criterionforum.org

There was also that unfortunate comment by the boxer David Haye a while back.

Anyway I agree with Gregory, Novak is perhaps being a little too dramatic. But presumably 'an obvious and anacronistic for the period being depicted act of lazy, manipulative appropriation' doesn't trip off the tongue as effectively.

Funny, 'lazy, manipulative appropriation' seems an entirely apt phrase for the use of the term 'rape' in this context

I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had recognized the music from Vertigo when I was watching the film - but I didn't.

I'd say the odds as to why that music ended up in the film is this:

A film score is often one of the last elements to be completed in a film. While the film is in the editing process, a 'temp track' is often cobbled together from already-existing music - part of the idea being to give the composer an idea of what kind of music the director wants for any given moment.

I know that there have been instances in the past of 'temp track' pieces making it into a final film score , but can't think of any specific examples off hand. I think maybe SOME music in Kubrick films were originally not supposed to be in the final film but can't say for sure (as he so often used already-existing music).

So I'd guess in The Artist they had the music from Vertigo in the temp track and when the time came for the score to be completed the director felt like nothing the composer came up with worked as well as the Herrmann music. They then were able to convince whomever owns the rights to the music in the film to them.

Personally, I think as long as the makers of the Artist are above-board when asked about appropriating outside music - more power to them. They sacrifice a part of their profits each time the film is shown. The good thing about using even older pieces of music is that at a certain point (I think its 100 years but that may have changed) they go out of copyright - so the estate of Bach (or whomever) cannot demand a cut of the profits.

I very much doubt the makers of The Artist used that music in order to make any type of assertion that they are 'equals' to Hitchcock - just as anyone using any great piece of music are trying to hold themselves up as 'equals' to Mozart or whomever.

D_B wrote:I know that there have been instances in the past of 'temp track' pieces making it into a final film score , but can't think of any specific examples off hand. I think maybe SOME music in Kubrick films were originally not supposed to be in the final film but can't say for sure (as he so often used already-existing music).

2001 is famously all temp track, with Alex North's original score rejected in its entirety.

zedz wrote: 2001 is famously all temp track, with Alex North's original score rejected in its entirety.

That's what I must have been thinking of - thanks!

zedz wrote:

D_B wrote:I know that there have been instances in the past of 'temp track' pieces making it into a final film score , but can't think of any specific examples off hand. I think maybe SOME music in Kubrick films were originally not supposed to be in the final film but can't say for sure (as he so often used already-existing music).

2001 is famously all temp track, with Alex North's original score rejected in its entirety.

There's a lovely bit of understatement in one of the biographies of György Ligeti (Richard Toop's, I think) in which he refers to Kubrick hiring "another composer" (he tactfully doesn't name North), "who sadly proved quite unable to produce Ligeti Requiems to order".

Since Ligeti himself needed six months to compose the Kyrie alone, that's not too surprising.

Even so, sometimes even the original composer can't sound enough like the original composer. Jerry Goldsmith talked once or twice in interviews about several cues from his own score for Freud being used in the temp track for Alien, some of which were retained in the film because Ridley Scott liked them more than the new cues Goldsmith came up with. Goldsmith was understandably upset, and was very reluctant to score Legend for Scott a few years later for fear that something similar might happen again, which it did: a cue or two from Goldsmith's Psycho II ended up in the European release of Legend, and Goldsmith's score was thrown out entirely in favor of a new score by Tangerine Dream for the American version.

Scott Bettencourt of Film Score Monthly put together an interesting list of films where temp scores were retained. In the first version of the article, he notes:

Ridley & Tony Scott have done it enough times that it may come to be called "Pulling a Scott".

"Pulling a Scott" is probably a better term for it than "rape."

It's going to be an easy film to knock, especially by those with a knowledge of the era and film history. There are plenty of anachronisms and of course it uses techniques at odds with silent filmmaking. It's very self-aware, knowing and basically jumbles together existing films in pastiche form. It's crowdpleasing, middlebrow Oscarbait and stands up to no intellectual analysis. But I enjoyed it immensely.

