The London Times asked renowned film composers about the state of the craft in recent years and they seem to agree: it’s shit.

Hans Zimmer dismissed the majority of contemporary screen compositions as unmemorable. “They drift around like cows grazing. So many scores sound like nobody really thought about them.”

But on the other hand they include Anne Dudley in this survey. Dudley - who’s done her best work as member of The Art of Noise - has won an Oscar for scoring “The Full Monty” but I’m afraid her scores are as bland as the the ones she’s pooping on. And while one indeed misses the greatness of yesteryear’s film scores, and while indeed there were few memorable film scores in the past few years, it was lazy of The Times to neglect mentioning some of the best of the younger generation composers: Jon Brion and Jonny Greenwood’s work for Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Giacchino’s work on Brad Bird’s movies, anything by Alexandre Desplat and Clint Mansel, two of the best composers in the universe this minute. Can you think of any other young composers that are doing outstanding jobs at present?

========

Julliette Binoche, who won an Oscar for The English Patient, has written a poem in memory of that film’s director, Anthony Minghella, who died suddenly last Tuesday. She sent her poem to EW.

To Anthony

I shall learn to live without you.
With all we’ve done and undone
with all the missing parts I’ll have to carry on hoping
you were the bedrock of fun, the laugh that made me laugh
and your hand came with love and care
I could see your thoughts going faster and faster
ahead in their curved complex understanding
your excitements became my excitement in the joy of sharing
my friend of art
you’ve gone missing
we shared a heart beating in this inner world of creation
and your ideas became real to me
I was your angel and you opened my wings
and you were the words I could fly into
my friend of heart
I will carry the unsaid
I will cherish my forgiveness until I see you
and please forgive me for my painful silence
magnetic eyes of yours with its sparkling needles
we dared a gift to the unknown
the search for truth in the battle of being
we attempted a glimpse on the other side
with joy with joy

JB

===========

Eric Rohmer - once a New Wave director, now an Old Wave - is 87 years old, but still likes to utilize the latest technology in his movies. Although he feels his latest film could probably be his last:

The method of shooting with a small crew and using the latest equipment is typical of the 87-year-old. “I’ve always been interested in new technology,” he asserts. “The first article I ever wrote, even before Cahiers, was for a journal called Revue du Cinéma. In was on the use of colour over black and white. It was at a time when people preferred black and white, but I liked colour and also the use of direct-sync sound.”

Sad as it is to report, he intimates that The Romance of Astrea and Celadon is likely to be his swansong: “I haven’t got plans to make another film, it’s not easy for me to make films now. These days it takes me much longer to prepare a film then when I was younger.”

===========

Gene Wilder, a comic genius in my eyes, was honored in San Fransisco last week. In this phoner he reveals the truth about the origins of “Young Frankenstein”’s Frau Blucher:

since I wrote [”Young Frankenstein”], I think that was the best realization of what I intended of all the other films that I did or wrote.
When I was writing the first draft, I said, “I wonder if anybody would get it when someone said “Frau Blücher” and the horses neigh. Mel (Brooks) said, “Keep it in.” Well, the audience loved it in the previews.
Actually, I chose the name because I wanted an authentic German name. I took out some of the books I had of the letters to and from Sigmund Freud. I saw someone named Blücher had written to him, and I said well that’s the name. Later on, I heard from about two or three sources, who said Blücher refers to a horse going to a factory and being turned to glue. I just thought it was a funny name.

This is one of the single greatest examples of comedic acting in the history of cinema:

(Gene Wilder’s segment in Woody Allen’s 1972 “Everything You Always Want to Know About Sex”)