I Don't Care If It's a Strad.
We started to watch Ken Burns' new doc, The War tonight. We lasted about 20 minutes and had to turn it off. Why? The musical score.
I don't know the particular piece, but my first guess was Vivaldi. Someone's frenetic violins, in any event, and it was distracting, irritating, irrelevant and inappropriate. I don't think I've ever been as annoyed by a disconnect between picture and score.
I can guess the problem: WW2 is the war that spawned a thousand documentaries. The obvious music's all been done to death. We've heard Deutschland Uber Alles. We've heard the Dirty Dozen martial drumbeat thing. We've heard the period torch songs. We've heard Victory at Sea and the lesser John Williamses. Wagner? Done that. Beethoven? Couldn't do D-Day without him.
Burns must have been down to 50 Cent and Vivaldi. I sympathize. And I'm sure I'll take another run at the film. But I may have to mute during the archival footage.
I don't know the particular piece, but my first guess was Vivaldi. Someone's frenetic violins, in any event, and it was distracting, irritating, irrelevant and inappropriate. I don't think I've ever been as annoyed by a disconnect between picture and score.
I can guess the problem: WW2 is the war that spawned a thousand documentaries. The obvious music's all been done to death. We've heard Deutschland Uber Alles. We've heard the Dirty Dozen martial drumbeat thing. We've heard the period torch songs. We've heard Victory at Sea and the lesser John Williamses. Wagner? Done that. Beethoven? Couldn't do D-Day without him.
Burns must have been down to 50 Cent and Vivaldi. I sympathize. And I'm sure I'll take another run at the film. But I may have to mute during the archival footage.
This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on
Sunday, September 23, 2007.
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