Personally, I wouldn't have given the Academy Award for Best Original Score to Ludovic Bource's work on The Artist. However, I did quite like Bource's effort, as it's a breezy, infectious, warmly-orchestrated throwback to golden age film music which works superbly in context.
Unfortunately, it seems that some are remarkably angry about Bource's win. Not because they found his original material lacking in quality, mind you (though some certainly do), but rather because of the manner in which The Artist incorporated an iconic musical selection from Bernard Herrmann's score for Vertigo. It's doubtful that any of the folks complaining will actually read this, but I feel a need to clear up some common misconceptions for the sake of aiding those expressing misguided outrage.
1. It's not Bource's fault.
Quite a few have accused Bource of demonstrating shameless behavior by simply ripping off the Vertigo theme instead of writing original music. The decision was made by the director, not Bource. In fact, Bource actually wrote original music for the scene, which was rejected in favor of the Herrmann piece (you can actually hear Bource's fine composition for the scene on the soundtrack album).
2. The music wasn't stolen.
The piece of pre-existing music was licensed by the filmmakers and was used in entirely legal fashion. This is done in almost every movie - a song written for a Tom Waits album turns up in Domino, a piece of music from The 13th Warrior turns up in Kingdom of Heaven and the theme from Across 110th Street appears in Jackie Brown. Granted, it might have been inadvisable to use such an immediately recognizable piece of film music in this case, but The Artist doesn't violate Vertigo any more than Kill Bill violated Navajo Joe (and it certainly didn't "rape" Kim Novak's "body of work"). If the Herrmann estate didn't want the music used in the film, then they wouldn't have allowed the producers of The Artist to buy the rights to that particular selection.
3. The music wasn't re-arranged for the movie by Bource.
This is a smaller complaint, but a surprisingly common one. The music wasn't arranged by Bource. It is actually a 1993 recording of the theme conducted by Elmer Bernstein. So much of the vitriol lobbed at Bource has gone back to his alleged employment of the Vertigo theme in his score, but Bource simply had nothing to do with it.
The misplaced anger is exasperating, but not exactly surprising. Surprisingly few film critics actually bother to learn anything about what film music does or how it is created, which leads to every other critic referring to any large-scale orchestral score as sounding like a rip-off of John Williams. This also leads to artists who avoid traditional film music technique - Ry Cooder, Trent Reznor, Vangelis, A.R. Rahman, etc. - getting overpraised, simply because their music is so explicitly different from the norm that many critics can't help but recognize that it doesn't sound like everything else. In fact, the distinct nature of Bource's score is likely what earned it the Oscar win in the first place. His music is too thoughtlessly praised, too thoughtlessly condemned and not appreciated enough for what it really achieves.
Back at ya later
'Surprisingly few film critics actually bother to learn anything about what film music does or how it is created"
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to bring specific attention to that statement. I get tired of people either praising or shredding specific aspects of a movie when they obviously have no idea what they're talking about. I see this a lot with editing, too -- and for that matter, writing. More than a few people on the internet were complaining about The Artist's screenplay nod because it doesn't have (much) dialogue.
And as far as editing goes, all I have to say to that is: 2007.