========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 01:31:30 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: David Hughes Subject: thema Hi, I'm David Hughes. I have no particular expertise in film music, just a long history of dabbling in musique concrete, digital synthesis, and pop music performance. I've been lurking for a couple of weeks, and I've found this discussion of film music to be stimulating. It's reminded me of what composer Ed Rorem wrote in his chapter "Cocteau and Music" from a tribute collection, *Jean Cocteau and the French Scene* (NY: Abbeville Press, 1984). I know I'm taking this back to the beginning of the discussion (and I'm very much enjoying the course it's taken), and I understand this is a long post, but here goes (let me know if I'm out of line). On 2/6/95, Eric wrote: > or it can juxtapose, and comment. see anything by peter > greenaway, or alan rudolph. the music isn't *of* the film but > *in* the film, an element like lighting or set design... a > point of reflection and statement. this is my favorite use of > music in film, where the music actually provides a point of > view, a metaphor rather than a direct imprint. think kubrick. > or hell, tarantino. i actually laughed through some of the > grimmest parts of "reservoir dogs", just because of his > soundtrack. now that's a trick. Rorem addresses precisely this point vis-a-vis Cocteau: <> Rorem explains why "it now seems wrong", after summarizing the film/music process: <<...And all the [studio] spectators then decide whether the music 'works,' while the composer twiddles his thumbs. On the day that the music for *Beauty and the Beast* was recorded, Cocteau wrote: '...And now the silence, then the three white flashes which announce the image, then the image and the wonder of that synchronization which is not a synchronization, since [his composer] Auric avoids it, at my request, and since it must not occur save by the grace of God...'>> <> Cocteau then speaks of the *music* of his images: <<'...This new universe disturbs and enthralls me. I had composed my own music without realizing it, and the waves of sound from the orchestra contradict that music. Gradually Auric's score contradicts that discomfort. My music gives way to his. This music weds the film, impregnates it, exalts it, completes it...'>> If you wonder about his self-characterization as *composer*, just scan any part of the film. I happened to drop by a friend's house Saturday as the "glove scene" was on his monitor. I can't recall the score just then, but I do recall the *music*. Rorem continues: <