Why This Nineteen-Year-Old Thinks They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

So I was listening to the "Epic Film Scores of Miklos Rozsa" the other day. It is by far one of the best albums ever conceived, fourteen epic film score tracks (four from Ben-Hur [1959], three from El Cid [1961], three from Quo Vadis [1951], and four from King of Kings [1961]) plus, as a bonus, Rozsa's twelve-minute concerto from Spellbound. The music inspired me to see the only one of those four epics I'd never seen before, King of Kings. And a thought hit me like a ton of bricks and a ton of feathers while I was trying to figure out whether or not the actress who played Mary actually said her own lines.

King of Kings... is not a great movie. It's probably not even a good movie. Films about the life of Christ are as numerous as those loaves on the Mount (after the multiplication, of course), and tend to fall into a predictable pattern: Jesus is a long-haired white guy who performs miracles, is persecuted, then betrayed, then crucified, and ultimately resurrected. Of course that's the way the story has to be told, and it is a very good story at that (although the movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told, was a giant crock; at least this one is better). But after all, how many times can you watch the Nativity, then the miracles, then the Last Supper, then the Garden of Gethsemane, then the trial, then Golgotha, then (in many versions) the third day? I've counted, thus far, eight, including one rock opera and one interpretive version set in early-1970s New York. But while King of Kings goes beyond the scope of most Christ stories-- it begins with General Pompey, who was hunted down and killed thirty years before Christ was born-- and includes more of the "teen years" of Christ's life than we ever learned in Sunday school (yes, I went to Sunday school for several years), it's still the same story. Jesus is born in a stable; spirited to Egypt to save his life from Herod's order and so forth. And the key role is played by Jeffrey Hunter-- yes, Captain Christopher Pike from the original Star Trek-- and even though this movie was five years before that show, and even though he's decked out in Jesus' long-haired white boy costume, you really can't avoid thinking, "Great boar of Samoa! It's Captain Pike!"

But, at long last, we come to my epiphany, received after a few hours of looping the movie's mystical, solemn theme music.

It's nothing religious, though I know some people are apt to have religious experiences while watching or reading Biblical stories. It's purely the envy (yes, a sin, I know) of a nineteen-year-old guy who has survived the cinematic indignity of going to a theatre and seeing that the most popular films are the likes of Get Him To the Greek, Legally Blonde, and Transformers.

The point: where is the music in these dreadful nightmares of cultural degradation?

All film music these days has pretty much been reduced to either generic, percussive "stock music" (in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, and Transformers) or playlists of popular songs by shallow, popular artists. Occasionally, you do have a film that has its own unique sound (such as Alexander and Avatar) but, walking away from them, there's nothing you remember. And your feeling or appreciation of the movie has not been helped by the music, which means the music no longer serves its purpose.

So here's my question, or really more of a collage of same: Is it laziness? Whether moviegoers are too lazy to get invested in something that doesn't explode or so-called "composers" are too lazy to write anything that does, is that the reason for this latest alarming downward trend? Or are today's composers intimidated by the quality of the work of artists like Rozsa, Alex North, Dimitri Tiomkin, Alfred Newman, Jerry Goldsmith, and even the more contemporary John Williams (what is he up to now, by the way?), with the result that the field has reached a point of utter, existential stagnation?

I'm guessing the former. And another note: this puts fans of my favorite musical genre at a significant disadvantage. Most music lovers get to discover new music. But there's nothing coming out these days that people like me would be interested in!

This is a long post, and I promise it's almost over. I just have to go back for a second to my mention of the film El Cid. Have you seen it? Charlton Heston plays Rodrigo Diaz of Vivar (also known as the Cid), a heroic historical Spaniard who fought to unite the people of Spain-- Christians and Muslims, Moors-- against the invading Moors from Africa. All in all, it's a great movie. There is, however, one glaring flaw in it. The leader of the African Moors, Ben Yusuf (Herbert Lom, Clouseau's self-flagellating boss from the Pink Panther films), is a purely evil character. He has no depth, no nuance, and no motivation (beyond, apparently, being a Muslim) for wanting to destroy the Christians of Spain. Most of the film's other Muslims have a similar attitude, with the exception of the "good Muslims," those who join forces with the Cid for the greater good of Spain, who do seem to be fairly well-rounded characters. But from all the stories in the news lately, I can't help thinking that most people in this country are getting their ideas of Muslims from Lom's portrayal of Ben Yusuf. The entire religion is being painted with a mind-bogglingly wide brush as evil Satanic terrorists. By the same logic, one could call Christians a bunch of torturous, goose-stepping, book-burning, stubborn scum, judging solely from the events of small groups of them in times of history like the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition.

But no religion is so simple that it can be defined by the actions of its extremist fringe, and no human being is so simple that they can be defined by the actions of others of similar-- though perhaps still widely diverging-- religious beliefs.

Sigh... where have all the Rozsas gone?