MLT Club Member Jürgen
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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A movie is a fantastic show of illusions. Our eyes are shown 24 individual images per second and yet we see a moving image. Just one or two pictures less and the image would stumble. The film music creates expectations and feelings that are not present in the film, but only in ourselves. Even the sound effects that we hear in the film are not what they seem to be. The Houdinis of modern times are Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Luc Besson and Steven Spielberg, to name just a few. Nothing we think to see is what it seems. We know this and yet we watch movies over and over again because we like it when a true master plays on the keyboard of our emotions. For a short time we immerse ourselves in worlds that are magic for our senses, like a fantastic dream, only ending after the credits roll.
An important part of this illusion are the film sound effect. They are essential. And there’s a lot of trickery going on. Anyone who has ever filmed knows this: the original sound is usually unusable. Too much noise: Wind, people talking somewhere, street- or machine noise. The world is loud. It is a remarkable phenomenon: even if you are in a remote place, you will find that the sounds of civilization are close behind you. So you have to help a little with sound effects in post-production. And that brings us to Jack Foley.
Jack Foley was born in 1891. He was the first well-known sound effects artist to develop many sound effects techniques for filmmaking. He is credited with developing a unique method of performing sound effects live and in sync with the picture during post-production of a film. Accordingly, people who work in this profession are called “foley artists”.
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I may have been 14 years old when Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Lost World” fell into my hands. I devoured it. The last descendants of the dinosaurs live high up on a hidden plateau in South America. I was so fascinated. Although the heroes in Jules Verne’s novel “The Journey to the Center of the Earth” had brief contact with primitive dinosaurs, it had never been described before in as much detail as in Doyle’s novel. As a young person, I was fascinated and excited long before the real hype about the rebirth of the dinosaurs began. When Jurassic Park came to the cinema in 1993 (based on a novel by Michael Crichton) I was completely over the moon. The unforgettable soundtrack once again is composed by John Willams.
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The movie Insterstellar was released in 2014 and the plot of the film still fascinates me to this day. The film is set in a dystopian future in which humanity has to leave Earth and search for a new home on another planet. Certainly not a completely new idea, but I was very impressed by the visual implementation and the attempt to put the film on a scientific basis. Kip Thorne, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics, worked as a scientific advisor and executive producer. After I saw the exciting and not necessarily predictable ending of the film I thought: Too bad I won’t watch the film anymore now that I know the ending. But I was wrong. Every two to three years, when the memory has become a little dusty, I put the Blu-ray back into my player and am fascinated again and again. The wonderful soundtrack was arranged by Hans Zimmer.
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The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 American film adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller of the same name. It was directed by Ron Howard. The well-known film score was written by Hans Zimmer.
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Battlestar Galactica was considered a blatant plagiarism of Star Wars and promptly ended up in court. But that didn’t affect the success of the movies. I’m not exactly sure who was responsible for the soundtrack. But I think the compositions are by John Williams, too.
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This composition was written by John Williams for the film The Empire Strikes Back in 1983.
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Metropolis is a German monumental expressionist silent film by Fritz Lang from 1927. It is based on the novel “Metropolis” by Thea von Harbou from 1925. The setting is a futuristic city with a pronounced two-class society. This science fiction film was one of the most expensive films of the time and is considered one of the most important works in film history (at least that’s what Wikipedia says and I’m happy to agree). The film music was written by Gottfried Huppertz from Cologne in 1927.
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There are and have been many first-class film composers and it would go beyond the scope of this topic to list them all. That’s why five of the most famous of this genre are represented. If your favorite composer is missing, let me know, I’m excited.
Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Claudia Cardinale. Even if you might not get much out of the movie, the soundtrack remains unforgettable.
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Hi Jung,
yes rich and diverse, that’s one of the things I like most about the MLT Club. My musical univers is constantly expanding (like the real universe 😀). That’s great, thank you all.
Also thanks for posting the music clip. I’m certainly not an expert on Bollywood films, but the dance scenes combined with the rhythmic music are always a real feast for the eyes.
The meeting of different cultures often creates a feeling of uncertainty and many things seem strange and peculiar. But if you embark on this adventure, your horizons expand and your perspective on the world changes for the better. Afterwards you are enriched by so many experiences and impressions that you no longer want to miss. If people did this much more often, who knows, maybe there would be less prejudice, violence and wars.
