me, and it has nothing to do with Ang Lee’s movie or the story it tells.
Has that ever happened with you? Do you listen to film scores as music instead of souvenirs of the film, or is the whole point of listening to a film score a sort of mental shortcut to home video, a way of playing back the film’s emotional content for yourself?
For me, it’s about 50/50. There are scores that are so married to the images and the story that I can’t hear them without seeing those images or thinking of that story. Star Wars. The Sting. Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Godfather. Jaws. There are plenty of other scores, though, that work for me primarily as music. That TRON: Legacy score got a lot playtime out of me even though I thought the film was like a sex doll, a disturbing simulacrum of a film.
What are your favorite scores that exist as standalone works for you? And vice-versa… what scores can you not hear without thinking of the film?
As always, this is just a starting point. You don’t have to talk about film scores. That’s the point of the Saturday Free-For-All. Let’s talk about anything and everything going on in film culture, including what you’re watching.
This conversation space is free every Saturday, but if you want to support Formerly Dangerous, a subscription is only $7 a month. It’s less if you go annual.
Movie scores are my life. My favorite is Jon Brion’s Magnolia; rich, deep, always rhythmic and searching. Also 25th Hour by Terrence Blanchard. I fell madly for Mica Levi’s scores for Under the Skin and Jackie. I thought Heather McIntosh’s score for Compliance was criminally overlooked. Recently Jonny Greenwood’s Phantom Thread left me swooning. Finally Danny Elfman’s Edward Scissorhands and Batman should be put in a time capsule. 🎶♥️
Hans Zimmer's Time track from the Inception OST one that I listen too all on it's own. The slow ebb build up to the crescendo...the strings in the background are the heartbeat swell...... the slow piano towards the end....uh....gorgeous. It narrates parts of my own life perfectly.
Growing up a Band Geek, you can't help but love film scores. I always saw the best composers as analogous to the great composers of the past who wrote operas. Williams as Mozart. Goldsmith as Beethoven. Bernstein as Puccini. Horner as Wagner. That's what movies kinda are for our time, aren't they? They're opera of a different sort, more for the common folk, sure, but the stories are the same.
My favorites were mostly from John Williams, because they could be listened to forwards and back, and his themes existed on their own. One of my favorite purchases ever from my teen years was when they released the full scores to the Star Wars Original Trilogy, not just the more famous queues. I listened to them over and over, and by far, Empire is the best of the bunch.
When I'm working, I'm either listening to various classical composers or I'm listening to film scores. I create playlists in iTunes that come together like de facto "symphonies." So I'll take the music from all of the Star Trek films and shows or the Marvel movies or Harry Potter, and then arrange those queues into something representing a symphony. It helps pass the time as I'm responding to or sending emails, or doing research, or reading various sales materials or technical manuals. I did this when I was in school, too. To help me study. I've found it helps me concentrate; the music really centers me, and it exists completely outside the films.
And that's true about any score I like. For me they always stand apart from the film in that way. I guess that's what comes from always thinking musically before visually.
I'm ashamed to say this, but because of my love of Morricone, I listened to the score of THE MISSION non-stop before ever seeing the film. I used to put it on to write to. Then I finally watched the film one day after many fits and starts of trying to get through it -- because I knew the score so intimately before the film, the film was difficult for me to ever really appreciate it. I think I had bonded so deeply with the score I couldn't support it when it meshed together with the film. I liken it to people who read the book first before seeing the film or vice versa, but on a different level because with just music and an album cover picture, your imagination does so much work.
I also have this bond with the Horner's GLORY score, but that was after seeing the film. That music just cuts through my soul.
I don't really write while listening to music anymore though unless I'm working on musical theater stuff. It's a distraction now when I'm writing. If I'm writing a scene and I hear a song in my head, I'll play it a few times to see where that takes my brain for the scene, but short of that I keep things quiet now.
The Cliffhanger score by Trevor Jones is one of my all time favorites. The film doesn’t live up to it, but I will listen to that main theme all the time.
In the best case, the soundtrack will cause a mental echo of the movie, but that is never a requirement for me to enjoy it as a separate entity. The formerly merely means that it was a combination of great movie & great music as opposed to forgettable movie & great music.
