John / Billybob
The Blue Danube Waltz is certainly a memorable and recognizable piece. My problem is that I played it at least a million times as a kid on the violin. So for me personally it is “worn out”. But your points are well taken
Music is in the ear of the beholder. Can’t argue with what you say, though. My favorite piece of music is I’ll Be Seeing You, the Billie Holiday version. Both it and the Jimmy Durante version are used in The Notebook, and it still stays with me 3 or 4 years after seeing the film.
Great choice of movies.
Funny thing about music versus film. Regardless of your taste in music, you can listen to your favorites hundreds, maybe thousands of times and still enjoy it again. Not so with film. There are darn few movies we’re willing to sit thru more than 3 or 4 times. Music 1s a very different experience than film.
I’ve known people that don’t have any source of music in their home. I can’t imagine that.
Speaking of music and politics, here is an interesting bit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuCIjWKJUEE
The 2006 Irish film Once to me had a similar gestahlt but no Blue Danube. It's a great modern-day musical tale of a down-and-out pop singer who finds a muse in an Eastern European immigrant. Mrs. jimfree and I had to go to an art theater inside DC to see it after reading the Podhoretz review "a chick flick for guys" in The Weekly Standard. It earned every one of the 8 points showing on IMDB.
The docking sequence that starts 2001 is one of the most powerful uses of music in film that I know.
We we saw it in 1968, man had not yet landed on the moon. I doubt if today's young people can even watch that film with the same awe that we did.
Next week we go back to talking about politics with mere logic.
That is exactly what I find myself doing, or at least trying to do.It seems to me that there is a place for that - in court. Not that judges should make political decisions, even logical ones - but judges should make logical decisions on how to avoid making political decisions. As IMHO O'Connor and the liberals failed to do, for example, in McConnell v. FEC.
Hold That Ghost...Joan Davis & Lou Costello...priceless!
"da da dada da
quack quack quack quack..."
John,
I love the waltz. I don’t know if you dance, but Strictly Ballroom and its docunentary antecedent are icons in the ballroom world. If you do not waltz, there are less structured and less expensive ways to learn than Arthur Murray. There are non-profit “mostly waltz” group around the country. Try http://www.waltzadventure.com/?p=3 in northern Georgia or you may be able to find a group in Asheville or knoxville. Watch out, they are filled with wacky Libs. I just avoid political discussion and bite my tongue. Happy dancing!
We also will be talking about the Oscar ceremonies where awards for exceptional scores, composition and songs have not been forthcoming for years.
This gives credence to the axiom that Americans today are no longer interested in listening to good music, just orchestrated noise.
Leni
Your observations of “2001” are astute. It took me two or three viewings before I could appreciate what Kubrick was trying to do, to demonstrate the universality of music as transcendent over space and time. And I have to confess that I rapidly grew tired of “Also Spracht Zarathustra” when it became shill music for everything from new cars to panty liners.
IMO the best music ever written.
I recall another movie that has the Blue Danube Waltz as a sweet backdrop in the 1939(?) film “Goodbye Mr. Chips”. Robert Donat won for Best Actor, I believe he beat Clark Gable for “Gone with the Wind”. In the movie, the shy schoolmaster goes on a holiday and meets his future wife played by Greer Garson, they dance to this music in Vienna and then go their own ways, only to meet again on a steamship on the Danube. The saying goes that if you are in love, the water in the Danube appears to be blue, but if you are not in love, it is not. Greer Garson comments to her travelling companion on how blue the river is....