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My Top 5 Film Books (for now)

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:31:17 +0000

By Tommy Pearson

Tim Walker, in the British newspaper The Independent yesterday, chose his 'Ten Best Film Books' - a comprehensive and right-on collection of titles that covered a huge range of subjects within the genre.

Not sure any of them would make my top ten, but that's lists for you. At No.4 is Steve Martin's brilliant and fascinating 'Born Standing Up', which zips along. The 'Projections' series - interviews with industry folk - makes it to number 3, quite right too, although I often find the collections exhausting; no more so than the latest which focuses on European film. I assume Walker included the 'Tarkovsky' book in order to look sophisticated and knowledgeable. At No.1 was David Mamet's bitter attack on the film industry, and Hollywood in particular, in 'Bambi vs Godzilla' which I enjoyed very much, although the constant finger-jabbing at dumb-arsed studio executives got a bit tiring.

I spend most of my time reading or dipping into film books and at the moment, as I prepare for a major documentary on music in Hollywood with an American production company, I'm devouring as many as I can. But there are some books that I keep returning to for reference or sheer entertainment. So here's my list of 5 favourites - at least at the moment - that continue to give me great pleasure and endless information. I've also listed them in the Amazon panel on the right, if you want to buy them.

Hollywood Rhapsody : The Story of Movie Music 1900-1975
Gary Marmorstein
OK, lets start with the obvious one. There are many books about film music available and nearly all of them are outstandingly dull and worthy, often written by university professors or students writing dissertations. But in Hollywood Rhapsody, Marmorstein writes with energy, wit and skill and produces the most readable and fascinating history of film music there has ever been. Packed with anecdote and information, this is a profile of a developing city and industry through the musicians that flocked to Hollywood and the stories behind the movies. British buyers might find it difficult to track down in shops, but Amazon is there to help!

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
David Thomson
This is a classic reference, lauded by everyone, and I include it here simply because I am forever using it. Dipping in to it is dangerous as I often find an hour has passed while I flick from entry to entry. The opinionated biogs from one of films' finest writers are stunning; I love it when Thomson clearly doesn't rate the output of a film-maker but tries to be reasonable (see entry for director Richard Donner). Every lover of film should have this book on the shelf.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Peter Biskind
Another classic. Biskind storms through the 1970s and the major players in movies; especially Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Ashby, Coppola and Friedkin. The salacious stories drip off the page and you don't really care whether they're true or not. But for a sharp and delicious evocation of a stunning period in film-making, you can't get much better.

Time Out Film Guide
I have to include a film guide. I get the Time Out guide every year for Christmas and cannot do without it. The web, of course, has more ready and enhanced information but nothing beats flicking through a film guide and the Time Out version is joyously opinionated, often infuriatingly trendy (it doesn't like Star Trek and never will) but covers many films that you won't find in any other guide, particularly independent weirdo stuff, and recent editions have featured superb articles too. And this year's edition has a picture of Penelope Cruz on the cover. What's not to like?

What Just Happened?
Art Linson
Linson is a producer of movies like Heat, The Untouchables, The Edge and Fight Club - so he knows what he's talking about. What Just Happened? is his lid-opening take on Hollywood and, especially, dealing with studio executives in the morning and touchy creative types (De Niro and David Mamet particularly) in the afternoon. It's bloody hilarious and extremely instructive for any wannabe film producers. Apparently, Linson has just made the film of his book so everything's come full circle.

So come on then, what are you favourites?

[This entry also appears on Tommy Pearson's daily blog site, One More Take]

Why does the BBC hate the Baftas?

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:00:18 +0000

By Tommy Pearson

According to most news reports on television and in the newspapers, the BAFTA Awards are more significant now than ever before; this year even more so since the Golden Globes were reduced to a press conference and the Oscars broadcast was in the balance (at least up to today - the WGA strike is finally over!). The number of big names that come to London for the Baftas has increased over the years, which is a good sign. And since Bafta decided to host the ceremony in a theatre, it's become the serious enterprise it should be.

So it's a mystery to me why the BBC treats the whole thing with such lazy contempt. For a start, if it really cared about the Bafta awards it would show the whole ceremony live - like the Oscars and the Golden Globes (normally). I genuinely don't understand why it doesn't. To make it much worse, not only does BBC1 show edited highlights some time later, but it builds the awards around the all-important Ten O'Clock News. So we're not even allowed to enjoy more than an hour at a time. Another way of demonstrating they care would be if the BBC found a film actor/comedian to host it, rather than making the least imaginative choice of them all, Jonathan Ross (clearly the only person they could think of once the wonderful Stephen Fry passed).