The most recent glaring example of one that stands alone for me is Daniel Pemberton's Man from UNCLE. The moment the movie ended I knew that album would be a mainstay for me while the movie itself was gone five minutes later.
Probably the most potent marrying of the two for me is Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings. The movies are suffused with his score to the point of being inseparable. The amount of work it took to perform at that level for that amount of total screen time is astonishing.
Someone asked me to make a list of my top soundtrack recommendations recently and my brain melted down because there are so many that I enjoy. I had to impose artificial restrictions on myself - only one from each composer among others - just to get it to a manageable number. I wound up with 16 when I finally tapped out and absolutely could not cut any more of them.
Definitely depends for me. I see most of James Newton Howard’s work with Shayamalan as masterpieces that can exist on their own despite their associated films. Then there are individual tracks like on Morricone’s score for Mission to Mars that are among my favorite. “Here” is a fantastic track despite the ridiculous movie it’s associated with.
It really depends on the score. Something like “Star Wars,” “The Crow,” “Cloud Atlas,” “The Good the Bad and the Ugly” or “Braveheart” I will listen to in order to bring back relive that emotional connection with the film. If the score is less “thematically-driven,” like “Broken Arrow,” “1917,” “The Thin Red Line” or “Pacific Rim” (which is a fantastic workout score), that’s a case of my experience with the score being less tied to the movie it was written for. Recently, the soundtrack to “A Hidden Life” has sort of bridged the gap between those two listening experiences, and I feel similarly about “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Kundun” and “Interstellar”- there’s an emotional connection I make to the music while also reminding myself of the film.
My favorite scores that exist stand-alone for me are the Ocean's Trilogy scores by David Holmes. You can argue the varying quality of those movies all you want (I have a soft spot for Ocean's Twelve), but all three movies have terrific scores that are so wonderfully jazzy and funky that they can be enjoyed with no context from the movie.
On the other hand, I cannot listen to the Black Panther score without thinking of the movie......and that's not a bad thing. I think Ludwig Goransson's score is the best score the MCU has offered, and they are my favorite director/composer duo working today. I also especially love his scores for both the 2 Creed movies and The Mandalorian.
As far as soundtracks go, I cannot get enough of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood soundtrack. Tarantino curated a playlist that I just think is genius, and the Chad & Jeremy song Paxton Quigley's Had the Course has crept into my favorite songs possibly of all time. My only issue with that soundtrack release was the exclusion of The Rolling Stones's AMAZING version of Out of Time that was used in the movie.
The obvious thought for me is The Social Network, because it's all I ever think about. It's something that works beautifully with Sorkin and Fincher, and is also just one of my favorite albums of the last decade. I can write, read, clean, anything to it.
Same with Cloud Atlas, which does conjure up scenes in that film, yet glides effortlessly on its own. It feels so much like film itself - art itself? - where it's bringing its own life to meet mine, drawing a richer picture than anything I could imagine myself.
I'm not as big a film score/soundtrack buff as I was back in the '90s, when the Alan Menken Disney scores opened my mind to background music as something to pay attention to; I haven't really taken to a score since Michael Giacchino's "Inside Out" and that was about 5 years back, and while "The Greatest Showman" has some excellent songs they work better outside of the film's context.
Some scores I can listen to and open my mind to other imagery than that of the movie, especially if the movie's not that good -- Jerry Goldsmith's "Supergirl" and John Barry's "Chaplin" come to mind. And my list of '80s theme songs better than their movies is longer than my arm. But there is something special about movies and scores joined at the hip.
One thing I think is a signpost of a great instrumental score is if it, as the film begins, does NOT seem appropriate to the story you're about to see unfold, or even the genre/medium as a whole. The dissonance grabs you right away; I'm thinking of Howard Shore quoting "Madame Butterfly" at the top of "The Fly" or Menken's Saint Saens-inspired prologue of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (which is a 180 from what he did to open "Little Mermaid"). It's throwing down a challenge to the audience of figuring out how this goes with that, and forces you to pay more attention to both.
