A PASSAGE TO INDIA – Maurice Jarre
GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Original Review by Craig Lysy
A Passage to India is a novel by English author E. M. Forster, which unfolds against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. David Lean became enamored after watching the stage presentation of the story and immediately sought and obtained the movie rights. He adapted the screenplay himself and secured a stellar cast, which included; Judy Davis (Adela), Alec Guiness (Godbole), James Fox (Fielding), Peggy Ashcroft (Mrs. Moore) and Victor Bannerjee (Dr. Aziz). The story revolves a fateful trip to the Marabar Caves where a recently engaged Adela finds herself captivated and aroused by the beauty and sensuality of Indian culture. One day on a day trek and while alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves, she experiences conflicting emotions towards Dr. Aziz, panics and flees. It is assumed that Dr. Aziz had attempted to assault her and he is brought up to trial for charges of rape. The trial serves as both a commentary and a volatile catalyst that unleashes the pent up racial tensions long simmering between the indigenous Indians and the British colonialists who rule India. When Adela finally relents and withdraws her charges, Aziz is set free, but friendships are ruptured and Aziz seems irreparably harmed. Years later Aziz and his dear friend James reconcile, which brings the sad tale to a pleasing closure. The film was both a critical and commercial success, earning eleven Academy Award nominations, which included a Best Score Oscar for Maurice Jarre. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2013, Part 5
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the fifth installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fifth of 2013, explores five outstanding scores from recent months, including an Argentine animated comedy-adventure about a shy table football player who must reunite with his former teammates to defeat an old rival, an epic Brazilian historical drama chronicling 150 years in the lives of two feuding families against the backdrop of the formation of modern Brazil, a Venezuelan romantic comedy about two passionate baseball fans who fall in love despite supporting bitterly opposed teams, a Chilean period romance with Gothic horror overtones in which a young woman begins to suspect that her husband’s mysterious brother may be connected to a monster terrorizing a nearby village, and an unsettling Argentine drama about Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele living under an assumed identity in Patagonia and insinuating himself into the lives of an unsuspecting family.
IFMCA Award Winners 2013
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS; COMPOSERS FROM POLAND, SPAIN, DOMINATE
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of winners for excellence in musical scoring in 2013. This year’s awards have a real international flavor, with the top awards going to composers primarily from Poland and Spain, but also from France, Japan and Argentina.
The award for Score of the Year goes to Polish composer ABEL KORZENIOWSKI for his beautiful score for director Carlo Carlei’s new cinematic version of the classic Shakespeare story of tragically doomed love, ROMEO AND JULIET. IFMCA member Christian Clemmensen called the score an “epic romance”, and felt that the film “inspired greatness out of the right composer”, while IFMCA member Jon Broxton said that Korzeniowski “is a composer who is not afraid to bring out the deeper sentiments in a film through his music, and it’s so refreshing to hear music from a man who so clearly understands what good film music can achieve”. Read more…
SUNFLOWER – Henry Mancini
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Renowned producer Carlo Ponti and acclaimed actor-director Vittorio de Sica hired screenwriter Cesare Zavattini to create, in the finest traditions of Italian cinema, a tragic love story. For this grand effort they recruited the two iconic Italian actors of the day to play the principles; Sophia Loren (Giovanna) and Marcello Mastroianni (Antonio). After many incarnations and disputes between Ponti and De Sica, a final screenplay was finally achieved. It reveals the story of two lovers caught up and swept away by the unforeseeable and irresistible currents of history. Sunflower, known in its original Italian as I Girasoli, is set in a small town in the southern Calabria region of Italy in the waning months of World War II. Read more…
ROBOCOP – Pedro Bromfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
One thing I really love to see is when a young, new composer gets his first chance at the big time, scoring a major movie with huge box-office potential. Brazilian composer Pedro Bromfman is the composer getting that chance in the early months of 2014, having been hired to score the big-budget reboot of one of the great classic 1980s action movies, Robocop. 38-year old Bromfman is best known internationally for his scores for the popular Brazilian action movies in the Tropa de Elite series, which were directed by his old friend José Padilha; when Padilha was hired to helm the new Robocop, he brought Bromfman with him, and – shockingly – the executives at Sony Pictures gave the green light to allow this absolutely unknown composer to score their $130 million investment. This is the stuff that dreams are made of, where careers are launched and great new talents emerge – except, that in this case, the dream turns into a nightmare once you actually hear the music. Read more…
BAFTA Winners 2013
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) have announced the winners of the 67th British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2013.