Some things have improved since last year's all-time low broadcast - a badly edited, amateurish and pathetically crass affair, complete with terrible script and a 'presenter' at the side of the stage ready to ask the award-winners 'How do you feel?' But tonight's broadcast started very badly - the sound was at first appalling, then simply absent. Cracking mics continued to badger the presenters and host throughout. There's no presenter backstage (at least not on the main broadcast - god knows what they served up on the digital channel). And Jonathan Ross has toned it all down a bit this time, mercifully.

But still we have only highlights and a totally superfluous break for news at 10 (as if we don't all have enough places to get news these days). And many of the awards are not shown. Of course, you'd expect me to complain about the lack of the Best Original Score award in the TV coverage - downgraded instead to the 'other Baftas awarded tonight...' bit jammed in before the end credits. But then BBC1's controllers have never believed the audience is interested in anything other than the popular stuff, so the composers haven't got a hope. Even the Oscars shows the music award! It's time the BBC stopped talking the talk and walked the walk with a decent, well-produced and live show that helps Bafta celebrate and award fine films and promote its excellent work. It really wouldn't be that hard. Just give it some effort and imagination.

So what about the music award then? Christopher Gunning surprised everyone, except perhaps those of us who know how many times the Bafta voters live on another planet, by winning for La Vie En Rose. Did they vote for the songs again?! Lovely little score from Gunning, no doubt, but is it really better than the work of Dario Marianelli on Atonement or even Johnny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood? I'm not so sure. I still think Dario will win the Oscar.

See all the Bafta winners HERE

Tommy Pearson : Music Oscar noms announced

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:42:06 +0000

By Tommy Pearson

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the nominations for this years Oscars and the music and song categories throw up some interesting surprises.

In the Best Score category Dario Marianelli follows up his Golden Globe success with another nomination for Atonement; Alberto Iglesias gets a nod for The Kite Runner (the film's only nomination); and then 3 scores that this writer didn't see coming - James Newton Howard's Michael Clayton; Michael Giacchino's fun Ratatouille; and Marco Beltrami gets his first Oscar nom for 3:10 To Yuma.

In the Best Song category, Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz get 3 nominations - yes, 3! - for Enchanted; Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for 'Falling Slowly' from Once; and the song 'Raise it Up' gets a nomination for August Rush (writers unspecified, bizarrely).

See all the nominations at the official Oscar site.

I think Marianelli and Iglesias lead the field and I will stick my neck out and say that Atonement will win it for Marianelli. It feels like it is his year.

Tommy Pearson : The Music Category Confusion

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:37:00 +0000

By Tommy Pearson

The leading film music writer and historian, Jon Burlingame, wrote a fascinating and revealing article in Variety last week about how much the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has messed around with the Music categories over the years.

It's got to be the most tinkered-with category of all, a confusing mess of definitions, compromises and, frankly, fixes. For example, in 1938 the music category was split into 'scoring' (music from various sources) and 'original score' (music originally written for the film) so that the following year, Copland's 'Of Mice and Men' is actually nominated in both scoring and original score. Songs from Pinocchio then beat dramatic scores by Newman, Rozsa and Waxman. In 1944 there are an astounding fourteen nominations in scoring for a musical picture, limited to 5 the following year, presumably because of voter exhaustion! There were six changes to the music category name between 1970 and 1980; and many more times in the 80s and 90s. Note the dividing of the award again in 1995, to 'original dramatic score' and 'original musical or comedy score' - only because everyone thought Alan Menken (composer of songs/scores to Disney's Aladdin, Little Mermaid etc) had won too many Oscars and had to be stopped from hogging things.

BAFTA's music category has had it's own controversies and I served on a committee last year which had the task of reviewing the process and the actual name of the award - whether, like the Oscars, the award should be split or perhaps better reflect the skill of putting together music scores that use pre-existing music (the music supervisor's job). It was a very passionate and articulate committee - I'm told the music branch is always like that, above all others.

