|
Post by deuce on Apr 14, 2016 1:40:29 GMT -5
A thread for everyone to talk about Milius and his "Co-naaan" movie.
|
|
|
Post by KiramidHead on Apr 14, 2016 13:20:57 GMT -5
It's one of my favorite movies of all time, no joke.
|
|
|
Post by EMErdelac on Apr 14, 2016 14:54:09 GMT -5
Same here. Just got the Father's Sword to hang over my television.
|
|
|
Post by dolphy76 on Jul 22, 2016 8:44:29 GMT -5
I actually went to see it with my wife to be on our first date. And she still married me! I liked it well enough at the time and still do but don't like the slavery/Wheel of Pain thing or the whole way the worship of Set was turned into a Moonies type cult thing. Liked the focus on Set but would have preferred the Stygian thing and Thoth Amon rather than Thulsa Doom. But whatever....it was great to have a Conan movie and that it was successful! It brought many more people into Robert E Howard Fandom.
|
|
|
Post by deuce on Jul 22, 2016 14:48:49 GMT -5
Basil's score is easily one of the best in the history of cinema.
|
|
|
Post by valeriaspirit on Jul 25, 2016 6:06:52 GMT -5
Basil's score is easily one of the best in the history of cinema. Hi, Deuce - Absolutely! I love Howard Shore's scores for The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies, but it seems to me that Poledouris's score has more . . . coherence. Shore utilized many different motifs to fit the particular scenes, making the scores very complex. While many of the themes are lovely, I think Poledouris achieved more of a melodic quality throughout. And, I can't define it, but there is something about many parts of it that simply send chills up and down my spine.
|
|
|
Post by valeriaspirit on Jul 25, 2016 6:15:53 GMT -5
Hi, Deuce -
I found Pumping Iron on Canadian Netflix over the weekend. I remember that doco from lo, those many decades ago (now) - the first time I and probably many non-aficionados of bodybuilding became aware of Arnold with-the-funny-last-name. It is a great documentary for anyone who wants to see something of Arnold (but also featuring other noteworthy bodybuilders of the era, like his "mini-me" best bodybuilding buddy, Franco Columbo) when he was at his peak of bodybuilding pre-eminence, having won the Mr. Olympia title five times and going for the sixth win in the course of the film. (Another noteworthy appearance is by Lou Ferrigno, who later became the Hulk.) The reason I mention this here is that I noticed that the clunky theme song played at the start and end of the film featured a refrain sung by a female backup group that goes "Everyone wants to live forever . . ." - and I couldn't help wondering if that refrain inspired John Milius to give Valeria the line, which is kind of her catchphrase, "Do you want to live forever?" (Very cool - I don't think that line came from REH, did it?)
Valeria Spirit
Valeria Spirit
|
|
|
Post by moonlightshadow on Jul 26, 2016 12:31:34 GMT -5
The quote "Do you want to live forever?" is attributed to Sergeant Major Daniel Daly, receiver of two Medal of Honors.
Knowing John Milius this is the guy he borrowed the line from.
|
|
|
Post by johnnypt on Jul 26, 2016 13:13:35 GMT -5
Basil's score is easily one of the best in the history of cinema. Hi, Deuce - Absolutely! I love Howard Shore's scores for The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies, but it seems to me that Poledouris's score has more . . . coherence. Shore utilized many different motifs to fit the particular scenes, making the scores very complex. While many of the themes are lovely, I think Poledouris achieved more of a melodic quality throughout. And, I can't define it, but there is something about many parts of it that simply send chills up and down my spine. Probably the main reason is Poledouris was just working with one film and one set of characters, while Shore had to eventually do two whole sagas. They're both monumental achievements for different reasons. Steiner's King Kong and Searchers were concise while Gone With the Wind was expansive. Rosza's Ben Hur to me was a little of both, it's got different themes all over the place, but they all fit together. Williams' Star Wars continues to build, each soundtrack has new instrumentation added to it in addition to new character themes. Probably the score that's the most similar in terms of a single soundtrack is Korngold's Adventures of Robin Hood. Two very different sounding scores: Robin Hood is bright, while Conan is foreboding. But both work within the films almost as another character, setting and changing the mood where needed,
|
|
|
Post by valeriaspirit on Jul 26, 2016 17:19:21 GMT -5
The quote "Do you want to live forever?" is attributed to Sergeant Major Daniel Daly, receiver of two Medal of Honors. Knowing John Milius this is the guy he borrowed the line from. Hi there - I'll buy that. It certainly makes sense, given how influential military matters were to John Milius. I might suggest that perhaps there was some influence exerted by both quotes, but Daly's is identical to Valeria's and therefore is more likely to have been borrowed directly by Milius. Valeria Spirit
|
|
|
Post by valeriaspirit on Jul 27, 2016 7:52:45 GMT -5