A movie about the clash of different cultures is “Lost in Translation”. The director Sofia Coppola herself lived in Tokyo for many years. Maybe you know this one: Bill Murray plays the aged, alienated and lethargic film star Bob Harris, who has traveled to Tokyo for a whiskey commercial, where he meets the young Charlotte played by Scarlett Johansson, who seems to be just as lost as he is. Both are connected by their insomnia in a foreign city, which, despite the age difference, develops into an unusual friendship and ultimately love. The beautiful film song was written by Roxy Music.
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We just were waiting for you do that, Tom. 😀
How are you doing?
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Hi Chris,
thank you very much for taking the trouble to look for the old piano. I actually thought more of a detective story than a crime story. I expressed myself incorrectly.
I was expecting an old piano in weathered black paint. I wouldn’t have thought that it was painted white, rather unusual. If you have room for the piano and it’s a nice memory, just keep it. Maybe one day you’ll find a Piano enthusiast who can restore it. It’s actually too bad to just let it rot like that.
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Yeah David, I loved Battlestar Galactica too. As I already told you, I had the pleasure of watching Battlestar Galactica in a cinema hall. In order to better amortize the high production costs, a slightly shortened version of the pilot film was released in cinemas in several other countries (Canada, Japan, Europe) at the same time as the series started in the USA, which also had considerable success . Later, some episodes were edited into other films. The film premiered in Canada on July 7, 1978. The German premiere took place on October 26, 1978. Starring Lorne Green aka “Ben” Cartwright and womanizer Dirk Benedict.
The series was relaunched in 2003. With a new plot and new actors. I’ve seen a few episodes of it. It may not have the charm of the old series, but it is at least technically up to date and offers a much more complex plot. Have you seen the new series?
According to rumors, a new movie is also planned
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Hi Jung,
thanks, I don’t know the movie, but the introducing song sounds great. Exotic, refreshing, a stirring rhythm and a catchy melody. A good transition to „Bollywood“ movies. At least that’s what we call those films from the Indian film industry, which is based in today’s Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The term is a cross between Hollywood and Bombay. One of the big stars of this scene is Shah Rukh Khan (Khaaaan with a long a David 😀). Here in his newest movie “Jawan”. An action thriller. The hindi word jawan can be translated as young. And young translated into German means jung. The circle closes, Jung. Dirty dancing the Hindi way. Let’s go.
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Roger, the „language thing“ is really very interesting. In most non-English speaking countries, films with English language usually have subtitles, as you know. Sometimes very well translated and sometimes only very briefly and imprecisely. Very few countries bother to dub the films (do you say dub or synchronize?). The whole thing is quite complicated. The voice actors have to feel and think just like the actors do. They have to live the dialogues, not just speak them. They are often actors themselves. The lip movements have to be syncronized. At least as far as the beginning, the end and the pauses in the dialog are concerned. So the translation must be the same length as the original text and also reflect the content correctly. And the emotions have to be worked out. Truly an art. Due to the different language, the lip movements will of course never be 100% syncronous, but as a viewer you usually don’t notice this. The illusion is usually perfect. Netflix and the like are a great thing, but here in Europe, there has always been an exchange of movies, films and documentaries long before netflix and prime. We also show a lot of British and French films (British and especially French films have a quirky and endearing sense of humor or are sometimes a little bizarre. I like that). As well as productions from all other European and non Eurpopean countries. Netflix and prime can’t offer this diversity. The streaming services are very much geared towards the US audience. I love watching US-American movies and series, but there is much more than that and it just doesn’t make sense to mention these movies as most active members here in the forum won’t know them. And the members I could talk to about these movies (and also music) are usually not active here in the discussion forum. That’s why I sometimes try to present music and topics that don’t correspond to the mainstream. Hollywood has become very powerful. For me that’s not a problem. I love many of these productions. But there are people here and in other countries who reject these productions, because they are too one-sided and the messages they send are sometimes unsatisfactory. We have small cinemas that specialize in showing small arts films from all over the world. No mainstream. This can be very interesting. The films are structured completely differently than typical Hollywood productions. Different camera movements, different settings and a completely different way of cutting and editing films and adding music to them.
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Thanks for the insider tip, Len. I mainly know Malcom McDowel from one of the Star Trek movies. With the long dark days of winter just around the corner, it’s just the right time to watch a good film.