In the Best Original Score category composer Steven Price won the award for his score for the acclaimed sci-fi action movie Gravity. In his acceptance speech, Price said:
“Thank you, thank you so much BAFTA. My daughters once told me if I was incredibly nervous and terrified at any point I should say their names, so I’m going to do that first. Thank you Amy, thank you Eva. I share this with Alfonso [Cuaron], you inspired every second of this, and its been a huge honor to tell this story with you. I want to thank all of the musicians who played on this score and gave the music it’s heartbeat. Everyone at Warner Brothers, everyone at GSA, all the people on this film who’ve been so supportive. Thank you to my mum and dad for having such a great record collection when I was a kid and starting this whole thing off. But most of all thank you Gemma, my wife.”
The other nominees were Henry Jackman for Captain Phillips, Thomas Newman for Saving Mr. Banks, John Williams for The Book Thief, and Hans Zimmer for 12 Years a Slave.
QUA TIM MÁU/VENGEFUL HEART – Christopher Wong, Garrett Crosby
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Vengeful Heart is a Vietnamese supernatural thriller directed by Victor Vu, starring Phuong Nha, Hoang Bach, and Thai Hoa, one of Vietnam’s most popular and successful comedians. It tells the story of Linh, a young woman who, after almost being killed in a car accident, survives after receiving a heart transplant. During her recovery Linh begins to have nightmares and hallucinations about a mysterious house in a forest. Tortured by her dreams, Linh eventually finds the house, which she finds inhabited by a very unusual Addams-esque family; worse still, it starts to become apparent that the recently deceased daughter of the family is Linh’s heart donor, and the family is becoming more and more attached to Linh. The film was massively successful in its home country, taking in more than 90 billion đồng, making it the all-time highest grossing domestic film in Vietnamese box office history. Read more…
THE MONUMENTS MEN – Alexandre Desplat
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Monuments Men is a World War II action-drama-comedy, directed by George Clooney, based on the real-life escapades of a group of art history scholars who were assigned to find and protect the priceless artworks of central Europe, and stop it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. With an all-star supporting cast that includes Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville, the film certainly has pedigree, but many people have complained about the unusual tone the film adopts, veering from comedy to serious drama and back again, often within the same scene. The deliberate pacing and intentionally old-fashioned style of the film has also been criticized for being out of touch with modern audiences, but these were some of the reasons I felt the film succeeded: the film is less about moving from one action sequence to another and is more about the camaraderie between the men at the center of the story, and about the importance of the art they are tasked with protecting. Read more…
STAR TREK: NEMESIS – Jerry Goldsmith
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Sadly, the beloved Star Trek franchise took its final voyage with this tenth installment. For the storyline we are presented with yet another morality play, which explores the interplay of upbringing, fate and self-realization in seeking one’s destiny. Following a wedding between Will Riker and Deanna Troi, Picard receives startling orders from Star Fleet Command to proceed to Romulus as the Federation’s peace emissary. Evidently a coup d’état had ushered in a new leadership that wished to reset relations after centuries of unremitting animosity. Upon their arrival Picard discovers that the new leader Shinzon is not a Romulan, but instead a human, a clone of himself. Eventually he realizes a sinister deception as Shinzon’s true motives manifest. Shinzon desires to gain glory first by killing his genetic progenitor, Picard, and then by destroying Earth, a final repudiation of his humanity. Thus from a shared genetic template we see a duality, the polarity of goodness embodied in Picard and the polarity evil with Shinzon. What unfolds is a classic battle between light and darkness, a contest of wills with both Picard and Shinzon using their knowledge of the other and themselves to prevail. In the fateful final encounter, the Enterprise joined by Romulan loyalist ships battle Shinzon’s Scimitar, a cloaked mega vessel with superior shields and weapons of mass destruction. We witness Picard and Shnizon match wits with the most impressive battle scenes of the franchise. The film, while not embraced by critics, performed well and was profitable. The decision to end the franchise was very disappointing. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2013, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the fourth installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fourth of 2013, explores seven outstanding scores from recent months, including a raucous horror-comedy about a pair of bumbling bank robbers who run afoul of a coven of cannibalistic witches in the Basque country, an ingenious thriller about a concert pianist who discovers that a sniper will kill him if he plays a wrong note during his comeback performance, an epic historical television series chronicling the life and reign of Queen Isabella I of Castile, a bittersweet drama about a soldier and the mule he adopts during the Spanish Civil War, a sweeping television drama about a Madrid seamstress whose life is transformed by war, espionage, and political intrigue, an apocalyptic science-fiction thriller in which a mysterious epidemic leaves humanity terrified of venturing outdoors, and a boisterous family adventure about mischievous twin brothers who form a secret gang at summer camp and embark on a hunt for hidden treasure. Read more…
IFMCA Award Nominations 2013
INTERNATIONAL FILM MUSIC CRITICS AWARD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED; POLISH COMPOSER ABEL KORZENIOWSKI LEADS FIELD
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) announces its list of nominees for excellence in musical scoring in 2013. In this 10th Anniversary year of the IFMCA’s creation, the most nominated composer is Abel Korzeniowski, who received six nominations: Score of the Year, Best Drama Score and Film Music Composition of the Year for his work on director Carlo Carlei’s new screen version of the classic Shakespeare romance “Romeo and Juliet”; Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror Score and Film Music Composition of the Year for his work on director Randy Moore’s unusual satirical fantasy-horror set in a nightmarish Disney theme park, “Escape From Tomorrow”; and a personal nomination as Composer of the Year. Kraków, Poland-born Korzeniowski has previously been nominated for three IFMCA Awards, winning the award for Best Drama Score for “A Single Man” in 2009. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2013, Part 3
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the third installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the third of 2013, explores eight outstanding scores from recent months, including a Polish science fiction comedy about a young couple who discover a time-travelling elevator and find themselves face-to-face with Adolf Hitler, a biographical drama about celebrated Polish poet and wartime resistance fighter Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, a hugely popular Polish television series following a group of friends struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a Russian biographical drama telling the story of pioneering cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and his historic journey into space, a nature documentary about brown bears living in the Carpathian Mountains, a Polish family drama about two teenage girls who discover that they are twin sisters separated at birth, an epic historical drama about a Polish family deported to Siberia during World War II, and Roman Polanski’s French-Polish adaptation of Venus in Fur, an erotic comedy-drama about the shifting balance of power between a theater director and an actress during an unusual audition.
