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From: no4pag@ihuxm.UUCP (Gail Valentine)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Music in films set in history
Message-ID: <1278@ihuxm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 10:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxm.1278
Posted: Fri May 24 10:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 08:50:03 EDT
References: <759@mtgzz.UUCP> <465@wjvax.UUCP> <775@mtgzz.UUCP> <7274@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 32

> 
>   Rock (or pop) music is more jarring than orchestral. It draws attention
> to itself and away from the movie. The movie's scene, then, must draw
> more attention than the music, and to do so the scene must be visually
> exciting (frantic, loud - I'm not sure of what word I want). In the
> fight scenes of Flash Gordon the music (by Queen) did not overpower the
> scenes and seemed (to me) appropriate. This type of scene would by very
> rare, however, in a movie set in a (pseudo-)historical setting, and if
> pop was used in an appropriate scene in one of these movies, it would
> break up the aural continuity of the movie (assuming appropriate music
> was used throughout the other, less wild scenes).
>   All this closet philosophising (?) aside, I think the *real* reason it
> doesn't sound right is because we've all spent 20+ years watching
> historical films with an orchestral arrangement, and so we associate
> a historical setting with that type of music. Orchestral music was
> used initially because that was the type of music that the public would
> associate with grandeur (i.e. same reason for all those movies being made
> "with a cast of thousands").
>   There's my two bits, anyhoooo ...
> 
> 			Daiv Tanguay

I had a completely different reaction to the music in LADYHAWK -- probably
because the kid (drat, whatisname, anyway) was so out of context for
the nominal time of the piece, I mentally assigned it to "no-time" and
therefore found the music totally undisturbing in context and often
appropriate to the action.  Music of another sort would have put the
kid even more out of context, as it was, I saw it as providing a slim
effort at bringing the whole thing together.
-- 
Gail Valentine
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