Hi, Deuce - Absolutely! I love Howard Shore's scores for The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies, but it seems to me that Poledouris's score has more . . . coherence. Shore utilized many different motifs to fit the particular scenes, making the scores very complex. While many of the themes are lovely, I think Poledouris achieved more of a melodic quality throughout. And, I can't define it, but there is something about many parts of it that simply send chills up and down my spine. Probably the main reason is Poledouris was just working with one film and one set of characters, while Shore had to eventually do two whole sagas. They're both monumental achievements for different reasons. Steiner's King Kong and Searchers were concise while Gone With the Wind was expansive. Rosza's Ben Hur to me was a little of both, it's got different themes all over the place, but they all fit together. Williams' Star Wars continues to build, each soundtrack has new instrumentation added to it in addition to new character themes. Probably the score that's the most similar in terms of a single soundtrack is Korngold's Adventures of Robin Hood. Two very different sounding scores: Robin Hood is bright, while Conan is foreboding. But both work within the films almost as another character, setting and changing the mood where needed,
Hi, johnnypt -
You are certainly correct. The composers you mention in addition to Poledouris and Shore are some of my favorites in the Golden Age (and later) of film. I think it's a really important point that, at its best, movie music doesn't just enhance the mood of the film but actually becomes almost another character in the film. It becomes almost impossible to think of the film and not think of the musical accompanying the various dramatic, romantic, suspenseful, and comedic moments. Korngold's score to Robin Hood is a prime other example. Miklos Rozsa is another dependable scorer over a period of decades, another one of my favourite people (Hungarian, like my hero, Bela Lugosi), besides doing the music for Ben Hur, a couple of decades earlier he provided wonderfully memorable accompaniment for The Thief of Baghdad (1940, the version which starred Conrad Veidt as the evil Jaffar and Sabu as the Thief), a product of Hungarian genius all the way around, as it was produced by Hungarian émigré Alexander Korda, who had established himself in Britain, along with his brothers, Vincent (production design and art direction on Thief) and Zoltan (associate producer on Thief). According to imdb.com, Miklos Rozsa not only provided the musical score for the fim but is credited as author of the story on which the film was based. Finally, another Hungarian émigré, Lajos Biro, who was a well known novelist and playwright in Hungary prior to the 1919 Hungarian Revolution, created the scenario, while the screenplay was written by the non-Hungarian but no doubt native English-speaking Miles Malleson.
But I digress.
Of all the wonderful movie scores, Shore's score for The Lord of the Rings and Poledouris's for Conan the Barbarian have made the greatest impact on me. Shore accomplished a monumental task in creating scores for all three epic films, and while there are themes that are reprised throughout, like the love themes for Arwen and Aragorn, the theme for the One Ring, and the theme for the Hobbits and the Shire, he created many unique pieces for particularly dramatic moments in the films. On my iPod, the music for all three Extended Editions of the films last over 11 hours when played end to end! So, yes, Poledouris's is much simpler. Unlike the dozens of important characters in LOTR, there were only three main protagonists in Conan, or four if you include the Wizard. And it is one film lasting roughly 2 hours, not more than three like each one of the LOTR EE's. Milius said that Poledouris was the classmate who was most ready to create at a world-class level at the time they graduated from the USC film school. But I think one more possibly influential factor was that Poledouris was aware that for long stretches of the film there would be little or no dialogue. The images were indelible from the intro which featured the forging of the Father's Sword (called The Anvil of Crom) to the anticlimax after Thulsa Doom's execution, when the cult members douse their candles and slowly file off-screen, there are haunting pieces. And while some get repeated, they are reprised in appropriate scenes. When I hear the themes, I can envision the scenes. Of course, that's not to minimize the effectiveness of Arnie's (and the other characters' lines), which often bear repeating - "What is best in life?" (Etc.)
As I said, while I love Howard Shore's work for LOTR, there is something about Poledouris's work for this film that I find will last and that audiences will continue to find resonates with them. I have read a number of people saying that no new Conan film should be considered without Poledouris's music - which is unfortunate, since he is now deceased. :-(
Valeria Spirit
|
|
|
Post by KiramidHead on Nov 26, 2016 17:39:27 GMT -5
A new video review of the film, which I had some slight influence on:
You can tell he more or less did his research.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2017 7:58:54 GMT -5
|
|
|
|