Intrada Soundtrack Forum

While I don't hate Bob Dylan with that fervor, I completely understand the sentiment and wish one of the Jerrys had been able to score the film.

Yavar

Thanks for your comments, Yavar. I guess I was a little tough on Bob Dylan, there. I certainly don't hate him though. I actually have one of his albums (Nashville Skyline), and think he did a very equitable job in producing it. I just think he was a horrible choice for the Pat Garret & Billy the Kid film.
I have often wondered why Fielding wasn't used, and perhaps someone out there in forum-land has the answer? I have speculated that perhaps Peckinpah had to use Dylan's songs as a concession to the films Producers (and perhaps tied to Dylan's appearance in the film). That's total speculation on my part, I have not encountered (or remember) any valid anecdotal evidence. If someone has the real story behind this, I would love to hear it. --Rich

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No matter where you go, there you are....Wait a minute! That's how it always works out.

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DavidinBerkeley

"Ask [the director] where the camera comes from and I'll tell him where the music comes from" (David Raksin)

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"If music doesn`t sing, or dance, or have an interesting harmonic concept, then it shouldn`t be there at all. A film score should burn with its own fire, not merely glow in the dark like a pretty charcoal." – John Barry, 1972

If TV counts, I'd like to chip in with Nelson Riddle's "The Concrete Overcoat Affair" (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.)," Vic Elms' "Ring Around The Moon" (Space: 1999) and Mundell Lowe's "The Night of the Amnesiac" (The Wild Wild West). (Perhaps not coincidentally, none of them contributed more than one score to those series - in the case of Riddle it was especially glaring, since he was the only composer in all four seasons of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. who was never asked back.)

Definitely counting - Ennio Morricone's Disclosure. What was with that annoying dit-dit-dit sound? It didn't help with Wolf and it doesn't work here either.

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"Now I don't wanna kill you and you don't wanna be dead!"

The discussion of BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL has reminded me of how selective our memories can be. I engaged with BABY about 25 years ago as part of a teaching unit on the interesection of various social problems in the multiple problem family. In the pre-video era, I had to rent a 16 mm print of the film from the Columbia Pictures library. To develop my teaching strategies I made a tape of the film's complete soundtrack to use in my preparations. I still have the tape packed away somewhere.

With that background, and based on Doug's feedback, I went back and re-watched the DVD last evening. I came away with several general impressions of the score. My recollection that this score was a minor classic, for Bernstein, still holds, even having been called into doubt as a Bernstein misfire. There was a lot more music in the film than I had originally remembered and my memory of the spotting of the film was indeed spotty. In the first act of the film, the music cues are very brief, and almost European in their brevity. The film, being based on Horton Foote's 1954 stage play, is very dialogue driven and I think this may have influenced the structure of the scoring leading up to the film's more heavily scored visually driven scenes.

Elmer Bernstein was not just a fine composer of great music, in my books, but he was also a fine dramatist. Watching the film anew, it was apparent to me that there was a carefully crafted dramatic design unfolding in the score. I also noticed that the pilloried jazz rock arrangements, done by Shorty Rogers, also show up in the score as source music at the Wagon Wheel, played on Henry's car radio, at the Pecan Grove, or in the opening of the stylized opening credits leading into the breezy melody which becomes associated with the character of Georgette Thomas in the film, the 'travelling lady theme.' Watching the film last night I ended up calling this the "Georgette's naive optimism theme" as Bernstein and Pakula/Mulligan tended to spot the theme in those moments where Georgette anticipated that things would get better. It is used, for example, (with Mexican rhythms) about half way through the film, when mother and daughter play after Henry has announced that he is going to reform his double life. And, oh yes, I noticed Glenn Campbell playing in Henry's string band at the Wagon Wheel.

I sensed there are two parts to that breezy theme. The marimba/xylophone/castenets and the woodwind melody. Horton Foote has been called a writer of locale (Texas) and Bernstein acknowledges that locale in his rhythmic underlay, using Mexican rhythms to telescope the regional culture and proximity to Mexico, of Texas, in his theme. I think that is consistent with Foote who adapted his stage play for the film. The more important part, contained in the woodwind melody, gets developed by Bernstein in his score proper as the film becomes darker. The marimba rhythms disappear, only to return in the closing credits as Georgette reflects to her daughter about their future travel plans. I have mentioned that this score is layered (3 layers: the travelling metaphor, Henry's musical aspirations and the bar band culture, and the dramatic underscoring of Henry's psycho-social problems and his inability to connect with his family and community - a not uncommon dilemma for survivors of abuse). That woodwind melody ends up being a cohesive link among the various layers. A thought I had is that there is an optimism in Bernstein's melody, composed in the mid-Sixties, which is quite out of sync with the cynicisim and conservatism of our contemporary times, and perhaps that influences our reading of this score.

I thank Doug for motivating me to go back and have another look, and listen, from a more sharpened perspective, at the film. It's been a good conversation. Thanks!

b.