Did anyone else abosolutely hate the music to this movie? I just felt that it didn't really fit in with the story.
shareWell, they say everyone's got an opinion and mine doesn't happen to agree with yours. Franz Waxman was one of the Great Ones and his music here is among his best work, I think.
Horses for course, naturally.
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The musical score is one of the glories of this movie!
All the themes are plainsong ones: the main 'tune' heard at the start and throughout the film is derived from the plainsong 'Ave Maria'. It all fits together perfectly with the chant sung by the nuns, and the improvisations on plainchant themes played on the organ in the chapel scenes. Couldn't be more appropriate, really.
Most scores I listen to merely restate what you visually see and doesn't contribute much. Every once in a while, I will hear a score that will make me feel differently about scenes than I would if the music were not there. These scores are like independent characters in the movie. That's what this score did for me. It was very important for the telling and the absorption of the story and audrey's character.
Although a very crucial element, very understated and subtle. Genious score from a master!
This is one of the greatest examples of a score matching a film. That it failed to win the Oscar just proves my argument that too often Academy voters are swept up in voting everything for a single film. Ben-Hur? One of the greatest Oscar oversights of all time.
shareBen-Hur was a great score too. For me it's always been a toss-up between those two scores--Franz Waxman's for The Nun's Story and Miklos Rozsa's for Ben-Hur--regardless of my preference for The Nun's Story as a movie to watch all the way through. The fact is, 1959 was a year of positively great film scores, though I don't know about one of the nominees--Pillow Talk--and I'm still pissed that Bernard Herrmann's score for North by Northwest wasn't even nominated.
shareI liked the beginning theme music. I didn't care for the African music.
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I thought Franz Waxman's score fit this movie perfectly. I enjoyed it so much I bought the vinyl soundtrack recording when it first came out in 1959, and again when it was released on CD.
shareI thought it was wonderful, very haunting and beautiful.
"Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage"- Madeline Kahn(CLUE, 1985)
I didn't hate it but I thought it was a little over dramatic at times, but still I don't think it had a shot in damaging this masterpiece at all.
sharethe score is superb, haunting, and restrained when needed (no music in the final scene… except one bar to close)… except during the fight with the archangel, the worst scene anyhow, clumsily staged and scored.
I agree. The archangel scene stands out as the worst scene for staging and scoring. As you say, clumsy on both counts and a shame as it should be so much more emotive.
"My will is strong but my won't is weak"
I thought it was very good
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