In Defense of JAMES HORNER... (1 Viewer)

[Robert Anthony]

let me make a hip-hop comparison, as fun as this might be (and I'm guessing more than a few of you will be lost by this):

Williams is like The Bomb Squad
Horner is like Puff Daddy.

The Bomb Squad knew how to take a sonic landscape and shape it to perfection for Chuck D. to work with. Puff Daddy sorta just looped some stuff up. Yet both Public Enemy (produced by The Bomb Squad) and Puff Daddy both went multiplatinum many times over. There are things to like in both production styles, but if it seems you're not being as ORIGINAL with your re-purposing as others are, then you're going to have a stigma attached.

 

[Nick Martin]

You compare James Horner to that Puffy P.Diddy Piece Of Shit?!?!?

How dare you compare him to that useless trash of a man, even if it's only an analogy!

 

[Robert Anthony]

..it's an analogy. I thought it'd be amusing.

What's even more amusing is if you're versed in the history of Hip-Hop, the analogy holds up. Your boy Horner is the film score equivalent of Puff Daddy.

 

[Nick Martin]

Fine, make me sick with disgust!

Comparing Horner to that (insert any racist term you want, because that's what he is)... I don't care for hip-hop anyway, though with my skin color, people who see me just assume I do.

 

[todd stone]

I thought Braveheart was one of his best works

 

[Robert Anthony]

To be honest, I'm curious to see how many HTF'ers are even familiar with either artist enough to follow my analogy where it goes.

I mean, if anyone here could recognize 10 seconds of "Welcome to the Terrordome" and "Big Poppa" and then break down the samples used in each.

 

[Jay Pennington]

Not I.

 

[L. Anton Dencklau]

IIRC "Big Poppa" is taken from the isley brothers.

This thread is by the way.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

I'd like to chime in here and say that James Horner's score for KRULL is one of my all-time faves, and I've never heard another score quite like it...I'm no film music expert of course, but it doesn't seem derivative to me; quite unique, actually. The score helps turn marginal matinee fodder into something much more enjoyable; KRULL is my favorite STAR WARS ripoff, and I've loved it ever since I first saw it on RCA CED Videodisc at around 15 or 16 years of age. I also love his music for KHAN, another film we had on CED.

 

[Chris:P]

I'm new to this forum, and it seems I'm jumping into a fire with my first post. I actually found this thread by accident while searching for something else, but I like Horner's music for the post part, so I got side-tracked.

One point I haven't seen mentioned is the short time frame in which film composers have to work. Most often, they get 8 to 12 weeks to write, orchestrate, and produce a film score, and sometimes even less. Under those circumstances, I think it's understandable that composers end up borrowing from themselves and even others, and I suspect that it happens most often because there isn't time to ensure that they're not borrowing.

Sometimes the crunch is tremendous. I remember watching "Air Force One" and thinking within the first 15-30 seconds that someone had spent too much time with the score from "Star Trek First Contact," and then Jerry Goldsmith's name appeared. I was surprised and disappointed, because I don't usually find his scores that predictable, but some time later I learned that Goldsmith had about four weeks in which to do that job. It turns out that Wolfgang Petersen first hired Randy Newman but ended up rejecting his score for some reason, and hired Goldsmith with the short deadline.

For a good perspective and insight, I recommend listening to the isolated score and commentary by Randy Newman on the DVD of "Pleasantville." Even if you're not a Newman fan (though I am), I think you'll find his commentary very interesting.

 

[Brook K]

PE got a brand new funk!

It was horrifying, there were men on stage with fake uzi's

Every brother ain't a brother
Cause a Black hand
Squeezed on Malcom X the man

I can't recall a single bar of Braveheart or Star Trek, but I'm down with Welcome to the Terrordome. I listened to Fear of a Black Planet constantly back in the day. We used the logo for our dorm T-shirts my freshman year in college. Chuck would have gotten a kick out of that, a bunch of middle and upper class white kids sporting PE-esque shirts with "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" on the back.

 

[David Coleman]

I love Horner's scores!! I'll admit I really haven't followed his work since MASK OF ZORRO.

