Comments on: Love Story

By: Jim Lochner

Jim Lochner — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:05:59 +0000

That’s a lot of pressure! I’ll keep my fingers crossed on your big song. :)

If you can get beyond MacGraw’s acting, you’re right. The movie is not that bad.

By: Peter Kaye

Peter Kaye — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:10:37 +0000

I remember once, while nosing around a Parisian music-box shop, finding a music box mechanism (you could pick your song to put in your favorite box) for Johnny Mandel’s, Oscar winning, The Shadow of Your Smile. I thought “MAN! That is writing some music!”, and set off immediately to write something that would have such an effect on the whole world that it would end up in people’s music-boxes. Meh, I’m still working on it. But yet there is something about writing “…the song that the whole world sings” (that song excepted).

I did obtain and watch Love Story, and besides the nostalgia for my-era Harvard Square, I found it not that very bad that I feared. Maybe like my big song, they’re still working on it.

By: Jim Lochner

Jim Lochner — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:30:25 +0000

You have a very good point that no matter my opinion on Lai’s LOVE STORY melody, it’s a part of the collective memory (or consciousness or whatever you want to call it). Much like TITANIC became years later, STAR WARS, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, and a handful of others. Not many composers get that kind of recognition.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:23:48 +0000

In those days, Love Story played almost everywhere around the globe. That melody has (and still is?) part of the collective memory. Not many film scores composers can really say that one of their cues or melodies had such an impact. ( I feel a list of 9 brewing!!!)

About self flagellation, I need to go and rent the movie now.
Then I can feel guilty!

By: Jim Lochner

Jim Lochner — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:52:28 +0000

“a regular protestant self-flagellation of music”… LOL Cracked me up. And having had my share of astringent music thrown my way through my 9 years of undergrad and grad school, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Hmm, I wonder what’s in the air if LOVE STORY is getting all this discussion lately.

I understand what you mean about evaluating soundtracks as opposed to the score within the film. I much prefer to hear it within context too. It’s not always possible but I do my best. :)

By: Peter Kaye

Peter Kaye — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:48:01 +0000

Having come of age in 1960s Boston, I can appreciate the most astringent music known to humankind, a regular protestant self-flagellation of music. Add a scalding, feminist critique and I am in my salad days. Please pass the doughnuts DOH! :-)

Geez thanks, as you were the second to comment about Love Story in the last week, from locations and backgrounds far apart, I went and ordered it (the DVD, I am one of those purists who thinks evaluating “soundtracks” is like taking the paint off of a house and hanging it on a wall and judging it as art. Without the image/narrative you are dealing with some rump ephemera). Well, it will be fun to see the Cambridge of my day.

And I’m with Gary when it comes to wacky ol’ Uncle Oscar (LOL Gary, I will use that appellation in the future, if you don’t mind).

By: Jim Lochner

Jim Lochner — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:31:51 +0000

RYAN’S DAUGHTER is a far better film, agreed. And absolutely beautiful cinematography.

By: Jim Lochner

Jim Lochner — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:25:48 +0000

Hi Peter, I’m with you that I prefer A MAN AND A WOMAN, or LIVE FOR LIFE. As for the overly sentimental and manipulative, I’m as susceptible to (and suspicious of) it as the next person. But I’d prefer that to a lot of the musical compositions that came out of academia during the 60s and 70s (and beyond). I can certainly appreciate them on an intellectual level and often, with enough study, I can see what they’re trying to do. But who is that composition speaking to? Often there is such a disregard for the audience that it’s off-putting. And that’s fine if that’s what the composer wants, just don’t expect it to be remembered and/or performed. I think that’s why film music speaks to me on such a primal level. All of this is a gross simplification and generalization, and I’m not even sure if it’s what you were talking about. The good thing is that there’s room for all types of music and the people who appreciate them. But back to LOVE STORY, boy, has that aged badly. LOL

By: Gary Dalkin

Gary Dalkin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:10:08 +0000

Uncle Oscar, who cares what he thinks. The Academy in their wisdom thought this mediocrity was a better love story, nay a better film, than David Lean’s brilliant and magisterial Ryan’s Daughter.

By: Peter Kaye

Peter Kaye — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:12:26 +0000

It seems to me that by 1971, the fifty years of modernist practices in the composition world had created a distaste for the overtly sentimental (schmaltz), and had bred an resentful suspicion of the obviously manipulating. This kind of writing was NOT being taught in composition departments of the 60-70s. Of course the audience, not having had the benefit of their tastes being educated, responded like gangbusters. Personally, I am much more fond of Lai's A Man and a Woman (1966), although there are also a bunch of wonderful Brazilian composers to thank for that as well. I find it a precursor for the perhaps, over-touted The Graduate (1967), and certainly Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) in its meta-diegetic use of music.