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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE


James Horner wrote

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE -




Just yesterday, I wrote about appreciating those healing beacons in our lives ...

And now, he has died in the crash of the plane he was piloting.

One of the things I was looking forward to was James Horner's work on the sequel to AVATAR.

 I bet James Cameron never considered his lengthy gestation of that movie would cost him a trusted partner.

Just scan a few of his soundtracks:

GLORY. FIELD OF DREAMS. AN AMERICAN TAIL.

TITANIC. ALIENS. THE WRATH OF KHAN.

LEGENDS OF THE FALL. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. BRAVEHEART.

APOLLO 13. GORKY PARK. COCOON.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND. PELICAN BRIEF. AVATAR.

It's strange the loss I feel. 

His music has become a bedrock of much of the fiction I write as I write certain scenes.

In fact, one of my fantasies is that he would write the music for one of my novels turned into a movie.

{Dreamer, me.}

James Horner has keen words of wisdom for us as writers, too:

 “My job

— and it’s something I discuss with Jim [Cameron] all the time —

is to make sure at every turn of the film it’s something the audience can feel with their heart.”

Horner said.

“When we lose a character, when somebody wins, when somebody loses, when someone disappears —

at all times I’m keeping track, constantly, of what the heart is supposed to be feeling.

That is my primary role.”

He deeply appreciated John Williams:

 “It was very operatic,” he said of John Williams’s famous Star Wars score.

“You had a theme for bravery, you had Luke’s theme, you had the empire’s theme, you had Leah’s theme,

and then maybe more, and they were all intertwined.

They were really significant themes and you could tell what was going on. That type of writing is gone."

He said, 

“On several occasions on films I’ve worked on, I would write a theme to express an idea

and I’d be asked to take the theme out and just do it with chords or somehow imply it."

 “They did not want a theme in the film.

I don’t really know of another way to say something from the heart except by how I orchestrate it and with a theme.”

Horner said that he had “cut back” on writing music for major motion pictures because of the rise in predictable action movies.

But he said he would never quit writing for movies,

"To have a piece of music forever married to a piece of film, that’s a special sort of relationship.”

And that special relationship is how James Horner will live on in our hearts.

12 comments:

  1. So many small plane crashes take the lives of the talented musicians and others. Perhaps it's Fate, or their destiny to leave an indelible mark on our lives. At least we have been privileged enough to experience some of their great work. May he rest in peace, forever lost in his music.

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    1. I like to think of him in stellar regions of Eternity, writing new melodies to accompany the new sights he is beholding now. :-)

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  2. Awww, that's really sad about James Horner. Personally, I've always wanted John Williams to compose a score for a book-turned-movie. At the rate I'm going he'll be dead before that's a glimmer of a possibility.

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    1. Maybe we can both get Hans Zimmer to do our movies? Hey, we can dream, right?

      And it is sad that a light in our memories has gone out. :-(

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  3. He was a master. He wrote the scores for many of my favorite films.
    And I understand a little of what he means. I had to write a short story inspired by a piece of music for an anthology. It was an incredible experience to meld the two.

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    1. He truly was a master, wasn't he? How much poorer our movie experiences would have been without him.

      It is indeed to write a fiction piece based on a musical selection. Congrats for making it into that anthology! :-)

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  4. I am so sorry to hear this and to know that it has affected you deeply. I remember that the music to A Beautiful Mind was very powerful.

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    1. Inger! How nice to see you here! I often listen to the 20 minute Titanic suite. It saddens me that a creator of beauty is gone. But the circle of Life turns as it will.

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  5. I have no words, I still and feeling the sadness... as I think what a great legacy of music Horner has left behind. Like all the greats in composing ones who are still here and the new generation... life is short and we don't know when our time is up...

    Horner was a great composer, he will be missed.

    THANK YOU, for your open post... that is why we are friends, you get it.

    Jeremy

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    1. Yes, he will be missed. It always seems darker after a light is extinguished than if it had never been. I am glad we met Jeremy, :-)

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  6. I was also sad to hear this. It's such a huge loss.

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    1. I think so, too. How many movies would have been made magical with his work if he had just lived?

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