{"id":1800,"date":"2010-12-10T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2017-12-27T14:35:50","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T14:35:50","slug":"leonards-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/leonards-score\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonard’s Score"},"content":{"rendered":"

From:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t know<\/span> that Leonard Rosenman died two years ago.\u00a0 If so, I would have written to ask sooner, \u201cDid you really write only one score for 105 films and just recycle it with each new contract?<\/p>\n

I first encountered Rosenman\u2019s work with the 1977 animated\u00a0The Lord of the Rings<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a great work<\/a>, and I found it again with a digital clean-up and re-balancing that embarrasses the muffled-sock mix of the LP which I owned and overplayed.<\/p>\n

But then a strange thing happened. I watched\u00a0Battle for the Planet of the Apes<\/em>. Apologies.\u00a0 However, the battle scenes had the same score.\u00a0 And then I encountered the score again in\u00a0Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home<\/em>.\u00a0 And yet again the score appears in\u00a0Robocop 2<\/em>.\u00a0 This afternoon it appeared yet again in the much reviled film,\u00a0The Car<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, it might be that these movies, short on budget, simply hired the cheapest film score hack they could find, but Rosenman has written\u00a0105 film and TV scores<\/strong><\/em>, so I have to ask, How may more of these 105 are the same?<\/p>\n

On IMDB, Rosenman himself is quoted as saying,<\/p>\n

“I try to enter directly into the movie\u2019s plot and tell the audience something about the story that they can\u2019t possibly perceive by just watching the film.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I think I perceived it.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that no one less than Elia Kazan gave him his start on\u00a0East of Eden<\/em>, but from there, stasis and retread.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Prophecy<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0Sybil<\/em>\u00a0and from\u00a0Race With the Devil<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0The Jazz Singer<\/em>, Rosenman\u2019s orchestrations are identical. More, his motifs are repeated throughout the scores, even in the same key.\u00a0 And the films I named earlier recreate entire passages, minutes on end.<\/p>\n

Even so, for me, Rosenman\u2019s score is\u00a0The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, where I encountered it first at age 15.\u00a0 And when I watch The Octopus episode from\u00a0Jacques Cousteau,\u00a0<\/em>Raquel Welch in\u00a0Fantastic Voyage,<\/em>\u00a0or the old TV series\u00a0Marcus Welby, MD<\/em>, I will think of Gollum, Galadriel, and Gandalf.<\/p>\n

Rest in Belated Peace, Leonard.\u00a0 And may your music, as well.<\/p>\n

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