I have always argued in favour of the original score; the composer starts with only a blank piece of manuscript and creates something new. That's what should be rewarded and encouraged, particularly these days when every other teenager is writing derivative crap on his computer in the bedroom. There IS great skill in using songs in movies (Scorsese is a master, as is Tarantino) but I'm not sure there should be an award for relying on someone else's originality. However brilliant Scorsese's use of, say, 'Layla' is in Goodfellas, he's only using it because Eric Clapton's genius came up with it first. If Clapton had written a song especially for the film, and it had been used brilliantly, that would be another matter and could be reflected in the song award category.

Burlingame doesn't mention the Golden Globes but as far as I can tell it's just been a simple 'Best Original Score' and 'Best Original Song' split for years. If the awards even go ahead in 10 days' time (the WGA strike continues to affect everything) the music category is hard to predict. The nominated composers are Clint Eastwood for 'Grace Is Gone', Howard Shore for 'Eastern Promises', Dario Marianelli for 'Atonement', Brook/King/Vedder for 'Into the Wild' and Alberto Iglesias for 'The Kite Runner'.

Eastwood is one of my favourite directors in recent years (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, the Iwo Jima films) but he's not a composer and his dull tinklings on the piano have threatened to derail a number of his movies, especially Mystic River and now Grace is Gone. There are so many composers out there that could enhance Eastwood's tremendous film-making; he needs to delegate. Shore's Eastern Promises score has to go down as a major disappointment; fairly conventional and derivative, although right up the Academy voters' street, I bet. I saw 'The Game' again recently and was reminded of how original and creative Howard Shore can be when encouraged to use a less ordinary palate, away from the traditional orchestra set-up. I hope Lord of the Rings hasn't sent him in another direction (and let's not forget, Eastern Promises is a Cronenberg movie, so even more disappointing). The songs/music for 'Into The Wild' seem a little out of place in this category although they are extremely effective in the movie, which is the point of course. But my money is on either Dario Marianelli or Alberto Iglesias, who both contributed superb scores. Marianelli is a good bet for the Oscar this year and his Atonement score seemed to touch people who might not have noticed him before. Iglesias is my favourite though, if I had to chose. His music to The Kite Runner is the best thing in the movie; moving, original and skilful and surely another Oscar contender. The category is, after all, 'Best Original Score' - I think Iglesias's music fits that ample category title perfectly. Presumably they'll change it next year...

What's your favourite score from the Golden Globe nominations? Vote now on our new poll, on the right of this page.

Tommy Pearson : Bagpuss, the Clangers and Ivor

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:00:52 +0000

By Tommy Pearson

For British people of a certain age, the voice of Oliver Postgate is a thing of wonder. My childhood was dominated by it. For the uninitiated, Postgate was Britain's foremost children's animator/storyteller on TV during the 1960s and 70s, creating classic series like Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and the Clangers. Each one was beautifully scripted, gentle and utterly enchanting. Postgate, along with Peter Firmin, created the company Smallfilms in a cowshed near Canterbury where all their programmes were shot on laughably tiny budgets but huge amounts of imagination. Compared to today's kids shows (what's left of them, now that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all announced they are abandoning children's TV on the terrestrial channels), a Postgate/Firmin masterpiece like Bagpuss seems outrageously quaint and innocent, but that's what charms us - Postgate, with that soft, musical speaking voice, draws us in, as if we're being read a bedtime story. He doesn't patronise, he doesn't presume - according to a recent appearance on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs , Postgate never thought of children for a second when making the shows. No focus groups, no ignorant commissioning editors. Those were the days...

I always loved the music in the Postgate programmes which matched the gentle and (in the best possible way) low-budget feel of the animation. Bassoonist Vernon Elliott had been a founder member of the Philharmonia and a regular with the Royal Opera House orchestra before he was approached to write music for Postgate's productions. Since they never had any money, Elliott had to create effective little themes with very few instruments - but just as Postgate and Firmin found inspiration in their tiny budget (perhaps because of it), so too did Elliott; this is no-frills music for eccentric little groupings.

I have fond memories of Vernon Elliott from when I was very young. Every summer, young musicians from all over Kent would get together for a week-long course at the posh girls school in Benenden where they would play in orchestras, wind bands, choirs and get the chance to be tutored by professional musicians. The bassoon students would often be tutored by Vernon Elliott. He never really mentioned his association with Postgate and all those programmes we had all grown up with - except for the penultimate night of the course, when we presented a 'Music at Night' concert; a chance for the students to play chamber music or perform something different from what they'd been studying all week. Every year, Vernon Elliott would get his bassoon section to play the theme from Ivor the Engine and I'm sure that half the kids there didn't really know why. They loved it, of course, but some were unaware that the gentle, unassuming bassoon tutor had, in fact, been responsible for some of the best known themes in children's television. As a TV and film music geek even then, I would just grin in admiration and appreciation.