I think I so rarely commit to purchasing a whole film score unless it's a film that I know well enough to picture the scenes that go to the music, that there's few instances where I'm able to listen to the music in isolation. Probably the closest is when I was younger and used to buy "great hits of the movies" CDs, before I'd seen many of the movies in question. So I used to have a picture in my head that the Good, Bad, and Ugly theme conjured up long before I ever actually saw the film. Same with Chariots of Fire. But anything genre, or epic like Gladiator and Braveheart, I loved both as music and because of the feelings it reminded me of from the films.
The Solaris score by Cliff Martinez...I appreciate the film, but that score is so much better than its source material.
Not just scores but sometimes, entire soundtracks. "Miami Vice" from 2006 is a good movie to me, but I LOVE that soundtrack. The whole thing
Movie scores are my life. My favorite is Jon Brion’s Magnolia; rich, deep, always rhythmic and searching. Also 25th Hour by Terrence Blanchard. I fell madly for Mica Levi’s scores for Under the Skin and Jackie. I thought Heather McIntosh’s score for Compliance was criminally overlooked. Recently Jonny Greenwood’s Phantom Thread left me swooning. Finally Danny Elfman’s Edward Scissorhands and Batman should be put in a time capsule. 🎶♥️
Hans Zimmer's Time track from the Inception OST one that I listen too all on it's own. The slow ebb build up to the crescendo...the strings in the background are the heartbeat swell...... the slow piano towards the end....uh....gorgeous. It narrates parts of my own life perfectly.
Definitely! Great topic!
Growing up a Band Geek, you can't help but love film scores. I always saw the best composers as analogous to the great composers of the past who wrote operas. Williams as Mozart. Goldsmith as Beethoven. Bernstein as Puccini. Horner as Wagner. That's what movies kinda are for our time, aren't they? They're opera of a different sort, more for the common folk, sure, but the stories are the same.
My favorites were mostly from John Williams, because they could be listened to forwards and back, and his themes existed on their own. One of my favorite purchases ever from my teen years was when they released the full scores to the Star Wars Original Trilogy, not just the more famous queues. I listened to them over and over, and by far, Empire is the best of the bunch.
When I'm working, I'm either listening to various classical composers or I'm listening to film scores. I create playlists in iTunes that come together like de facto "symphonies." So I'll take the music from all of the Star Trek films and shows or the Marvel movies or Harry Potter, and then arrange those queues into something representing a symphony. It helps pass the time as I'm responding to or sending emails, or doing research, or reading various sales materials or technical manuals. I did this when I was in school, too. To help me study. I've found it helps me concentrate; the music really centers me, and it exists completely outside the films.
And that's true about any score I like. For me they always stand apart from the film in that way. I guess that's what comes from always thinking musically before visually.
I'm ashamed to say this, but because of my love of Morricone, I listened to the score of THE MISSION non-stop before ever seeing the film. I used to put it on to write to. Then I finally watched the film one day after many fits and starts of trying to get through it -- because I knew the score so intimately before the film, the film was difficult for me to ever really appreciate it. I think I had bonded so deeply with the score I couldn't support it when it meshed together with the film. I liken it to people who read the book first before seeing the film or vice versa, but on a different level because with just music and an album cover picture, your imagination does so much work.
I also have this bond with the Horner's GLORY score, but that was after seeing the film. That music just cuts through my soul.
I don't really write while listening to music anymore though unless I'm working on musical theater stuff. It's a distraction now when I'm writing. If I'm writing a scene and I hear a song in my head, I'll play it a few times to see where that takes my brain for the scene, but short of that I keep things quiet now.
The Cliffhanger score by Trevor Jones is one of my all time favorites. The film doesn’t live up to it, but I will listen to that main theme all the time.
In the best case, the soundtrack will cause a mental echo of the movie, but that is never a requirement for me to enjoy it as a separate entity. The formerly merely means that it was a combination of great movie & great music as opposed to forgettable movie & great music.
The most recent glaring example of one that stands alone for me is Daniel Pemberton's Man from UNCLE. The moment the movie ended I knew that album would be a mainstay for me while the movie itself was gone five minutes later.
Probably the most potent marrying of the two for me is Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings. The movies are suffused with his score to the point of being inseparable. The amount of work it took to perform at that level for that amount of total screen time is astonishing.
