Comments on: There Will Be Radiohead

By: NY Comic-Con, Day 2: Terminator Salvation and McG | Overthinking It

NY Comic-Con, Day 2: Terminator Salvation and McG | Overthinking It — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:14:42 +0000

[...] Brad Fiedel is building a surf commune in Mexico and was unable to do the music for the film. Danny Elfman is instead. Thom Yorke may contribute “some sounds” for the movie, certainly not the first time a member of Radiohead would be contributing to a movie soundtrack. [...]

By: fenzel

fenzel — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:55:49 +0000

Have you ever drank straight crude oil?

That sound is what it tastes like.

(On the rocks, I would have added a triangle hit at the end)

By: stokes

stokes — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:56:50 +0000

Oh sure, the way that the music interacts with the narrative (and the non-narrative) elements of the film is fantastically important when it comes to analyzing film music. But to really do that, I need to be able to sit down and watch the film two or three times, taking notes, and so on, which is why I kind of ignored that aspect of it. Sometimes things that seemed thematically connected turn out not to match up so well.

In a sense, the stuff in my post analyzes the film music as pure music, and the kind of analysis you’re suggesting analyzes it as a purely filmic element (like a recurring image or camera angle). In my opinion, a really successful account of a film score would use both approaches, and ideally integrate them. Assuming that those weird string effects are “Oil’s theme,” the first question I’d ask is “Why use *that* music to represent oil?”

By: fenzel

fenzel — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:17:27 +0000

Also, question for you Jordan – it seemed to me while I was watching the movie that a lot of the thematic material was very directly signifying images and actions in the film. The famous screaming strings I began to think to myself was “Oil’s Theme,” whenever the oil’s urgency under the ground wanted to be evoked.

So, I would have analyzed the music much more for its narrative purpose than its style.

But, of course, I do narrative more than music, and when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

How do you synthesize narrative function (or do you?) with other stylistic elements when you’re analyzing a film score?

By: fenzel

fenzel — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:52:21 +0000

So, this outranks 718 by the Two Skinny Js?