Trunk Records have been slowly releasing Vernon Elliott's music on CD in lovely packages that capture the beauty of Postgate's creations. Culled from the original quarter inch tapes, you can hear how basic the recording 'sessions' were - on the Clangers CD you can even hear birds outside, and pages being turned. But it only adds to the enjoyment. I featured the Clangers music on my BBC show a few years ago - a stunning release of sheer, unadulterated nostalgia. And now Elliott's music for Ivor the Engine has been released, together with music from another Postgate show that's perhaps less appreciated, Pogles Wood (which was screened 1966-8 as part of the BBC's Watch With Mother series). Once again, the liner notes took me back to teatime at home, watching the little dramas of Ivor the Engine's life (I'll never forget when he got caught in the snow). Elliott's music, dominated by the bassoon of course, playing that jaunty little tune, does what all great music achieves - it sends me to a different world; of gentle innocence and happy times. And there is that voice again. On Track One, there is Oliver Postgate cueing the music "Ivor the Engine, Second Series, Main Theme" - and it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Producers have better technology these days, all the computer design and rendering they could ever want, huge budgets, full orchestras, celebrity voices, 1000 animators in Japanese factories and an audience more clued-up than ever before. But will anyone ever produce a more glorious, perfect body of work than Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, that will last for generations and generations regardless of the advancement of technology? Well no, actually.

Bagpuss, Noggin and Ivor RULE!

Tommy Pearson : World Soundtrack Awards

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:41:42 +0100

By Tommy Pearson

David Arnold, Maurice Jarre & Tommy Pearson in Ghent

Phew! The World Soundtrack Awards, always the most fun on the film music calendar, are over for another year and it's time to get back to normal (well sort of). As visitors to this site will know, some of the top names in the genre have been in Ghent this year making it, certainly musically, the best festival yet. Harry Gregson-Williams, Alberto Iglesias, Mychael Danna and Gustavo Santaolalla are about as diverse a bunch as you can imagine and that's made this year very satisfying for musicians and music-lovers, especially those that were beginning to think that film music was just big sweeping themes and tinkly pianos (the staple of many past WSAs). The festival started with tango rock, as two-time Oscar-winning composer Santaolalla brought his band to Ghent as part of a European tour. To film goers, Santaolalla is a gentle guitarist of sparse scores for films like The Insider, Brokeback Mountain, 21 Grams and Babel. But the audience at the Voruit Arts Centre in Ghent was presented with an altogether different sound - a massive Argentinian musical party, with little Santaolalla at the centre of it, jumping up and down to the big beats. His band was awesome; technically flawless, energetic and passionate, as you might expect. I even took to the 'DJ' at the back, co-ordinating the beats. Gone are the vinyl decks of old; this guy punched the keys of two laptops, which was aesthetically not quite the same but I guess that's progress. The venue was jammed with students and older rockers (myself included in the latter) and the music was infectious and varied, although I preferred the intimate moments best - when Gustavo played solo a cue from The Motorcycle Diaries (he had to ask the crowd to shut up, though - that's students for you). I emerged from the gig hot and exhausted, but elated.

Next day it was time to focus on the concert featuring the music of Alberto Iglesias. Alberto is one of the gentlest souls you are ever likely to meet, a sensitive composer of enormous gifts. I've worked with him a couple of times before; this year I was writing the script and hosting the concert - a total pleasure. I adore Iglesias's music, especially his work for Almodovar and The Constant Gardener. In the concert we had a chance to hear for the first time his work on The Kite Runner, the latest Marc Forster movie based on the best-selling novel. It was stunning and must surely be an Oscar contender (the movie is coming out near Christmas but only after the child actors from Afghanistan have been safely smuggled out of the country). Iglesias's music was something of a departure for the Soundtrack Awards organisers - this is often challenging, aurally sophisticated music always aware of the wider world of contemporary music. So many of today's film composers seem only to be influenced by other film music; Alberto has his musical heart elsewhere and film is richer for that. The fine Flemish Radio Orchestra, and the audience on the night, certainly appreciated a different class of composer and an emotional and heart-felt standing ovation at the close of the concert confirmed it. The final music of the evening came from Almodovar's Talk To Her - that audacious dream sequence, presented as an old black and white silent movie, where a tiny man literally climbs into a woman's private parts for a look around. It shocks and pleasures in equal measure and it was a daring end to a wonderful evening. Alberto, never completely comfortable in the spotlight, was touched and moved by it all, and characteristically stayed in the bar til 5am with the rest of us!