John Cacavas, 1930-2014
Composer, arranger and conductor John Cacavas died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on January 28, 2014, at the age of 83, following a period of declining health.
A prolific figure in American film and television music, Cacavas scored hundreds of television episodes, numerous television movies and a smaller but memorable group of feature films, including Horror Express, Airport 1975 and Airport ’77. He remains especially associated with Kojak, for which he composed music for more than 100 episodes.
Cacavas was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on August 13, 1930, into a Greek-American family. He became interested in music as a teenager, taught himself saxophone and was leading his own dance band by the age of 14. After studying at Northern State College, he transferred to Northwestern University, where he studied composition and theory. Military service subsequently took him to Washington, D.C., where he worked as an arranger for the United States Army Band.
After leaving the Army, Cacavas moved to New York and worked as an arranger, songwriter and conductor, eventually joining CBS. During this period he collaborated frequently with broadcaster Charles Osgood. Among their projects was Senator Everett Dirksen’s spoken-word recording Gallant Men, which became a major success and won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1967. Read more…
Riz Ortolani, 1926-2014
Composer, arranger and conductor Riz Ortolani died in Rome on January 23, 2014, at the age of 87, following complications from bronchitis.
One of the most prolific figures in Italian film music, Ortolani scored more than 200 films and television productions during a career spanning five decades, moving effortlessly between documentaries, romantic dramas, spaghetti westerns, war films, thrillers, horror and exploitation cinema. His international breakthrough came with Mondo Cane, whose theme “More” became a worldwide standard.
Riziero Ortolani was born in Pesaro, Italy, on March 25, 1926. Encouraged by his musically inclined father, he studied at the Conservatorio Gioachino Rossini in Pesaro and subsequently worked as an orchestral musician, arranger and bandleader. He joined Italian state broadcaster RAI and during the 1950s led his own jazz orchestra, which also performed in the United States. His background in jazz, popular music and classical orchestration would become central to the remarkable stylistic versatility of his film scores.
Ortolani became a full-time film composer with the controversial documentary Mondo Cane (1962), directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco Prosperi. Working with Nino Oliviero, he wrote a strikingly lush and melodic score whose beauty often provided an ironic contrast to the film’s deliberately shocking imagery. Its central melody became the song “More,” with English lyrics by Norman Newell, and quickly escaped the confines of the film. It was recorded by artists including Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Shirley Bassey and The Supremes, won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Theme, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
The success of Mondo Cane immediately opened international doors. Ortolani scored films including The 7th Dawn (1964), Old Shatterhand (1964) and Anthony Asquith’s star-studded The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964). The latter produced another major song, “Forget Domani,” which won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, while Ortolani’s score received a separate Golden Globe nomination. He subsequently worked on The Glory Guys (1965), The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), Vittorio De Sica’s Woman Times Seven (1967), The Chastity Belt (1967), Anzio (1968) and Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968). Read more…
Movie Music UK Awards 2013
Film music went from strength to strength again in 2013. In terms of it’s world wide excellence, the breadth of outstanding music coming from all corners of the globe is astonishing – some of the best scores of year emerged not only from mainstream Hollywood productions, but also from Japan, Poland, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Spain, Germany and even Russia. As such, narrowing down my choices for the best of the year has been a very difficult task – one of the most difficult in recent memory. However, I’ve finally been able to put everything into some sort of logical order – so, for your reading and listening pleasure, I present the 2013 Movie Music UK Awards! Read more…
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