March 07, 2007
Why can't Oscar sing?
What happened to Hollywood's ear for a good tune? Mark Steyn laments Tinseltown's tin ear, as evidenced in the Oscar for best song.
Hugh Hewitt: Now we switch subjects completely to a bit of music (Que Sera Sera) because you have this very charming column, I think inspired by the Oscars, their music collapse. This is the music of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and it’s very charming. And you’re right. Oscars music has gone right to hell.
Mark Steyn: Well, you never hear Oscar songs except on the Oscar awards night anymore. I mean, this one that won from Melissa Etheridge, the thing from the Al Gore documentary, no one’s ever going to hear that ever again. I mean, even in the movie, you’re hardly aware of the thing. And something has gone very, very badly wrong. Que Sera Sera won the Oscar for best song in 1956. If you look at the first few years of the Oscar awards, they produced The Way You Look Tonight, they produced Thanks For The Memory, Over The Rainbow, White Christmas was an Oscar-winning song. It was introduced in a movie.
HH: Yup.
MS: And it’s nothing to do with changing tastes in music, I don’t think ... films don’t really seem to understand the potency of song, and how to make things work.
HH: Well, are there no Jay Livinston and Ray Evans left?
MS: Well, there are people who can write that kind of song. A lot of the time, I think particularly this generation of filmmakers, you know, it’s the sort of monopoly as a baby boomer nostalgia thing, they prefer to have some kind of big, have a soundtrack of big blockbuster rock hits, rather than try to introduce a new song. But certainly, the dreariest part of the Oscar ceremony these days is when you have the performances of the five nominated songs … because nobody likes them, nobody knows them, nobody cares about them.
It's the same problem with modern Broadway shows and what passes for pop music nowadays: forgettable lyrics and tunes that can't be hummed or whistled.
When was the last time a great song debuted in a Hollywood film?
There's more from Steyn on this topic here.
A sample:
What do these five songs have in common?
“The Way You Look Tonight”, “Thanks For The Memory”, “Over The Rainbow”, “When You Wish Upon A Star” and “White Christmas”.
Answer: They were all Academy Award-winning songs from the Best Song Oscar’s first decade.
And what do these five songs have in common?
“When You Believe”, “You’ll Be In My Heart”, “Into The West”, “Al Otro Lado del Rio” and “It”s Hard Out Here For A Pimp”.
Answer: They were all Academy Award-winning songs from the last decade.
Something has changed – not just in the style of music but in Hollywood’s sense of the possibilities of song, of what you can do with it in a cinematic context. In the first couple of decades, the nominees were mostly from film musicals – that’s to say, actors performed them up there on the screen.
The very first Best Song Oscar – from 1934 – went to a number Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and a cast of thousands introduced in The Gay Divorcee: “The Continental”. There was an embarrassment of riches in those days: “Pennies From Heaven” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” were among the losers in 1936, “Blues In The Night” and “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” in 1941.
In the Fifties, the studio’s music departments figured out a new wrinkle: the big theme song over the titles – “High Noon”, “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing”. Sinatra sang a bunch of them so well that the film itself seems like an afterthought tacked on to the hit opener – “Three Coins In The Fountain”, for example, the winning song in 1954.
I can sing along with both of the songs Steyn says failed to take the prize in 1936, and I know about half the words to one of 1941's nominees -- not bad for songs that have been around for seventy some-odd years.
And those were the losers.
The recent winners? Don't know a word of “It”s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” -- don't want to, either.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at March 7, 2007 04:56 PM
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