| Saw Ken Russell's The Music Lovers late last night. I wanted to comment on this terrific film right away but when the picture ended I was a little too tired to tickle the ivories... well, at least my computer keyboard's ivories. This is one of those occasions where I wonder how I went this long before seeing a certain movie, especially when the flick in question is based on the story of one of my all time favourite composers -- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Ken Russell clearly understood the music itself before he shot The Music Lovers, as everything is so nicely integrated: The visuals and music sing in harmony. They push together without one taking precedent over the other. (Much like director Eisenstein and composer Prokofiev did when they worked together as a team.) What makes this more remarkable -- on the surface -- is that most directors are clueless when it comes to the use of music in film, or their own films. They think it is something 'done in post'. Expecting these directors to explore a composer's body of work, or even a single piece of music, is beyond most of their capabilities. But, hey, that might just be something they are not interested in anyway. To each his own. Ken Russell is a film director who is more of an all-round artist, one who obviously understands great music. The Music Lovers is a stylized exploration of a true artist. An artist who had his demons and conflicts, like many of the 'great composers', and one who's music demonstrated these forces. (Tchaikovsky wrote music influenced by a myriad of 'issues', not because he just happened to smoke some "pot".) By the way, this film is accurate in a broad-stroke sense. And yes, the composer did drink unboiled water and did die from cholera. Tchaikovsky was a terrific tunesmith which separated him somewhat from "The Five" -- staffed by guys like Glinka, Borodin, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov... composers who could write tunes themselves, and some great ones at that, but didn't flower as often as "Mr. T". As a matter of fact, it is often said that Tchaikovsky wrote music that was the least 'Russian' of the bunch. He certainly wrote music for all time. |
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
THE MUSIC LOVERS
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RE: "What makes this more remarkable -- on the surface -- is that most directors are clueless when it comes to the use of music in film, or their own films."
Well done Barry. Reading your post brings to mind how a lot of contemporary films use music basically as a merchandising tool to sell a soundtrack album, with little regard to where-how a song is used within the film itself. And while obviously I speak of pop songs versus the classical music you observe, for the most part, few films really know how to use music properly. In terms of American cinema in the past few decades, perhaps the unrecognized master of being able to integrate popular music properly into the context of the film is writer-director Floyd Mutrux. For instance, I can't listen to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" without thinking of those wide-open spaces in Aloha Bobby and Rose, so perfectly does it capture the sense of melancholia and longing. Ditto, "Ride Captain Ride" in the beginning of Dusty and Sweets McGee, enhancing the woozy excess, early morning hangover. So overpowering is the music that one could easily mistake the visuals for being a makeshift music video, but there's much more to it. The songs are always used distinctively to enhance the plights of the lost anti-heroes, and despite the nostalgia we attach to the golden oldies Mutrux uses, more often than not they are offered as ironic counterpoint, capturing the malaise of the time periods he explores.
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