So I’ve decided to wade into the shark infested waters that I have so far avoided.  When I first started the Film Score Friday Top 5, there was one list that I avoided like the Swine Flu: Top 5 Scores, what could also be termed a so-called “Desert Island” list (as in, if you were stuck on a Desert Island, which scores would want to have with you).  Both of these lists, or questions postulated to a person, point to a similar idea: the canon. 

The term canon in this context is not the large gun fired from a Pirate Ship or other sailing vessel, or even the imitative musical device used in works as far ranging as “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to Pachelbel’s  infamous on in D heard everywhere, at least according to one comic.  No, in this sense, canon is meant as a collection of works or artists that we hold up as exemplars of whatever genre under consideration.  In criticism, historiography, and other such disciplines, this can become a rather thorny topic.  As a musicologist in training, one learns the “Western Art Music” canon (you know, those dead Germanic guys: Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Brahms, etc), but at the same time, scholars are now attacking that very idea not only because of its very limited scope, but also because of the very way in which it was created.  (If you wish to know more, I would direct you to the recent articles by University of Oklahoma musicologist Dr. Sanna Pederson.) 

So all this brings me to a crisis of sorts in my own study of film music.  Since deciding a few years ago to make film music my primary area of study, I have been doing my best to acquaint, and in some cases reacquaint, myself with those scores and composers that most people talk about: Korngold, Steiner, Herrmann, Rozsa, Goldsmith, along with the more contemporary practitioners (Williams, Elfman, Zimmer, etc).  But no matter how much I hear or read, I still feel like there is so much out there that I have yet to hear.  I know I have a dearth of Hermann in my ear largely because my school’s library doesn’t have much of his music (mainly one compilation disc of his work with Hitchcock and the North By Northwest score), but even beyond Herrmann, I still feel like there is so much that I don’t know. 

Which brings me to the question in the title of this post: Is there a Film Music ‘Canon?’  My instincts say yes and no.  On the one hand, we humans have the insatiable urge to catalog and categorize things; put them into neat little boxes.  Witness the overabundance of lists not only by the AFI but just about every major trade publication and magazines.  But by doing so, what do we gain?  We know not everyone is going to agree:  sure Mozart was a genius, but was he that great?  (Personally, I say yes, but that’s another blog entirely, we’re here to talk about film music.)  The obvious gain is that it does help one to have a place to begin when trying to get into a new genre of music, art, film, etc, but it also has the adverse cultural effect of giving message board trollers something to rant about and rail against – which is maybe my biggest fear: either leaving something out or going for the obvious choice. 

So, now that I’ve given you an entirely too long introduction, here is my response to the question of:  If you were on a desert island, and magically had power and a stereo system but could only have 5 film scores with you, what would they be?  Not a ‘best’ list, but rather a personal one.  Yes, I took the easy way out.

 1) The Empire Strikes Back – John Williams:  Obvious, yes, but I couldn’t survive long on a desert island without my “Imperial March.”

2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – James Horner: My love for this has been stated elsewhere in this blog, ‘nuff said.

3) The Hunt for Red October – Basil Poledouris:  Not only was Poledouris born in my home town of Kansas City, Missouri (like famed director Robert Altman), this score is one of my long time favorites…if only for the opening title with its Russian chorus.  But the rest of it is also pretty good.  More a sentimental pick, I would still like to have it with more on this remote atoll.

4) North By Northwest – Bernard Herrmann:  One of the few Herrmann scores I know well, and a favorite.  The off kilter meter is great and fits the film so well.

5) The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly – Ennio Morricone:  Morricone’s scores for Leone are so iconic and well known that his scoring for the Old West has passed into cliché.  But that doesn’t make it any less amazing.  Besides, when I start having imaginary gunfights on my Desert Island (either out of boredom, insanity, or both), I could hardly imagine a better soundtrack.

 So what if magically I had five more CDs on the island?  Or maybe instead of taking my top 5 symphonies I grabbed five more scores and stuck them into my magical duffle bag that also survived the calamity that washed me ashore this remote Desert Isle, those would be:

 6) Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Jerry Goldsmith:  Goldsmith perfectly scored the first Trek film, and it still bugs me to no end that Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory dissed it.  Yes, I know that it’s “just a TV show,” but a show so steeped in nerd culture should know better.

7) Battlestar Galactica Season 1 – Bear McCreary:  The Season 4 album has more music and overall was his best season on the show, but so many of my favorite cues are on the Season 1 album that that’s the one I’d grab.

8 ) There Will Be Blood – Jonny Greenwood:  It might be a little early for me to put this on the list considering I just heard it for the first time a week ago…but what a week it has been.  I hope to write a post on this one sometime in the near future.  I know that there are those who hated this score, but I found it amazing upon my first listening, and even more so once I saw the film.

9) Dodes’kaden – Toru Takemitsu: Not Kurosawa’s best film, and probably not Takemitsu’s best score, but there is just something about the main theme that I love so much: a joy, a simplicity…but also a melancholy.  It also sounds like it could light right into the song “MacArthur Park” which could be a bad thing to some people.

10) Lost Season 1 – Michael Giacchino:  Hey, I’m stuck on a Desert Island, you didn’t actually expect me to leave this off, did you?

 Well that’s it for now.  Disagree?  Of course you will, instead it’s…inevitable.   So I want to hear from you.  What would you choose?  And what would you include in a so-called ‘canon?’

Okay, I know this more than just a day late coming, but better late than never, right?  So what follows is a list of most of the films I saw this summer (in theatres) and some thoughts on their scores.  Plus, I’m also including a few major soundtrack releases from the summer, and as an added bonus to you, loyal reader, an extra special discussion prompt!

