I started posting straight up classical music on Sunday back in 2011 or so. I had run down by late in that decade - how many times can you post Beethoven, no matter how great a composer he was? But The Queen Of The World suggested that I start posting music from Hollywood films because there is so much great music there. And modern compositions, not reaching back into dusty historical archives.
And it's been fun doing this, precisely because there is so much great "classical" music at the cinema. But what I've never talked about is how truly great music can fuse with truly great acting to make something extraordinary. Something where 2 + 2 = 400. That's what we have here, with an Oscar-nominated performance by Kenneth Brannaugh and what really should have been Oscar-nominated musical scoring by Patrick Doyle is what was his first film score.
You see, today is the feast of Crispian.
The fusion of Shakespeare's timeless script, Branaugh's magnificent performce, and Doyle's amazing score results if one of the top ten scenes from any Hollywood film. Remove any of those three components and you have something forgettable.
But not this. Patrick Boyle showed how it's done.
5 comments:
Oh man! I can watch that performance over and over. And yes, the music is absolutely perfect. Not bad for Patrick Boyle's first film!
You see a young Christian Bale here who was , I think 14 at the time.
Shakespeare for the masses brought to you by film, even though a lot of the lines are left out, it is still one of the most inspiring speeches in any film (or play)
Thanks for posting this again, a sure sign you are feeling better.
Great speech by Shakespeare but problem is Henry V probably never said it. The military, lead by example king probably said (according to historians) "Alright boys - lets do this!" Which is exciting in its own way.
I saw a clip of Mark Rylance giving the speech on a,stage in London. It doesn't have the same oomph without music.
Someone added the music to Olivier's version of the speech from the 1944 movie. It really does add to the words.
Henry V was my entry into Shakespeare on film, love the movie.
I don't know if you'd classify it as classical music but The Ludlows, the theme from Legends of The Fall, is a favorite and the theme from Forest Gump is beautiful.
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