My favorite score of his is LEGENDS OF THE FALL. I love the title theme, THE LUDLOWS and especially TWILIGHT AND MIST. I think that score perfectly captures the essence of the film. I also think GLORY is not only one of his finest but one of the finest scores you'll ever hear!! BRAVEHEART is another excellent score of his. However I think his most underappreciated score is FIELD OF DREAMS which I can't even imagine without his music!! TITANIC is excellent too!!

I will admit to hearing some or parts of his themes being recycled in more than a few movies yet his scores nearly consistently hit the mark of what a score is suppose to do and that's to carry the story!

Yes, he's missed on some too!! TROY is a mess!! It has to be his worse and i'd be really curious to hear Gabriel Yared's score as i'm sure it had to better!!

 

[Alex cosmo]

I wish Horner had done Star Trek IV. That Christmas music score is pure ass. I wish some clever editor could recycle the music from II or III (or Krull even) in it's place!

 

[Robert Anthony]

He WAS amused by that. About 80 percent of the audiences at PE concerts were middle class white kids it's why he ended up exploring rock as much as he did on 'Apocalypse 91'

 

[Patrick H.]

As an undergrad music major myself, I have to say that Horner has been irritating me a lot of late. I will add my confirmation (for what it's worth) that there are indeed note-for-note borrowings between a few of his scores, but as Chris mentions above, such things are not at all uncommon in the tightly scheduled world of film scoring. Even the great classical/romantic-era composers frequently built upon their previous material...it's a natural part of evolving as a composer.

Unfortunately, it seems that Horner's evolution has mostly stopped following 'Titanic'...a lot of the films he works on these days I find over-scored and totally generic-sounding. And I don't mean he's just ripping himself off...he's Frankensteining things together from a wide spectrum of sources. 'Enemy at the Gates' borrowed one of it's key themes from John Williams' 'Schindler's List.' 'Troy' was constructed wholesale out of Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, and Benjamin Britten's 'War Requiem' (he didn't even bother to change the keys). There's a difference between music that's derivative (which a lot of film scoring is to some degree) and something you need a copyright attorney to defend.

HOWEVER, I'm at all slamming the man's capabilities. His Star Trek music, 'Krull,' 'Field of Dreams,' 'Glory'...these are GREAT scores. I even think 'The Rocketeer' is pretty damn cool. That's what makes his current output frustrating...he has the ability to do a lot more.

 

[Shaun]

It's quite obvious that the man is creatively drained as far as coming up with new and original music these days. It's always frustrating when listening to his scores, how you can pick out the bits and peices from his earlier scores. However, that doesn't keep his new music along with his usual bag of tricks from being enjoyable. We'll always have his older scores which are fantastic peices of work. I especially have a fondness for his dramatic scores as they can be quite emotional.

My favorites include:

The Man Without A Face
Legends of the Fall
Braveheart
Field of Dreams
Cocoon
Willow
The Rocketeer
Casper

...and many more.

 

[Chris:P]

One other thing to consider is the director, who has the final say about the score, whether it's individual cues or the entire work. If a director hires Joe Composer because he like's Joe's style, then Joe is obliged to deliver that style even if he'd rather write something different. Similarly, the director may ask for something that echoes Mozart, Debussy, or some other composer, though preferably someone who. And in any event, the director may take liberties with it after it's recorded. Here again, I refer to Newman's commentary on "Pleasantville" for insight.

None of this is meant to excuse outright theft of other composer's themes, though, even if it's unintentional. I've always loved Bill Conti's score for "The Right Stuff," but finding out how much he lifted from a Tchaikovsky violin concerto for the main theme was very disappointing.

Not to dump on Horner, but he got caught in a more direct lift in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," not because of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse," but because his main theme for the film was pretty much a rearrangement of Nino Rota's theme for "Fellini's Amarcord." Rota's estate actually sued over that one and got Rota's name added to the credits.

 

[Nick Martin]

I have that score, (loved it as a 7 year old when I first saw the movie when it came out in 1989, and still love the score to this day) and regardless of how much of the score he created, it's such a crazy joy to listen to.


Geez, guys, why the hell are you all still talking about this damn reuse issue?

 

[Kevin M]

......b...because this is HTF?

 

[Tino]

Nicholas

You are aware that you could have this thread closed if you so wish since you started it, aren't you?