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liz197 Group: Members Posts: 40 Joined: Jan. 2003 Posted: Feb. 06 2003, 10:48 just thought of something, wouldnt it be a good idea if mike did some music for the whole of a film, not like the exercist where there was only that one song, for a luc besson film like the grand bleu, but something more original. Back to top

tubularbills Group: Members Posts: 528 Joined: Aug. 2000 Posted: Feb. 06 2003, 14:54 Wasn't that what "The Killing Fields" was all about? -------------- Terrible, Wonderful, Crazy, Perfect. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 06 2003, 16:49 He did already, as tubularbills remarked, and IMHO he failed miserably. I think he'd better not try again. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Feb. 07 2003, 15:28 I don't think he failed miserably at all. I do feel that some pieces of music worked better than others (the execution piece is one I don't think really works), but overall I think that what is there fits with the pictures quite well. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 07 2003, 16:13 Richard: since I don't remember the film (last saw it a LOT of time ago...), I can't judge how well the music works within the film. But since I think that a soundtrack is good when it also works well on its own, without the movie [it may be a very peculiar criterion, but hey, that's how I see it!! ], I must admit that, IMHO, TKF as an album is not good at all, in fact I think it's pretty bad. The only good piece on it seems to me to be Étude, and it's not even Mike's. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Man In The Rain Group: Members Posts: 405 Joined: April 2002 Posted: Feb. 07 2003, 20:26 I think that Pran's Departure and The Boy's Burial/Pran Sees The Red Cross, are two of Mike's finest ever compositions. Mike did contribute the soundtrack to The Space Movie, which contained outtakes from works such as Incantations. But a new film with a full Oldfield soundtrack would be wonderful! I think the last time that he contributed an original piece to a film soundtrack was for The X-Files: The Movie, back in 1998, and that wasn't in the film, only on the album! Ollie -------------- Hergest Ridge 165 - Ommadawn 038 - Incantations 243 Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 08:33 I think it's quite telling that David Puttnam (the producer of the KF and big British movie mogal) regards the KF as one of the best film scores ever written and he may well be right. Personaly I think it's actualy quite rare for a soundtrack to work brilliantly devoid of it's subject matter and I don't think you should ever judge a score by whether or not it works on its own , also the KF is such a subject specific score that I think you're being massively unfair to it Ugo. For me it contains some of the most original music Mike has ever composed and if you compare it to other film scores its actualy incredibly daring in how it works and with some of the sounds and textures Mike chose to use for the individual scenes. It's for all these reasons that I would love to see Mike do another film, but please not a naff one like an Exorsist sequel. Back to top

tubularbills Group: Members Posts: 528 Joined: Aug. 2000 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 14:06 I still think he would do an awesome job at some huge movie like The Matrix or some other large blockbuster movie. I think some of his best music is his most intense pieces (Far Above the Clouds, just to name one of many). so i think that would work best on the big screen with an intense action or suspsense movie. -------------- Terrible, Wonderful, Crazy, Perfect. Back to top

Man In The Rain Group: Members Posts: 405 Joined: April 2002 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 15:47 I think I may have posted about this somewhere before so if I'm repeating myself I apologise, but before Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring went into final production (maybe 4 years ago) there was a huge online poll as to who should do the music for the film, and from what I remember it seemed semi-official. Notably Enya was listed there, as was Hans Zimmer, Vangelis, and Mike Oldfield... -------------- Hergest Ridge 165 - Ommadawn 038 - Incantations 243 Back to top

Tati The Sentinel Group: Members Posts: 3360 Joined: Feb. 2002 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 16:07 Tomorrow on a brazilian cable TV channel is going to show a programme which talks about music and movies...and this sunday Mike is going to appear to talk about the soundtrack for The Killing Fields...anyone has seen it before..the episode title is called "heroes"... Me waiting to see it... -------------- "But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014 "I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011 Back to top

MusicallyInspired Group: Musicians Posts: 1445 Joined: June 2001 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 16:27 Evacuation rocks! -------------- BrandonBlume.com "The beauty in life is in the embracing of the variety of things. If all the world was blue there would be no colour blue." Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 18:23 Man In The Rain: I partly agree. I find Pran's Departure a little boring. Toby: Please don't bash me just because I dared to express my opinion. The Killing Fields is just my least-favourite Mike Oldfield album. Maybe if I saw the movie again (after soooooo much time I didn't see it) I'd judge it a little better. P.S. Don't tell me that Michael Nyman's soundtrack for The Piano doesn't work without the movie, because for me it's one of the best instrumental recordings EVER... other than Mike's ones, of course. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

