I just watch On The Waterfront - and was pleasantly entertained, finding the movie full of excellent acting, nice dialogue and a well presented storyline.
However - the music score was bloody atrocious - I felt as if I was getting a headache a couple of times with the discordant instruments knifing in and out of the scenes. Nice film, AWFUL music.
The film is a very quiet and contemplative picture. The score ruins that mood. It deserved something much better, more melodic.
"...the short one's being very droll."
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Thanks for the quip on my name. It's important to insult someone before engaging in an argument... it's a very mature and "un-goofy" attitude to take.
And yes, I know who Leonard Bernstein is, and I think he's a great composer, but that doesn't mean I have to love everything he's done. I don't think that the score was a particularly good fit for the film. This happened a lot in the past when filmmakers and composers were experimenting with sound and image. Sometimes it worked, like in The Third Man for instance. I wasn't expecting Mary Poppins music at all... just something that didn't distract from the overall tone of the film.
Also, I'm American... not that that should matter .
I think there's been a rape up there!
As an American I take offense at the use of this stupid British expression "Bloody Awful" A movie that won 8 Academy Awards, nominated for 17 other National and international Awards. including Best music,scoring of a Dramatic picture. 5 Academy Award performances, Marlon Brando,Rod Steiger,Lee J.Cobb,Karl Malden,Eva Maria Saint. Best Picture of the Year. why doesn't anyone criticize all those crappy British movies they made in the 1950's.
shareI'm not understanding your argument. Why are we even talking about British movies from the 50s? We're talking about music from an American film.
I think there's been a rape up there!
Maybe I don't have an argument. I am learning that most or not all of the comments in refernece to the music score are subjective .In fairness ,It was the mixing that determined the loudness on the track. I have some doub't that the composer had nothing to do with the editing or mixing of music tracks. engineers who mixed this might have been experimenting with a differenct concept .I really don't know or do I really care I have no interest in audio engineering .Maybe I "Protest too much" next time I will not get drawn into a discussion about technical issues that have nothing to do with the actual movie. Anyway it was fun discussing the movie. I grew up not far from the New York docks. I have memories of these Characters,LIke Terry Malloy, Longshoreman walking up from the docks where they would have been unloading ships. I thought this was Marlon Brando's best movie roll.
shareNot only is the music terrible, it is usually louder than the dialogue. Then the music would sometimes stop for no apparent reason and you get to actually relax and watch some of the movie for a while until it starts blaring again.
shareLike a lot of Phillip Glass scores (eg: "Mishima"), Leonard Bernstein's score for "On the Waterfront' overpowers the film. Bernstein was undoubtedly a brilliant composer, but some scores are just too much, and this is one of them ... it's intrusive.
But you ARE Blanche ... and I AM.
I certainly agree with all the post about how awful the musical score was!
Just too damn loud and it really felt incongruous to the scenes it accompanied.
A good musical score should be almost inaudible; it should be a part of the overall experience and not a separate distraction!
I thought the music was superb—one of the of the greatest film scores ever written. For me, it helped energize the movie and perfectly matched and enhanced the mood of each scene. It was written by Leonard Bernstein, who later turned it into a complete composition, which I bought back in the LP days. A composite of his “West Side Story” score was on the flip side of the album. I played the “Waterfront” music for a group of my hippie friends in 1970—rockers—and they were awed by it. Maybe it’s a generational thing.
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I also really like the score. Leonard Bernstein was one of the great composers of the 20th century and it's great that he was able to write the music for such a good movie. And the fact that it's too loud and cuts in and out sometimes can't really be blamed on him. Mixing the score into the soundtrack isn't the composers job. Also, I think that the fact that the music is so dissonant in places really helps with the mood of the film. The contrast between the sweet, lyrical melody when he's on the roof with his pigeon's or with Edie, and the harsh percussive themes for the more violent parts of the movie fit perfectly in my opinion.
shareWow, I had an opposite reaction to the music than the OP. I loved Bernstein’s score and have been trying to get hold of a copy ever since.
I understand what you mean about it being loud in certain parts. But the music in the scene where Terry delivers his “I could have been a contender” speech, or where he finds Charley’s corpse hanging in the alley, or where he discovers the dead pigeons on the rooftop - it was incredibly powerful and moving.
The music is just one of the many things that makes this such a perfect film for me.
Like a lot of old movies, the music in "On the Waterfront" can sometimes be terribly overdone, particularly in the dramatic scenes. e.g. when the mob breaks up the church meeting; when Johnny Friendly gives Charlie the ultimatum; some parts in the cab scene; that whole bit where Terry breaks into Edie's apartment, and some might even say the ending. Although personally I'm a fan of that one!
HOWever, I think the music that plays while Edie and Terry are on the roof is absolutely beautiful. For anyone interested in the soundtrack, there's a Leonard Bernstein CD available that has music from a bunch of his movies, including four or five from this one. They're all covers, but still good!
"Just close your eyes...but keep your mind wide open."
I'm glad to see someone who is saying my very thoughts on the matter. There is nothing at all wrong with this score for this picture. It is one of the elements that brings it all together and says exactly what it is supposed to say.
shareAgree. The score is not intrusive. It builds tension, moves the action along. It's nowhere near as loud as John Williams schlocky bombastic scores. Or even Horner's.
shareI also have that LP! At least I think I still have it....I have nothing to play it on though.
sharegreat film, great music. if it's more obtrusive and less subtle than most scores composed today, well, that's just the timeframe the movie was made in. and i actually thought having such a powerful and exciting score in an old drama like this helps make it more digestable for modern audiences, which is always a good thing.
cheers
KZ
huh? I read this post before watching the movie and during the film I just kept thinking "what on earth.." the music was superb!
shareThe music fit the film like a glove IMO. It had all the emotions of what the film was about using the same music but with different instruments, tempo, etc.
Bernstein may have been a lousy Commie but he could sure compose.
I disagree completely!!!!
The music is soooo intrusive, so bombastic, so obviously made for the theatre. its almost as if bernstein had no idea about the power of a camera; the fact that we are so up close to the action as opposed to on the stage.
Not only that but the music was so inappropriate for the kind of film it is; its like it felt the need to heighten the emotional impact of every scene to breaking point which is not what we, the audience, needed; surely for example, brando's performance needs little to no embelishment.
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Completely agree with the original post. Never before have I seen a movie with such distracting music.
The rest of the movie was very good, though.
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I have the highest regard for Leonard Bernstein, but the music in the movie, and the way it was mixed in certain scenes, really took away from the movie. One good example is the scene in the bar where Edie (Eva) and Terry (Marlon) are having a drink. The music is so loud you can hardly hear them talk. The music doesn't fit the bar scene at all. The loud screeching sound effects and the discordant sounds really sounded more like Hitchcock's Psycho than anything else. Bernstein was better at musicals. This would have been better scored by a composure more oriented toward jazz.
shareyou gotta remember that this movie is from the 50s, the way we identify the music is different now because there is more variety in sound and when we see a dramatic scene now, the score is meant for the music available now,not 50 years later
It blew my mind!