Kirkinson wrote:Even so, sometimes even the original composer can't sound enough like the original composer. Jerry Goldsmith talked once or twice in interviews about several cues from his own score for Freud being used in the temp track for Alien, some of which were retained in the film because Ridley Scott liked them more than the new cues Goldsmith came up with. Goldsmith was understandably upset, and was very reluctant to score Legend for Scott a few years later for fear that something similar might happen again, which it did: a cue or two from Goldsmith's Psycho II ended up in the European release of Legend, and Goldsmith's score was thrown out entirely in favor of a new score by Tangerine Dream for the American version.

Scott Bettencourt of Film Score Monthly put together an interesting list of films where temp scores were retained. In the first version of the article, he notes:

Ridley & Tony Scott have done it enough times that it may come to be called "Pulling a Scott".

"Pulling a Scott" is probably a better term for it than "rape."

This is what immediately sprang to my mind as well. At least in Jerry Goldsmith's case, it looks like his own older material was used as replacement - that's got to be less offensive than the producers' using another film composer's work. While THE ARTIST appears to be composer Ludovic Bource's highest profile film to date, I wonder how he felt to have Bernard Herrmann's work replace his own? We know that Herrmann did not take well to this sort of thing.

It blows my mind that something like MISS CONGENIALITY 2 would borrow music cues from eight previously released films! That makes me think the credited composer, John Van Tongeren, was dismissed early in production.

Didn't Michael Nyman have a terminal falling-out with Peter Greenaway over something similar?

If I remember rightly, the bust-up was over Prospero's Books (which I noticed at the time blatantly recycled earlier Nyman pieces, presumably over his objections), and The Baby of Mâcon ended up with a soundtrack made up entirely of music from the period - which I don't think was part of the original plan.

There is also that interview in the Brazil boxset with Michael Kamen about an even worse problem beyond having your work replaced by someone thought to be better or more appropriate: apparently Gilliam had temped the film to Kamen's score for The Dead Zone thinking that this would help to place the composer in a better position to see the kind of music he was wanting for the scenes, but unfortunately Kamen was unhappy at being put into a situation of having to repeat/better/compete against himself!

As I recall, the Greenaway-Nyman bustup on Prospero's Books was over some electronic manipulation Greenaway applied to the score. Greenaway used existing Nyman works in earlier films (notably "Memorial" in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, plus a piece from Drowning by Numbers in the same film), so I don't think that in and of itself would've been enough to break up the partnership. A similar issue led to Kitano and Joe Higashi ending their partnership after Dolls.

Going back to Kubrick, he also ended up not using most of the Wendy Carlos/Rachel Elkind score for The Shining, although there are some sequences where their score is mixed with the existing compositions.

Another really nasty instance (though for a less notable film) was Elfman on Spiderman 2. Supposedly Rami was so in love with the temp track the Elfman just walked out on the production all together.

I'm still shocked and confused that Kim Novak would spend $$$X and go through the effort of doing all this just to try to make a point. Where was she when Brian De Palma was making movies in the 1980s? Where was she during the Gus Van Sant debacle? Surely those two guys alone would have irked her wayyy more than a simple musical cue in The Artist (and as pointed out, one which did not work very well)? How does she then feel about Tarantino? Or any other artists who pay homage or straight up rip whole scenes from movies they grew up with?

I can only add to the hate. This is low-brow garbage designed to make people who have never watched a silent film feel like they "appreciate the art form". It's like they tried to imitate only the worst examples of silent cinema - broad, hammy acting; absurd melodrama that manages to be laughable even when someone has the business end of a pistol in his mouth; and utterly simplistic (borderline dimwitted) storytelling. The only good thing about it was the dream sequence (what a better film that would have been!).

For what it's worth, from the Golden Globe coverage (via the NY Times):

Melena Ryzik, aka The Carpetbagger wrote:On the red carpet, Ludovic Bource, the composer for "The Artist," discussed the controversy - raised by "Vertigo" actress Kim Novak - about the film's use of a bit of the score from that Hitchcock classic. "For us, it was really important to make a tribute, to the wonderful master, Bernard Hermann," the composer for "Vertigo," Mr. Bource said. Mr. Bource called Ms. Novak, who compared the appropriation of the score to rape, "a fantastic person" and said he didn't want any confusion about why they chose the music. ""The music of Hermann needs to be recognized, that's why we did this,"" he said.