 Note: These are roughly in the order in which I saw them.

 Star Trek – Michael Giacchino:  I’ve already written on this in an earlier post, so I won’t say much else here except that this was one of the best scores I heard this summer.  To me, only two other scores can really compete with this.

 Terminator Salvation – Danny Elfman:  A good score from Elfman, not great, though.  The opening cue is very good, and he does a good job integrating the original Terminator thematic ideas in it.  The guitar based cues humanize the music and make us identify with the resistance soldiers, but overall the score, like the film, is just lacking that something special.

 Up – Michael Giacchino: The second of three in the 2009 summer of Giacchino (the third, Land of the Lost I have yet to hear or see).  Giacchino does another great job of knowing just how to score a Pixar film: sentimental and bumping right up against cliché without going over.  Here, he uses a sound that is meant to evoke that of the ‘20s and ‘30s, almost like a silent film orchestra, for those scenes dealing with the old man’s past; evoking the nostalgia that leads to his quest.  It’s wistful and wonderful, and also heartbreaking when it needs to be.  All three of his Pixar scores (The Incredibles and Ratatouille prior to this) are among the best of recent years.  They have that playful quality that reminds us that movies can be fun without being rude, violent, or sexy, much like Pixar films themselves.

 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Steve Jablonsky:  I really don’t have much to say about this one.  The film was mixed in such a way that the music was hard to hear most of the time, and I never did pick up the CD release.  For more discussion, I direct you to the post on Herr Vogler’s blog.

 Moon – Clint Mansell: The score that surprised me the most this summer, and if I had to pick a ‘best’ score I heard this summer (of just what I heard, there are a lot I didn’t, so don’t get mad), it would most likely be this…or maybe Up.  It’s just a deceptively simple score and has two main ideas: a piano ostinato that you hear almost throughout in some form, and a lyric melody used in two cues on the CD release.  There are many cues that are more atonal and electronic in nature (reminding me of the middle section of “Echoes” by Pink Floyd), but the main idea is the piano ostinato, which drives home the solitude and repetitive nature of the main character’s life.

 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Nicholas Hooper:  I’ve already said a bit on this.  The score was definitely a step up for Hooper from Order of the Phoenix, but it’s also no Prisoner of Azkaban.  I’ll direct you to my comments elsewhere on this blog.

 District 9 – Clinton Shorter: I really want to like this score because there is a lot to like about it, but for me it really smacks of the Zimmer/Howard score for The Dark Knight…and there are just too many similarities to ignore.  There are times when a cue is structured a lot like a cue for the CD release of Knight, which means that most likely that Knight cue had been temped in so Shorter was sort of locked into how that cue was edited to picture.  This was Shorter’s first “major” motion picture (according to IMDB he had done a lot of TV work prior).  That said, I look forward to hearing what he does in the future.

 Inglourious Basterds – Ennio Morricone, et al.:  Supposedly  Tarentino wanted Morricone to score the film, but scheduling wouldn’t allow for it, so he did the next best thing: he used music Morricone (and a few others) had already written, and I must say that it worked.  Luckily Tarentino didn’t use the most iconic of Morricone’s cues (the ones from the Leone westerns), which would have proved too distracting.  But the ones he did choose worked very well and the end result was one of the best films of the summer. 

Other Releases: 

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 – Bear McCreary:  Yes, more Galactica music.  I know I sound like a broken record, but McCreary really outdid himself in season 4.  I mentioned a few cues in my Top 5 list a month or so back, but the entire album really deserves a listen by all.  I don’t know why McCreary hasn’t done a major studio film release, but it’s hard to imagine that he won’t be getting the call soon.  I’ve heard the sound he created for BSG cropping up in so many other scores recently that it’s getting somewhat annoying. 

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – Complete Score – James Horner:  The most exciting score to be (re)released this summer.  Long out of print on CD and then only in a shorten form, Horner’s first major work in Hollywood, and, in my opinion, one of his finest scores.  Maybe it’s all my nostalgic memories of watching the movie, but there is a quality about the music that fits so well with them film.  And as many people have commented around the Internets, how can you not help but scream “Khan!” during the “Buried Alive” cue. 

Discussion Question: 

It’s recently been announced or rumored (who knows which with the Web rumors) that Ridley Scott will be getting to work on an Alien prequel film soon.  Should this actually happen, who do you think should write the score?  Just as the franchise has a quite a pedigree of directors (Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher…I’m ignoring Alien Resurrection on all counts), the composers who have worked on it have been equally talented (Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and Elliot Goldenthal).  Given that Mr. Goldsmith has passed on, who should take his place to work with Scott?  Looking at recent collaborations, Marc Streitenfeld seems to be a likely candidate, or could he go back to working with Hans Zimmer?  Or maybe Harry Gregson-Williams, whom he worked with on Kingdom of Heaven?  But my question to you is, if you had your druthers (yes, I did just use that word), and barring the discovery of a lost Goldsmith score for a film not yet made, who would you pick to score the film?  I’m not sure who I’d choose, some of the recent sci-fi scores might point the way, maybe Bear McCreary?  Or maybe Clint Mansell, whom I mentioned earlier in this post, he is a fellow Brit after all, and a more electronic based score could really add a unique sound to the film.  

Well, that’s it for now.  I am trying to update as often as possible, but as I said before, this is a tough semester.  As always, I’ve extended an open invitation to you, the reader, to contact me with any entries you might want to write, including ones in the ever popular “Film Score Friday Top 5” series.  Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.