TOBY Group: Members Posts: 1562 Joined: May 2002 Posted: Feb. 08 2003, 19:01 Hi Ugo please don't think I'm bashing you chap I'm merely stating that I think you should sit back and give the soundtrack a little more of your thought. Personaly for me if I dislike a piece of music that I know is artisticaly successfull, and other people like, I tend to go back and listen to it again with a different ear and find out what I'm missing. I did not in anyway say that ALL soundtracks don't work as albums but quite a lot don't even some of the best one's. Try listening to the Jaws soundtrack, an all time classic, and not imagining a big shark comming to get you. A very difficult thing to do. Indeed a few soundtracks work better when they're seperated from the film. I just got John Barry's soundrtack to 'Moonraker', a shit Bond movie if ever there was one, and it's superb. Somebody should use this for a better movie. Another example of an amazing soundtrack not making a brilliant album for me would be Yann Tiersen's music for Amelie. The music is superb in the movie and very beautifull but as an album to sit back and listen to it sounds very fragmented, like a lot of soundtracks do, because most of the tracks are about 2 to 3 minuits long and are designed as little set pieces to go with short scenes ,although in the case of Amelie I do realise that some of the score was taken from his earlier albums. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 09 2003, 12:38 Thank you for understanding my point of view, Toby But I don't think I'm going to change my mind about soundtracks in general and about the KF album in particular, if not after I get a chance to re-watch the movie (maybe). I just listened to it again (a quarter of an hour ago) and I almost fell asleep. No other Mike album makes me fall asleep, this does. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Feb. 09 2003, 13:36 I fell asleep while listening to Incantations once... There are lots of soundtracks which I find good, but I'd not listen to on their own, and indeed wouldn't be very interesting on their own. Ry Cooder's soundtrack to Paris, Texas would be one (an example I've given before) - very haunting and beautiful in the context of the film, but I can't imagine it put together as an album. I was thinking the same about some of the music in Tom Tykwer's 'The Princess and The Warrior' - he does a lot of his own music that works very well behind some of the fast moving scenes, but I'd find very uninteresting on its own. You could add the Blade Runner soundtrack to that list as well... I think the point of a good film soundtrack is to enhance what's happening on screen and if it does that, it's good. If it works as an album as well, that's a bonus, but it's not the reason why the music was created, and therefore isn't the criteria I'd use to judge the music. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 09 2003, 14:58 Seems like I've been misunderstood a bit, so I'll (try to) restate my point more clearly... When I buy a soundtrack CD, I buy because I like it as an ALBUM, not because I like the way in which the music on that CD works in the movie. This is not a special criterion I have for judging soundtrack CDs. It's the criterion with which I judge ALL of the CDs I buy. All of the following are beautiful soundtrack ALBUMS to me: The Fugitive, The Piano, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Silence of the Lambs, Blade Runner, The Gladiator, A Clockwork Orange and Ocean's Eleven. All of these are mainly instrumental, i.e. movie scores, because I generally tend not to like soundtrack CDs which are just compilations of songs [Ocean's Eleven got a few songs in it, but I don't think they are important. ]. Unfortunately, The Killing Fields as an ALBUM, to me, just doesn't fit in the above list. I find it boring, a bit depressing and, in some tracks made only of sound effects [e.g. David Bedford's The Year Zero], even musically meaningless. The only reasons why I bought it are: 1) It's a Mike Oldfield album, and I needed it to complete my MO collection ; 2) It contains the full version of Étude, which is unavailable anywhere else. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Feb. 09 2003, 15:58 I think I'd better stop postin' in this topic. I'm a little biased. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Tati The Sentinel Group: Members Posts: 3360 Joined: Feb. 2002 Posted: Feb. 10 2003, 16:18 About the TV programme that Mike appeared here in Brazil,it´s called "Music Behind the Scenes - Heroes",and it´s from 2001,and I don´t know in which country it was produced(it´s not here!. He said some nice things about KF...I´ll see it again and then post his comments about it. -------------- "But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster." - Mike Oldfield, 2014 "I remember feeling that I'd been judged unfairly and that I was going to prove them wrong." - Peter Davison, 2011 Back to top

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