Sondheim's "Reds" score
Sondheim's "Reds" score
#1Sondheim's "Reds" score
Posted: 11/1/23 at 2:14pm
Why did he do it?
Why did he never do it again?
Why did it barely feature in the movie?
Why was it not nominated for an Oscar?
Is it considered good?
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ErmengardeStopSniveling
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
#2Sondheim's
Posted: 11/1/23 at 2:49pm
Jay Lerner-Z said: "Why did he do it?
Scrapbooks full with him in the background.
He was friends with Warren Beatty. Warren was King of Hollywood and very persuasive. Perhaps it was an interesting challenge for him.
Why did he never do it again?
I don't know, but the answer below might have had something to do with it.
Why did it barely feature in the movie?
That movie was drastically changed during production and post-production. Elaine May actually had a big hand in the editing (and took an uncredited pass at the script too), which led Warren to tell her "whatever you want to do next I'll make it happen." So they made ISHTAR.
I don't know if Sondheim composed more material that ended up on the cutting room floor, but his primary contribution is the main love theme. Warren was a mercurial auteur and could have decided he preferred what Dave Grusin cooked up. A film composer has no control of what ends up in the final product.
Why was it not nominated for an Oscar?
Does this have anything to do with eligibility or credits? Sondheim is credited with "original music," Grusin is credited with "additional music" and I believe DG's contributions also include arranging some period piano tunes (correct me if wrong, I haven't seen it in a minute).
Is it considered good?"
The score, the film, or both? Watch it and come back to us.
I love the score, regardless of who composed what.
As for the movie itself, I think it is as good as any of David Lean's sprawling epics, and you can see its influence on everything from Spielberg to Oppenheimer. It won Oscars for Director, Cinematography, and Maureen Stapleton, but some people view it as bloated. At the Oscars, it was up against films like Chariots of Fire (a populist winner), Raiders of the Lost Ark (cool), On Golden Pond (ehhh), and Arthur. Jack Nicholson was brilliant in REDS as Eugene O'Neill and I think he deserved the Supp Actor Oscar over John Gielgud for Arthur. But Gielgud was an old legend who had never won, and Jack had less screentime.
#3Sondheim's
Posted: 11/1/23 at 3:29pm
It couldn't have soured him too much since he wrote the songs for Beatty's DICK TRACY almost a decade later, which again are represented in a very fragmented way in the final film.
Updated On: 11/1/23 at 03:29 PM
bk
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/20/03
#4Sondheim's
Posted: 11/1/23 at 4:01pm
Sondheim's contribution was solely Goodbye For Now. Dave Grusin wrote the score and occasionally interpolated the Sondheim tune. This wasn't his first time at the movies. He composed an entire score for Alain Resnais' Stavisky and it's great. It reuses some of the cut stuff from Follies. And as someone has already pointed out, he was back with Beatty with songs for Dick Tracy. He also had a song in The Seven-Percent Solution. And songs for the never filmed Singing Out Loud, as well as some unused stuff for The Bird Cage. Seek out Sondheim at the Movies CD, which I produced.
#5Sondheim's
Posted: 11/1/23 at 5:13pm
Thank you.
It seems like Sondheim didn't actually do much work at all on the film, then. Dave Grusin, Jonathan Tunick, and Alexander Gemignani surely did more, but Steve gets top billing. Why?
What warranted this piece to get a spot in the 80th birthday concert? Over, say, Assassins? Did Sondheim have a special fondness for it?
That album sounds very intriguing bk, thanks.
Scarywarhol... Dick Tracy was only eight or nine years after Reds, not twenty. Or do you mean that Goodbye For Now was something Sondheim already had sitting around before he handed it over to Warren Beatty?
Ermengarde... I just watched the movie very recently, and like it a lot. I was just a little disappointed in the (lack of) score. I suppose the movie was an influence on later ones, but I would also say that Warren Beatty himself, as director, seemed influenced by Woody Allen. Maybe it's just Diane Keaton that makes me think that, but also the documentary-like talking heads, the witnesses. The opening and closing credits. Zelig made around the same time also had talking heads.
Beyoncé is not an ally. Actions speak louder than words, Mrs. Carter. #Dubai #$$$
AnythingYouDo
Chorus Member Joined: 5/28/19
#7Sondheim's
Posted: 11/1/23 at 5:42pm
According to Sondheim in Look, I Made a Hat, Beatty asked Sondheim to score the film but Sondheim said he could only score "atmosphere" rather than music for "events" such as rallies and battles. Sondheim scored some sequences in the film, but Beatty rejected them because he "didn't approve of music that told the audience what was going on in the actors' minds."
Sondheim then wrote a love theme at Beatty's request, which he based on The Internationale. The film apparently includes Sondheim's own demo recording of the theme; Beatty tried to capture the sound of the demo in the film score's recording sessions but gave up.
Incidentally, the theme was not intended to be a song. Sondheim wrote the lyrics for "Goodbye for Now" at Beatty's request to release the theme as a single.
