# SHUTTER ISLAND...music (screw critics I lOVED it!)



## SvK (Feb 22, 2010)

SHUTTER ISLAND...music (screw critics I lOVED it!)

First off, Screw the movie critics. I lOVED it. Ok, there is no composer credited, but Robbie Roberstson is credited as music-supervisor. So what was that kick-ass piece of gloomy Kilar/Herrmann styled piece that played 3 times in the movie? I really dug that.



SvK


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## EthanStoller (Feb 22, 2010)

I haven't seen the movie yet, but your post piqued my interest so i checked out the soundtrack on iTunes
My guess is the piece you are referring to is Penderecki's Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia. There are a lot of great sounding cuts on this soundtrack.


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## SvK (Feb 22, 2010)

yup that's it!

Penderecki's Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia
Kubrick used him on Shining.

SvK


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## dcoscina (Feb 22, 2010)

I like the Penderecki as well


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## midphase (Feb 22, 2010)

I once had a bad case of Penderecki on my inner left thigh...so I put some ointment on it and after a few days it went away!


Hahahahahahahahaha....hihihihihihihihihih.hohohohohohohohoh.hehehehehehehe....

.....
....
...
What?

Too soon?


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## Brian Ralston (Feb 22, 2010)

I don't know what his official capacity on the film was, but Max Richter (a German composer) has a couple tracks on the Shutter Island album and in the film. Max was the original score composer on the John Cusack indie film Grace Is Gone that was at Sundance a couple years ago. That film premiered at Sundance with his score (and even won the audience award that year)...

...but then Clint Eastwood (who saw the film at the festival)...contacted John Cusack and said he felt the film was great but needed a "proper" score. Clint offered to re-score the film. Of course Cusack said yes. Who would turn down Clint Eastwood for anything in this town? 

So...Grace Is Gone was released commercially with Eastwood's score (the first on a film that he did not direct). Eastwood received many award nominations for his piano driven score to that film. 

So...at least Max Richter found some work (in whatever capacity) on Shutter Island after getting his Grace Is Gone score thrown out despite its prior Sundance success.


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## Lex (Apr 13, 2010)

Finally saw it...
One of my favorite Scorsese movies..
And definitely one of my favorite movie scores...

freakin amazing..

aLex


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## Ed (Apr 13, 2010)

Brian Ralston @ Mon Feb 22 said:


> ...but then Clint Eastwood (who saw the film at the festival)...contacted John Cusack and said he felt the film was great but needed a "proper" score. Clint offered to re-score the film. Of course Cusack said yes. Who would turn down Clint Eastwood for anything in this town?



Wait wait wait... Clint Eastwood?... as in THE Clint Eastwood is a composer?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Apr 13, 2010)

FWIW, I wish Clint had never gotten the idea to write his own scores. But maybe it's only me.


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## Markus S (Apr 13, 2010)

Darn good adaption of the book, loved the book, so I was quite skeptical, at first, but they really nailed it 99%. Great musical choices, the Penderecki part is very strong - nice to see he's still getting so much recognition, even in the movie biz!


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## spectrum (Apr 13, 2010)

Yeah, I thought the music was really great and super effective too, but I had non-musicians who saw the film with me feel like it was over the top. Maybe that kind of intense scoring is just so rare now that people aren't used to it anymore.

I only realized about halfway that there was no composer on the film.....since some of the transitions were a little awkward. But on the whole, it seemed like they did an amazing job of editing all the different pieces together to work with the film.

But that raises a weird point, don't you think?

If one of the most exciting films and scores of the year, is a TEMP SCORE!?

That's a bit of a scary thought that we've now come to this place now where this is happening....basically the director's temp score was "good enough" for the final film. 

So on the one hand, the film and the score were really inspiring and fresh sounding.

But on the other hand, I do feel like a great film composer probably missed an opportunity of a lifetime to score this film by one of the few directors today with the power to do something more adventurous with the score.

