Tuesday, May 31, 2016

"Movie Scores I Love II"

We are away at the moment.  I am filling with samples of my favorite movie scores.  Well, not “filling.”  No, yeah – filling.  Anyway, I hope you like them.

Once again, I did not find the YouTube clip I was looking for.  But this one’s pretty good.

I met the great film composer Jerry Goldsmith at the hotel we were staying at in Hawaii.  My friend Ken Levine who knew him was gracious enough to introduce me to him. 

I immediately blubbered – as I invariably do upon meeting someone I sincerely admire – that we have a cabin in Indiana, and when I heard his film score for Hoosiers, I believed he had quintessentially captured the terrain.  I did not say, “quintessentially captured the terrain”, but I am sure that what I did say was equally embarrassing.  

Goldsmith replied that he preferred his score for the film Rudy (which is also set in Indiana.)  I was immediately taken aback for two reasons.  One, artists rarely admit to favoring one achievement over another.  And two, I myself preferred Hoosiers.

I immediately “doubled down” on my blubbering… exiting his presence as rapidly as I could.

Anyway… try to be cool encountering a hero…

Here now is Hoosiers’ “climactic moment”, featuring a soundtrack the composer liked less than he liked Rudy. 

A disgraced basketball coach takes a small-town High School team to the Indiana State Championship game against a vaunted, big-city opponent.  (A tale, which for me, includes the added advantage of having actually happened.)

I feel uncomfortable admitting this, but while I was watching this, I started to cry.  It was not easy telling you that.  You might want to consider allotting me extra points for… feeling deep emotion for non-fictional strangers.

From Hoosiers “Jimmy Chitwood – Final Shot.”


(Note:  Crying is optional.)


2 comments:

JED said...

I love Jerry Goldsmith's scores. I would have a hard time picking a favorite but I remember buying his score for Planet of the Apes and being mesmerized. I'd play it at night with the lights out and I could just see every scene in my mind. A lot of it wasn't really music but the rhythms and the orchestration were perfect. I would have loved to be in the recording sessions for that score and seeing the looks in the musicians eyes when they saw the music for the first time.

Another favorite of mine is his score for Patton. Sections of the score were eerie and added a dimension of the mythic and mystical to General Patton's actions.

Jeb said...

I'll agree, Hoosiers was a terrific movie and the music, superb. But I'll agree w/Mr. Goldsmith, as I prefer Rudy, too. Just a personal preference. While reacquainting myself with the Rudy score, on YouTube, I noticed on the menu that Goldsmith also wrote the music to one of my favorite "little" Robin Williams flicks, another football themed adventure called "The Best of Times." I haven't seen it in hundreds of years, so I clicked on it and son of a gun, it's the prototype for Rudy! Note for note, the main theme is the same, and since they're both his scores, he can do that!