by Paul Tonks
(grand) finale – n. / Pron. “fin ah lay”
1. The closing section or movement of a musical composition.
2. The concluding part of any performance, presentation or body of written work.
3. A running joke in the cue titles of early Danny Elfman score albums.
4. What you’re about to read.
We come to it at last. The great battle of my time.
I very nearly saw this Column make it to its second birthday, but now it won’t. The time has come for me to say farewell to the world of film music journalism and move on to other things.
I already wrote a piece on ways in which being a soundtrack reviewer are fraught with peril (here), so there’s no need for me air my dirty laundry over what’s an ass-pain in this aspect of the job. But since a few folks have already asked me “why?”, I’ll elaborate a little:
One of the hardest things I’ve come to accept about the film music industry is that in adverse proportion to the increase and maturation of my own interest in the subject, the quality of contemporary output has decreased. So much of my time has come to feel wasted by exposure to mediocre or derivative work. That’s time I’d rather have spent exploring the earlier years of certain careers that could never be called these things. As with all I’m saying here, this comment is a personal perspective, of course.
Tied in with this is the thought that periodicals or Web sites naturally want to concentrate on and promote contemporary work. Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that the number of venues for comment on film music has dwindled. That’s unless you want to run a fan Web site for free. And I never have.
And that brings me to the other. A sort of “tarred with the same brush” dissatisfaction. My years as a professional writer have coincided with the advent and boom of the internet. It’s my belief that it’s destroyed so much of the journalistic art, encouraging laziness and an inexplicable general tone of negativity. This being Movie Poop Shoot, I’ve happily “outed” some trash as it’s come along, and done so in an irreverent fashion. What galls me about film music journalism these days is the level of mis-placed passion. It’s either spent in vitriolic dissection of work, whether good or bad. Or it’s spent championing the aforementioned mediocre material out of an ignorance for what actually deserves championing.
Don’t even get me started on the level of factual inaccuracy that exists.
The world of Message Board squabbling and bitching that this very Web site was inspired by, is just abhorrent to me. Finding myself reading other people’s arguments – and worse still – being goaded into contributing to them, has become the last straw, really.
These are all the professional reasons I’ll elaborate upon. Personal reasons stay personal.
All of that said, there is still much to champion and much to talk about. To that end, I invite anyone who would like to see this Column continue and feels up to the job to write to me for a chat and a job description. I look forward to any and all good ideas and new voices.
To finish then, some straight answers to questions I’m always asked and evade:
TODAY’S MOST INTERESTING COMPOSERS:
Howard Shore
Angelo Badalamenti
Mychael Danna
Danny Elfman
John Williams
Basil Poledouris
Jon Brion
THE GREATEST FILM COMPOSER:
Bernard Herrmann
GREATEST FILM SCORES IN MY LIFETIME
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
DANCES WITH WOLVES
TAXI DRIVER
STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
THE MISSION
THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY
GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT:
James Horner – I’ll never understand. And nor will you.
Thanks for reading and listening one and all. I’ll leave with one of the greatest parting lines a scoundrel ever got to use in the movies:
“Sorry about the mess.”
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