One has to wonder: What does this say about the current landscape of film scoring?

Interesting times indeed!


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## Christian Marcussen (Apr 13, 2010)

Ed @ Tue Apr 13 said:


> Brian Ralston @ Mon Feb 22 said:
> 
> 
> > ...but then Clint Eastwood (who saw the film at the festival)...contacted John Cusack and said he felt the film was great but needed a "proper" score. Clint offered to re-score the film. Of course Cusack said yes. Who would turn down Clint Eastwood for anything in this town?
> ...



Well - kind of. He scores his own films mostly, and with the assistance of a friend of his. This often results in really bland and interchangable scores for all his films - often diminishing the impact of his films (IMHO). There are some exceptions where his minimalist approach works, but I feel that films like Flag of our Fathers would be stronger with a better score.


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## gsilbers (Apr 13, 2010)

I thought rhe music was more reflective of music that would come from movies from that era. Which sometime was less but more dramatic and gave a strong statement. 
If u see sunset blvd that's kinda what I'm talkig about.


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## JohnG (Apr 13, 2010)

spectrum @ 13th April 2010 said:


> ...one of the most exciting films and scores of the year, is a TEMP SCORE!?
> 
> ...What does this say about the current landscape of film scoring?



Although one never knows, it could mean a lot, mostly bad, or it could be good in some ways. Or it could be just a move by Mr. Scorsese in this direction personally that isn't that big a reflection on the industry.

Some thoughts anyway:

1. Most film schedules' pace won't afford a week or two on a cue. By contrast, some (most) art music / concert music is gestated over a long period of time, certainly at a pace more leisurely than two-three minutes a day with a team. 

So, if a director wants truly artistic music that is not compromised by schedule or even the story or editing or pacing or acting -- decoupled from the film's constraints -- he's faced with either using pre-recorded stuff as Kubrik did, or perhaps hiring a composer early and cutting to music (and /or editing the music). Peter Greenaway has worked this way with Michael Nyman for most of their collaborations, according to an interview Mr. Nyman gave fairly recently.

2. Some directors seem tired of the music "process." For them, it's a lot of effort, just when perhaps they are already exhausted or even a little fed up with their project. And not just a lot of effort explaining to the composer what he or she wants, but then giving notes and asking / begging the composer to make all the changes; after that, the director has to sell the music to the studio and maybe the distributor -- what a pain! 

One of the virtues for a director of a real live composer is that they can collaborate, but that takes time and energy. If you license a piece, you don't have to explain why, even though rhythmically, your edits don't make any sense, you want them just that way anyway.


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## sherief83 (Apr 14, 2010)

The score is fantastic. I definitely enjoyed the choice of Mahler only quartet being featured too.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Apr 15, 2010)

Think how most comedies with college guys trying to get laid have mostly placed punk songs with no score at all. This is kind of the same thing but more tasteful.

I don't see this as a sign of custom scores being weeded out.


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## NYC Composer (Apr 17, 2010)

Scorcese-wise, the score to Goodfellas was a bunch of pop tunes. He does that pretty often.

I love Scorcese. I hate the movie. Over the top, over dramatic, Hitchcockian but not good, Leo DiCaprio blows. Just my .02.


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## SvK (Apr 17, 2010)

This film should have been scored by Herrmann....I bet money on it, had he been available that is who Scorcese wanted. Has it occured to anyone here that Marty didn't feel that any of the current crop were worthy musically? 

SvK


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## JJP (Apr 17, 2010)

I worked on a Scorsese film a few years back. I think this has a lot to do with his editing process. Marty goes through many changes during the edit and it gets pretty crazy for the music to keep up - whether it be composers or music editors.

He's a wonderful filmmaker who has his own way of doing things.


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## SvK (Apr 17, 2010)

JJP...

i envy you 

SvK


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## Narval (Apr 17, 2010)

SvK @ Sat Apr 17 said:


> Has it occured to anyone here that Marty didn't feel that any of the current crop were worthy musically?