Saturday was Awards day and by this point the number of composers present in Ghent was growing: all the Discovery of the Year nominees were there - including Nick Hooper, who just scored Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Ramin Djawadi, a charming composer originally from Germany, plus the eventual winners from Argentina, Daniel Tarrab and Andres Goldstein. Ghent regular David Arnold (Bond composer of choice) and Maurice Jarre (legend) were also in town, and both ending up collecting awards - Arnold won Best Original Song for Casino Royale and Maurice, wonderful Maurice, accepted an award on behalf of Soundtrack Composer of the Year winner Alexandre Despat. Desplat is in London scoring the first of the His Dark Materials movies, The Golden Compass, so sent a video message (which took about an hour to download over the criminally slow wi-fi at the concert venue! Technology is great when it works.) Clint Mansell, who this writer thought was American, turned out to be a Brummy - actually from Stourbridge in the West Midlands - and it was a great pleasure to see Clint win both Public Choice and Soundtrack of the Year awards for The Fountain. Those wonderful Birmingham vowels were nervous and humbled and, despite a call of 'speak up son' from his proud father, quite brief - Mansell looked to be genuinely surprised.

What a pleasure it is to host the awards with Roel van Bamboost, a popular Belgian film critic and TV star. I think we've developed a neat double-act after 3 years. Writing the script, as I do, can be tricky, trying to balance the information between Flemish and English without repeating too much. But I value Roel most for enjoying the occasion up on stage, and not minding when I deviate from the script (which is often). I'm so much happier when I can relax and be instinctive. Not all co-hosts like this, but Roel is great and, I think, actually prefers it when we 'riff'. A few people after the show commented that I looked very happy up on stage. Well yeah - what's not to like?

Among the musical surprises of the evening was Evanthia Reboutsika's stunning performance of music from 'My Father, My Son', which had won her the WSA Discovery of the Year award in 2006. It was great to hear Harry Gregson-Williams's music in full-blodied performance, and lovely to be reminded of Little Miss Sunshine through Danna's quirky score. I have to admit, however, that through much of this music I had my eye on my mobile phone, as texts giving me the latest score in the Rugby world cup final came through. By the time we reached Mychael Danna's section, the game was over and, having announced Danna onto the stage, he whispered in my ear - "Sorry about your team, man."

Apres awards and it was off to a private reception, where I had the chance to chat with Shrek director Andrew Adamson and eat some food before a group of us - the composers and the festival organisers - sped off to a tiny club to avoid the fans (of the composers, that is, not me!). The bar didn't take credit cards, which became something of a problem, so after a couple of hours, and having exhausted all of Clint Mansell's cash, we de-camped to the traditional retiring hole, Den Turk, opposite our hotel.

Another wonderful Ghent then. There are other film music festivals, but none of them will ever be quite like Ghent. Truly, it does feel like home. Roll on next year!

For a full list of award-winners at the 2007 World Soundtrack Awards, click HERE

For all information on Tommy Pearson, visit his official website.

Tommy Pearson : When Harry Meets Mychael

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:01:29 +0100

Some of the most fun I have all year is at the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium. It's an event that has grow steadily since it's inception in 2000, part of the Flanders International Film Festival which has been supporting film music for decades. I first went there as host of the BBC Radio 3 show Stage and Screen (where have I heard that name before?) as it boasted many prominent composers as guests. I soon found out why. The composers are always given an incredibly warm welcome and treated like stars, but in a way that never seems false or pretentious; they really mean it. No empty smiles and yes men here - just enthusiasm and devotion. As I got more familiar with the organisers, mostly thanks to the bar across the street from the hotel, Den Turk (the oldest pub in the city), which stays open as long as there are people in there, I was asked whether I might be able to host a concert - which turned out to be a Jerry Goldsmith memorial concert. Many more concerts followed and soon I found myself part of the festival furniture. And so it is this year. I'm hosting a concert of orchestral music by stunning Spanish film composer Alberto Iglesias (The Constant Gardener, all recent Pedro Almodovar films) which promises to be a really special event. And I'm also writing and hosting the World Soundtrack Awards themselves.

