Music Monday: Film Scores I Love, Part One

     First of all, let me admit to having a rather limited taste in films. I don't do thrillers, science fiction, quirky indies (sounds vaguely vulgar, somehow), anything with a lot of nudity, violence, and/or foul language, films about war, third world countries, politics ... well, maybe it would be simpler to say what kinds of films I do like. Then again, if you read this blog on anything like a regular basis, you can probably form a pretty good idea on your own. Plus which, I have listed some of my favorite films of all time in the left sidebar of this page, a list clearly indicative of the kinds of films I'm repeatedly drawn to.

     Given this limited taste, one may come to the logical and correct conclusion that my knowledge of film scores is consequently limited as well. I'm sure there are many musical scores of films I would never choose to see that I would actually love were I to hear them. But since so much of the success of a film score depends on how well it enhances the visual, I'll most likely never come to know them. When I listen to a score without the film, there are inevitably pieces of incidental or underscoring music that sound forlornly unfulfilled on their own, as if they lack the framework of bones to hold up their skin. Of course, there are fabulous themes and theme songs that stand on their own, such as "Goldfinger," "Alfie," "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Let the River Run" from Working Girl, to name just a few (am I dating myself?); and the John Williams themes, all of which tend to sound alike. (Have you ever noticed, music wonks, that the themes from Superman, ET,  and Star Wars all begin with the interval of a fifth?)

     One main theme I love is the end credits of Shadowlands (1993, Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger), music by George Fenton and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra:

     The opening of the film is also very beautiful, Fenton's own setting of "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" sung by the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford:



     In fact, if I had to choose just one film composer as my favorite, I would probably choose George Fenton. He's not only capable of writing stunningly beautiful and evocative music, he can write music in the style of any period and make it sound absolutely authentic. A very good example of this can be heard in the trailer for 84, Charing Cross Road, a film that covers a period of twenty years from the late '40s to the late '60s:



      Fenton also wrote the scores to films such as Gandhi, Dangerous Liasons, Dangerous Beauty, and You've Got Mail, as well television series such as Planet Earth, Blue Planet, and Life. I love the music he wrote for You've Got Mail -- relatively sparse as it is among all the borrowed pop standards -- it's fittingly cute and quirky, but then there's also the brief nostalgic waltz that swells up under the scene where Meg Ryan's character reminisces about "twirling" with her mother.

     Another Fenton favorite of mine is his score to Ever After: A Cinderella Story.



     Though the recipient of many awards, including multiple Emmys, Ivor Novellos, and BAFTAs, and nominated for countless others, including five nominations for the Academy Award, Oscar has so far eluded him -- unjustly, I think. His versatility and gift for musical idiom is certainly on a level with the greatest and most honored film composers, past and present.

     Many of Fenton's scores are available through Amazon.

My "Friendship" with Helene Hanff

     For the life of me, I can't remember if I first met Helene by reading her book 84, Charing Cross Road, or watching the film based on it starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Whichever it was, we became instant "friends."
     Her little book, a cult classic, introduced me to an author whose writing made me feel as if she were sitting across from me, drinking coffee and chatting. It made me want to read all her books, which I have, many times, always with the homiest pleasure. In them all I could hear her, with a voice throaty from too many cigarettes and martinis, talking to me of her old apartment in a New York brownstone, her actress friend Maxine with the flaming red hair, and her 20-year epistolary friendship with a prim and proper London bookseller named Frank. I commiserated with her during those early years when she struggled to be a playwright; I laughed with her over all the escapades she shared with Maxine; I felt her joy every time she received another book and letter from Marks & Co, where Frank worked. And I made it a point to buy all the books she bought, because I trusted and shared her tastes -- except in novels. One thing Helene and I never agreed on was novels. She didn't care for them; she preferred real-life accounts by real-life people. I prefer to escape real life every once in a while.
     Helene taught me that I don't have to write about lofty things, or things outside myself, to be a good writer. Everything she wrote about could have happened to anyone. Her gift was in making those ordinary events extraordinary and immensely entertaining, with her humor, honesty, and self-effacement. She makes you feel as if she were speaking to you one-on-one, in plain, everyday language. This is the true reason I turn to her books again and again.
     If anyone wanted to start "chatting" with Helene, I would recommend they start with either 84 or the first book she wrote, Underfoot in Show Business (a very funny account of her early years as a struggling playwright); then definitely follow up with The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and Q's Legacy (both sequels, if you will, of 84). I consider those four books to be her "canon." The others, Apple of My Eye and Letter to New York, are also delightful, especially for those who are planning a trip to New York, or just love the city.

My favorite of all Helene's books