I don't think _Marty_ has publicly expressed any sort of judgments on any of the "the current crop." Do you have some insight into this to share, or just assuming in his name?


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## nikolas (Apr 17, 2010)

John is very right to the point.

A collaboration takes time and effort and nobody in the media in general (with the small exceptions of a few cases in computer games, films and even ads) seems to care enough to go ahead and do it. I'm always trying (in the theatre for example) to activate such a collaboration. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. It's risky and nobody in a non indie situation can take such risks I think.

Haven't seen the film yet, but I do intend to.


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## Marius Masalar (Apr 17, 2010)

Saw the film, enjoyed it, was mystified by the audience I was sitting in which seemed to find it frequently hilarious.

I loved some of the selections of classics used in the score, but for independent study and listening. In the film itself, I have to admit that I found the score extremely distracting. There were only a few moments where I thought to myself "Gee, that cue really fit, really elevated the visual content, and felt seamlessly integrated." 

For the most part, I was almost cringing whenever music came in because it was just SO on the nose and occasionally blatantly awkward.

On the bright side, the album itself is like a perfect introductory set for those interested in exploring more contemporary classical music, so that's pretty neat.


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## bryla (Apr 17, 2010)

I totally agree with you, Marius. The music is great! was and will always be.

The mood was there most of the times, but it didn't fit the pictures, and was for the most distracting.

I loved the piano cue during his winternight flashback to the kz-camp


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## Marius Masalar (Apr 18, 2010)

Definitely, Evan, but my problem with Shutter Island is that I was feeling as though some of the music choices weren't so much scoring the emotion as trumpeting it ridiculously. I'm all for meaningful and noticeable scoring, but there's still a measure of subtlety that needs to be kept in mind. The picture is king.


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## JohnG (Apr 18, 2010)

Last night at a benefit concert he gave, Randy Newman described a cue in "Toy Story," in particular the one in which Buzz and Woody fly on a rocket, as sounding, "just like Mahler or Brahms, except shittier because I don't have that kind of talent."


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## Narval (Apr 19, 2010)

Cute! Sounds like a Robin Williams line, only shittier because he doesn't have that kind of talent. :D


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## Markus S (Apr 19, 2010)

Mathazzar @ Sun Apr 18 said:


> Definitely, Evan, but my problem with Shutter Island is that I was feeling as though some of the music choices weren't so much scoring the emotion as trumpeting it ridiculously. I'm all for meaningful and noticeable scoring, but there's still a measure of subtlety that needs to be kept in mind. The picture is king.



Well, I think, if you choose to use pre-existent music in a film, it's not to replace a score that would have been composed for the film, but to add a new dimension. All of these compositions were written in a historical context - they exist without the film, they have their own lives, so if you add them, it's probably to have them "co-existst" in the film, not necessarily "fusion" with it perfectly.

I don't know all of the compositions and composers, but if you take the main title, those repeated, menacing notes from one of Penderecki's concert works. It's written 30 years after the film takes place, but Penderecki is a composer "from" this period of time, around 55-60, when he started to write music. He is also a polish composer (and conductor), one of the most innovative and talented ones of our time, and Poland has an important role in the film, with Ausschwitz being located in Poland. He is also know for works with political engagement as "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", so I think this musical choice is not only for his fantastic music.

Of course the music sticks out a lot, but if you know the track before you watch the movie, it's not there a go with the film, it adds it's own "color".

Anyway, it's better than running around with a temp tracked film looking for a composer it "copy" the temp music.


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## SvK (Apr 19, 2010)

In the opening scene of the original Cape Fear movie, we see a quiet park in the south where people are leisurely going about their business. The score breaks in like an invasive force ready to destroy all that enters it's path.....It's an amazing effect. Nothing subtle about it.

So what exactly is the problem here?

SvK


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