So forgive me if I big 'em up.

The awards ceremony is, as always, split in two: first half is the presentation of the awards, second half is live performance of music by 2 guest film composers. The awards nominations are the usual eccentric mix - as voted for by the World Soundtrack Academy. I never know who's going to win and gave up guessing years ago. The audience award is often the most revealing. I never forget Vangelis winning a couple of years back for Alexander - a score that was inept and dull by anyone's standards. But it won most popular score of the year!! What do I know? But the Discovery of the Year award is always worth taking seriously, especially when you see the list of previous winners : Gustavo Santaolalla (who the festival can rightly take credit for 'discovering), Michael Giacchino ('Lost', 'The Incredibles'), Klaus Badelt and Craig Armstrong. Last year's winner, Evanthia Roubitsika, will have her music played during the awards.

I'm particularly looking forward to our guests this year - Mychael Danna and Harry Gregson-Williams, two very contrasting composers who continually produce interesting work. I adored Danna's music in Little Miss Sunshine, but then I adored the movie as a whole. It reminded me of what Jon Brion might have done with it, and that's a great compliment. Harry I've known since he worked on Spy Game in 2001. I've been lucky enough to see both of them working in a studio. My old producer at the BBC, David McGuinness, was also (still is!) a fine pianist, and by coincidence he was asked to play on Danna's Vanity Fair score. At the sessions, we took the opportunity to interview Danna and he was charming, if a little stressed out (the permanent state of a film composer). I will never forget the day I saw Harry at Abbey Road. It was the Spy Game session, on September 11th 2001 and everyone knows what happened that day. Harry's whole crew was American and they were all beside themselves with shock and worry, hardly able to work but professional always. It was a truly difficult situation for Harry, desperately trying to get the music down in an expensive studio. But he took it in his stride and I was impressed by his pragmatism and cool head. Needless to say, the movie's completion was delayed by 6 months anyway, because of it's subject matter.

I know that both composers really will get a kick out hearing their music in concert. All that time spent in dark, air-conditioned studios with no-one but your assistant making coffee, composing can be a lonely business. Sitting with an audience enjoying live music, then getting up on stage to receive applause and adulation - who wouldn't want that?! And the Flemish Radio Orchestra, conducted by the heroic Dirk Brosse (also an experienced film composer), always do the music justice. Dirk's professionalism, dedication, musicality, understanding and enthusiasm are what make the Ghent concerts so special.

Quick story about how composers don't get out much, and how centered and obsessed they have to be. I was visiting Gregson-Williams at his studio, had lunch, chatted, then he took me up to the roof to show me the view. "Enjoy the sunshine and I'll be back in a minute' he said, eager to finish a bit of music he'd been working on. After about 30 mins I went down to the studio to see if everything was OK.

He'd completely forgotten I was there.

World Soundtrack Awards, October 20th 2007, Ghent Belgium.

www.tommypearsonmusic.com

Tommy Pearson : Goodbye Ronnie

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:32:22 +0100

Sad that my first blog should be about a death, but Ronnie Hazlehurst, who has died aged 79, was such a tremendous presence on British television it's hard to imagine a world without him. Ask any UK-based telly watchers of the last 40 years what their favourite TV theme is, chances are it'll be by Hazlehurst : Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em, Yes Minister, Blankety Blank, Last of the Summer Wine, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Are You Being Served - it's an impressive list and one that I couldn't help talking about when I interviewed Hazlehurst some years ago. I had actually got him in the studio to talk about the Eurovision Song Contest, as I was making a (fairly) serious series about it for BBC Radio 3. But how could I resist getting this legend to talk about all those wonderful themes, that had become so much a part of all our lives? And so we settled down to a lovely chat - on tape - about how he created and recorded the themes.

