The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Film composer Maurice Jarre died earlier this week, so it is fitting that I devote this week’s Something for Thursday to him. I didn’t like the movie, but the score is beautiful. Here, from Dead Poets Society, is “Keating’s Triumph”.
Thanks for the music, Maestro Jarre.
I tend to select more introspective, meditating, or downright sad pieces of music for this weekly feature, so here’s something upbeat. Longtime readers know that one of my favorite film composers working today is Joe Hisaishi, a guy whose work is unknown to most filmgoers because he works in Japanese cinema and anime exclusively. However, if you have seen anything by my beloved Hayao Miyazaki, you’ve heard Hisaishi’s music. Sometimes filmmakers find themselves using certain composers on an almost exclusive basis, forming partnerships that result in great film music for great films. Examples include Steven Spielgerg/John Williams*, Alfred Hitchcock/Bernard Herrmann, and to a lesser extent, Robert Zemeckis/Alan Sylvestri.
Anyhow, here is a selection by Joe Hisaishi, from his score to Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. The track is titled “Procession of the Spirits”, and it is heard early in the film when night falls and all the ghostly spirit patrons begin to file into the magnificent bathhouse where strange supernatural things are afoot. In Hisaishi’s best scores he is able to combine Asian and Western musical ideas almost seamlessly, with wonderful and magical effect. Enjoy — here’s “Procession of the Spirits”. (There’s nothing to watch here; it’s just a title card accompanied by the music.)
Isn’t that great!
* Trivia question: What is the only feature film directed by Steven Spielberg whose score was not composed by John Williams?
Natasha Richardson wasn’t in Love Actually, but her husband, Liam Neeson, was, and in that film he played a role he can now sadly play in real life: a bereaved husband.
From Love Actually, here is the Glasgow Love Theme, by composer Craig Armstrong. You can ignore the slideshow of images from the film; I selected this clip because the sound is better than some others.
Sigh….
Something a bit different for today. Celestial Navigations is a group that does music and storytelling, featuring actor Geoffrey Lewis doing the spoken-word bits. Here’s a selection of theirs, “The Winner”.
Since this week I’ve seen a whole bunch of instances of blogs with much higher traffic than mine commenting on things I’d commented on days before, with my teeny-tiny traffic, this particular selection’s been on my mind.
I ain’t makin’ a move, I ain’t sayin’ a word…until somebody links me!
The day before yesterday would have been the 80th birthday of film composer Jerry Goldsmith, who passed away in 2004. I’m a big admirer of Goldsmith’s work, and note the occasion of his 80th with a remarkable cue he wrote for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is heard during the scene where Admiral Kirk flies to the Enterprise for the first time, early in the movie; it’s basically five minutes of looking at a starship. But what a starship she is, and with music like this, well….
For a taste of what Goldsmith at his height could bring to the table in terms of action scoring, here is what is, for me, the single best action cue he ever wrote (and he wrote a lot of ’em). It’s “Raisuli Attacks”, from The Wind and the Lion:
There are actually two cues here, put together: the second is “Guest of Raisuli”, which begins at about the 3:12 mark. It’s a delicate statement of the film’s gorgeous love theme. I listened to this score for years before I saw the movie, and I was a bit disappointed, I must admit, when I finally saw the actual action scene “Raisuli Attacks” underscores. Hearing that music initially, I pictured a pitched battle of Ragnarokian scale. It’s not, at all. I got over it; The Wind and the Lion is really a terrific film.
I’ve always been of the opinion that Goldsmith’s output after around 1990 or so dropped off in quality a bit, but he still had an amazing career, and I think his music tended to get lost in the shuffle a lot because, unlike John Williams, Goldsmith tended to end up scoring, for lack of a better term, bad movies that are mostly forgotten except for their wonderful Goldsmith scores. Anyway, Goldsmith left behind a giant legacy in film music.
A beautiful theme from the film Princess Mononoke, composed by the masterful Joe Hisaishi. Here’s “Ashitaka and San”.
Ashitaka And San – Joe Hisaishi
Enjoy.
Warning: this is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard. It was featured on an episode of A Prairie Home Companion, and…well, it’s sad.
Here’s Suzy Bogguss and “In Heaven”.
Sigh….