Someone asked me to make a list of my top soundtrack recommendations recently and my brain melted down because there are so many that I enjoy. I had to impose artificial restrictions on myself - only one from each composer among others - just to get it to a manageable number. I wound up with 16 when I finally tapped out and absolutely could not cut any more of them.
Definitely depends for me. I see most of James Newton Howard’s work with Shayamalan as masterpieces that can exist on their own despite their associated films. Then there are individual tracks like on Morricone’s score for Mission to Mars that are among my favorite. “Here” is a fantastic track despite the ridiculous movie it’s associated with.
It really depends on the score. Something like “Star Wars,” “The Crow,” “Cloud Atlas,” “The Good the Bad and the Ugly” or “Braveheart” I will listen to in order to bring back relive that emotional connection with the film. If the score is less “thematically-driven,” like “Broken Arrow,” “1917,” “The Thin Red Line” or “Pacific Rim” (which is a fantastic workout score), that’s a case of my experience with the score being less tied to the movie it was written for. Recently, the soundtrack to “A Hidden Life” has sort of bridged the gap between those two listening experiences, and I feel similarly about “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Kundun” and “Interstellar”- there’s an emotional connection I make to the music while also reminding myself of the film.
My favorite scores that exist stand-alone for me are the Ocean's Trilogy scores by David Holmes. You can argue the varying quality of those movies all you want (I have a soft spot for Ocean's Twelve), but all three movies have terrific scores that are so wonderfully jazzy and funky that they can be enjoyed with no context from the movie.
On the other hand, I cannot listen to the Black Panther score without thinking of the movie......and that's not a bad thing. I think Ludwig Goransson's score is the best score the MCU has offered, and they are my favorite director/composer duo working today. I also especially love his scores for both the 2 Creed movies and The Mandalorian.
As far as soundtracks go, I cannot get enough of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood soundtrack. Tarantino curated a playlist that I just think is genius, and the Chad & Jeremy song Paxton Quigley's Had the Course has crept into my favorite songs possibly of all time. My only issue with that soundtrack release was the exclusion of The Rolling Stones's AMAZING version of Out of Time that was used in the movie.
The obvious thought for me is The Social Network, because it's all I ever think about. It's something that works beautifully with Sorkin and Fincher, and is also just one of my favorite albums of the last decade. I can write, read, clean, anything to it.
Same with Cloud Atlas, which does conjure up scenes in that film, yet glides effortlessly on its own. It feels so much like film itself - art itself? - where it's bringing its own life to meet mine, drawing a richer picture than anything I could imagine myself.
I'm not as big a film score/soundtrack buff as I was back in the '90s, when the Alan Menken Disney scores opened my mind to background music as something to pay attention to; I haven't really taken to a score since Michael Giacchino's "Inside Out" and that was about 5 years back, and while "The Greatest Showman" has some excellent songs they work better outside of the film's context.
Some scores I can listen to and open my mind to other imagery than that of the movie, especially if the movie's not that good -- Jerry Goldsmith's "Supergirl" and John Barry's "Chaplin" come to mind. And my list of '80s theme songs better than their movies is longer than my arm. But there is something special about movies and scores joined at the hip.
One thing I think is a signpost of a great instrumental score is if it, as the film begins, does NOT seem appropriate to the story you're about to see unfold, or even the genre/medium as a whole. The dissonance grabs you right away; I'm thinking of Howard Shore quoting "Madame Butterfly" at the top of "The Fly" or Menken's Saint Saens-inspired prologue of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (which is a 180 from what he did to open "Little Mermaid"). It's throwing down a challenge to the audience of figuring out how this goes with that, and forces you to pay more attention to both.
I think I so rarely commit to purchasing a whole film score unless it's a film that I know well enough to picture the scenes that go to the music, that there's few instances where I'm able to listen to the music in isolation. Probably the closest is when I was younger and used to buy "great hits of the movies" CDs, before I'd seen many of the movies in question. So I used to have a picture in my head that the Good, Bad, and Ugly theme conjured up long before I ever actually saw the film. Same with Chariots of Fire. But anything genre, or epic like Gladiator and Braveheart, I loved both as music and because of the feelings it reminded me of from the films.