Much of his output was of its time. Are You Being Served could ONLY have been written in the 1970s, with its kitsch arrangement, even though it's actually a very sophisticated piece. I always rather liked the way Ronnie would get the title of the show into the music, like Blankety Blank ("Blankety Blank..boom boom...") and the morse code idea behind Some Mothers. I asked him about the use of piccolos for that theme and he said it was simply a question of budget - there wasn't one. He used what was available. And sing "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" to the word and you'll see how he came up with that 'fall and rise' tune. Kinda cute, but very effective and, most importantly of all, memorable. One of my earliest TV memories is being allowed to stay up and watch Butterflies, the bittersweet comedy from Carla Lane. The theme tune was by Dolly Parton but the gentle, fluttering arrangement was by Ronnie. Talking about all this music, Ronnie seemed almost embarrassed, as if he was being 'accused' of writing all this popular music somehow. Except when it came to Last of the Summer Wine. He loved working on that show, and was writing underscore for it when we met. He talked with great affection for the writer and actors of that enduringly popular show, and about his own, perfect little theme. It occurred to me then that Ronnie, having just retired to Guernsey, could have been one of those old northern lads in the series. His professional reputation could be fierce, he was, after all, a perfectionist. But by now he was happy, gently passing away the time writing melodies and scores that harked back to a golden age of British comedy.

Ronnie Hazlehurst WAS British comedy for a while. Thanks to re-runs, we will never forget his genius.

Hear a BBC radio interview with Ronnie Hazlehurst HERE

Danny Graydon : The soundtrack(s) that rule them all...

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:42:41 +0100

by Danny Graydon

November 6th is a red-letter day for collectors of film music - and rampant devotees of a certain fantasy film franchise. Reprise/WMG Records will be releasing the grand finale of their incredibly impressive ‘Complete Recordings’ sets of Howard Shore’s masterful and complex scores for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings movies, which have been honored with three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King — The Complete Recordings will be the largest of the trio, a sumptuous five-disc affair with four compact discs containing all three hours and fifty minutes of Shore’s music on the Extended cut of the film (available on DVD) and a fifth DVD-Audio disc that contains the entire score again in digital surround sound. Like the prior two sets, the above will be contained in deluxe packaging with all-new artwork and hugely informative liner notes by Doug Adams, author of the forthcoming book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films.
Performed by London Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Voices and The London Oratory School, the ROTK score features vocal performances by Renée Fleming, Sissel, Ben Del Maestro and, of course, pop chanteuse Annie Lennox, whose beautifully elegiac end-credits song “Into The West” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song (and, conveniently, Lennox’s appearance on this set will doubtless provide a nice PR boost to her fourth solo album, Songs of Mass Destruction, released this week). The score also features solos performed by renowned flautist Sir James Galway.
For many, myself among them, Shore’s Rings scores are a mesmerizing achievement in modern film music. Indeed, they’re practically unrivalled: the only remotely compatible work of recent times would be John Williams’ six Star Wars scores and their overall impact has been diluted by the comparative weakness of the Prequel works (1999, 2002, 2005) the album presentation of which are simply atrocious, cues inexplicably sequenced out of order and, far worse, ending abruptly due to the editing changes to the film once the score had been applied. Shore’s work – both on film and album - suffers from no such inconsistency: his compositions display a profoundly impressive prowess in weaving together dozens of themes and maintaining a startling consistency in its generation and maintenance of rich drama and emotion. Wonderfully, the Complete Recordings sets allow for this to be experienced in full – in one marathon 12-hour stint, if you want.
On the other hand, it would be remiss to be entirely taken in by the hype, the phenomenal box-office and the awards and assume that Shore’s scores for Jackson’s globe-gobbling trilogy are universally loved. Not so: many is the time that I have been playfully harangued for my affection for Shore’s music for Middle Earth. Do I not get bored by the hugely overblown, cod-operatic bombast of it all? The irritatingly twee emotional themes? The endless bloody choirs? The presence of Enya? All that for a film about walking??
Certainly, I can appreciate it’s not for everyone, but my standard response to such criticism is to tell them something that the late, great Elmer Bernstein told me in an interview: “A good film score makes you feel…”.This is something that the Rings scores achieves in glorious abundance, above and beyond their abounding success in capturing musically the nuances of Tolkien’s vivid cultures and environments.
Yet, whatever your opinion, the release of The Complete Recordings – all of which offer 60-75% of previously-unreleased music on top of the original CD releases – have set a considerable new benchmark in the commercial release of archival-quality orchestral soundtracks in their entirety, much as the Extended versions of the films raised the bar of special edition DVD releases. For the eager film music collector, they are must-have fare, providing a superb opportunity to enjoy the full – and vast - scope of one of the greatest film scores of our times.

Danny Graydon is a UK-based freelance journalist and critic. He writes for EMPIRE, Variety Weekly, The First Post, SFX, SciFiNow, International Film Guide and is the co-author of The Rough Guide to Film Noir.
(c) Danny Graydon 2007