Also, Mr. Bource said he had an unusual muse in Uggie, the dog star of "The Artist."

"He inspired many melodies," he said.

Hermann needs to be recognized in a silent film tribute?

In some odd alternative universe, apparently yes.

Saw this today with a packed and appreciative audience and I loved it. So many of the criticisms being lobbed at it here and elsewhere by other self-ascribed "Cinema Experts" are of the "How dare they" sort which were just as tiresome when directed at the Good German a few years ago. I could give a shit about authenticity, especially since no film made of these same parts could ever please the purists. I'm well aware of what film-making of the era depicted looks like, and so what? If I nitpick and complain, will that prove I'm a True Blue Cinemaphile?

All of the actors, human and otherwise, do a great job here, but special praise goes to Bérénice Bejo who gives a warm and, yes, peppy performance that made the same dumb grin I had on my face the whole movie even wider every time she was on screen. I wasn't the only one charmed by the film: when the credits rolled, the loudest applause I've ever heard in a movie theatre erupted from the crowd-- as much for themselves as for the film, perhaps, but what's wrong with that?

I loved every single, daft, soppy minute of it. I can't refute any of the criticisms and wouldn't dream of showing my relative ignorance of silent cinema by attempting to, but it left me with a big silly grin on my face and a burning desire to see it again. Judging by the applause, most of the audience felt the same way.

Speaking of Bernard Herrmann and temp tracks, and apropos of very little, when Brian De Palma wanted the composer to score "Sisters", he used the score of "Marnie" as a temp track. The great man wasn't impressed, to put it mildly although he forgave the director sufficiently to do the scores for two of his films and to be planning a score for "Carrie" when he died.

Isn't there a quote in McBride's book about Orson Welles from Bernard Hermann where he claims most directors have terrible taste in music (especially Hitchcock)...but Welles didn't?
Just throwing this out there...feels like maybe Hermann would appreciate a director having seemingly better taste in music...

Drucker wrote:Isn't there a quote in McBride's book about Orson Welles from Bernard Hermann where he claims most directors have terrible taste in music (especially Hitchcock)...but Welles didn't?

Herrmann certainly did say this, and I haven't read McBride's book, which suggests that it was quite widely reported. In fact, Herrmann was very fond of completely ignoring Hitchcock's instructions, most famously/notoriously with Psycho, for which Hitchcock initially wanted "a fidgety, post-bebop jazz score" and no music in the shower scene.

Just throwing this out there...feels like maybe Hermann would appreciate a director having seemingly better taste in music...

I'm not sure I follow your argument - are you saying that Herrmann would have preferred his Vertigo score to be repurposed in a film for which it wasn't actually composed? Because I frankly can't think of anything less likely - whatever Herrmann thought of Hitchcock's taste in music, he made damn sure that he did the best possible job, and reached an arguable creative peak in Vertigo with music that fits that specific film's themes of yearning, obsession and loss like the proverbial glove.

There's a topic - good directors with bad taste in music (or at least some serious lapses). There's a brief moment in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) where Stewart, Day et al all concur in their complete dismissal of bebop - I wonder if Hitch felt the same way?

Anyway, my dislike for The Artist is starting to resemble my dislike for Billy Joel - to me, they're both like nails-on-a-chalkboard but I have friends who are huge fans of both and it's pretty amazing how surprised they become when I tell them I don't like either. The ensuing debate is the same: "What's so bad about Billy Joel/The Artist?" "Jesus, if it's not obvious, I'm not going to convince you."

As to the Herrmann quote, here is one version verbatim...

"I have the final say, or I don’t do the music. The reason for insisting on this is simply, compared to Orson Welles, a man of great musical culture, most other directors are just babes in the woods. If you were to follow their taste, the music would be awful. There are exceptions. I once did a film The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) with a wonderful director William Dieterle. He was also a man of great musical culture. And Hitchcock, you know, is very sensitive; he leaves me alone. It depends on the person. But if I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way."

This quote is from 1973 so it is after the TORN CURTAIN fiasco. Apparently, Herrmann was in a forgiving mood that day.