Anachronistic Music in Movies

Subject: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 03:59 PM

On another thread, mention was made of Cooley's Reel being played in The Bounty. According to Fiddler's Companion, the oldest claim on this tune is to the 1940s. In The Revenant, set in the late 1700s, a fiddler plays Ragtime Annie, for the existence of which there is no evidence prior to the 1920s, according, again, to FC.

How difficult would it have been for the fiddlers involved to have come up with historically (and otherwise) suitable tunes? IMO: not very. I know these movies are primarily entertainment - but if it were me, I would have taken 10 or 20 minutes to think of and run over a good tune from the appropriate era. But, I suppose I'm not as busy as the guys who get hired to play in movies ... !

Wondering if anyone has noticed other tunes out of their time?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 05:08 PM

Yes - Have you ever seen the film High Noon? The music in there is jarring. I suppose that is the point of it. Frankie Laine just jumps out at you in that ballad.

Wikipedia entry.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 07:27 PM

Examples of anachronistic music employed as a deliberate dramatic device in movies,
is too numerous and widespread to begin to list...

But if you are only discussing mistakes due to a music dept's laziness and ineptitude...???

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 08:02 PM

I wouldn't even call them 'mistakes', or attribute them to laziness or ineptitude - it's more a matter of just not giving a damn.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 09:27 PM

But it is either deliberate, or a mistake...

If a movie set in medieval times plays a heavy metal song over a battle scene,
there can be no other explanations than deliberate or mistake...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 25 Feb 20 - 09:46 PM

Hardly worth arguing about, IMO. If someone else wants to take up the job, have at 'er, as we say around here.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 02:37 AM

It is part of the whole.
The dialogue as well. It speaks to a modern audience, so they give it modern references. Then there is the directors artistic peccadilloes, and copyright, don't forget copyright. Someone gets the royalties of the version that is played as clips/music on TV etc.

It irritates we who notice, it is disrespectful too, but we are a small audience.

They ignore continuity errors. It is hard to believe they didn't see them in the cutting room. But to re-shoot would be expensive, and a logistical nightmare.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 02:54 AM

What annoys me is films like Fisherman’s Friends (which I enjoyed). This is a film about a group of unaccompanied singers, so why the hell do some of the songs have invisible musicians accompanying them on some songs? It seems the producers don’t really have faith in the film’s basic premise, and so have to tart up (some of) the songs to make them accessible to the wider public, ignoring the fact that the film is all about music that is not tarted up!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 03:18 AM

"A Knight's" Tale is a very good film with some, I suspect, deliberately anachronistic music including Queen's "We will rock you". The missed a trick by no using Adam Ant in the dance scene though. Moulin Rougue is set in the past but full of modern day music. On the TV, the series "Peaky Blinders" uses modern music to great effecr. There must be loads.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 03:59 AM

There's a difference between using "anachronistic" music as a backing soundtrack, and Barry Dransfield playing "Cooley's" reel live , as a character in the film.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: gillymor
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 04:32 AM

In a popular movie that I didn't much care for, Rio Bravo starring John Wayne, Ricky Nelson sang a bit of the old southern folk song "Cindy" but he did it in his lukewarm rockabilly style. Rockabilly didn't come along until the mid-twentieth century, of course.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 04:56 AM

Of late, I have become accustomed to music and songs being used out of context in film and television, since it happens so often now. What is annoying though, is that no one bothers to do what these days would be some quick Internet research to identify appropriate music, or even just ask someone who might be able to point them in the right direction. Worse still, they probably don’t care or see why it is of any importance anyway. Sometimes it’s deliberate, often with a view to making more money out of re-selling old pop songs to a new young audience via soundtrack compilations, but other times it’s most likely unintentional error through ignorance and apathy.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 05:07 AM

Considering the intentional 'poetic license' diabolical liberties
movies and TV series take with factual historical characters and events for dramatic effect,
moaning about a song misplaced by a few decades or centuries
is quite petty in the greater scheme of mass entertainment conventions..

They are not factual documentaries..
They are not catering to a vocal minority of mudcat pedants;
trainspotters and anoraks of the music world..

Just go with what he film makers want to communicate, in the ways they plan to do it..
Or don't watch them...

There's far worse happening in fake truth documentaries
deliberately distorting reality for propaganda purposes...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 05:25 AM

One film that got it spot on: "The Favourite", where the band in the courtyard is playing Vivaldi. Pan-European hit at the time and exactly what a queen's orchestra would have chosen to show off how up-to-the--minute they were.

I didn't quite get why Anne threw a wobbly in the middle of it, though.

The Purcell song used at another point was older but would still have been current repertoire.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 06:03 AM

Not exactly anachronistic but how about the Irish pipes in Braveheart?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 06:34 AM

Every hobby has die hard fanatics who are offended if a movie gets their precious details wrong..

Western movie reviews by gun nuts are quite an 'educational' read...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 06:43 AM

"Every hobby has die hard fanatics who are offended if a movie gets their precious details wrong..
It's not "precious details", it's historical inaccuracy.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 06:58 AM

"It's not "precious details", it's historical inaccuracy."

it's movies.. not documentaries..

.. or academia...!!!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 06:59 AM

This thread would be funnier if it was titled "Antagonistic Music in Movies"...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 07:31 AM

Depends how it's being used. When the Beeb made 'Pride and Prejudice, they got Dave Townsend in to arrange the music for the ballroom scene, and he brought in musicians who knew how to play that stuff, 'Mr Beveridge's Maggot' and all. For that kind of thing, a bit of authenticity is no bad thing.

Mind you, I am the kind of bloke that shouts at the telly when a period drama uses the wrong kind of steam train - which is just about every time.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 07:41 AM

it's movies.. not documentaries..

Have you seen many documentaries lately? The number of times I have seen mirror images on video. It is nigh impossible to reverse the image unless you want to. Or make the whole thing in reversed.
Boat names, logos on T-Shirts, moles on faces that swap sides. And the music will be, undoubtedly, royalty-free Muzac.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 08:36 AM

"Mind you, I am the kind of bloke that shouts at the telly when a period drama uses the wrong kind of steam train - which is just about every time. "

I don't usually notice that although a British Railways logo in a programme set in the 1890s did stand out as did a British Rail double arrow in what was meant to be occupied Poland.

SWMBO always spots zip fasteners on period dresses.

The music in Pride and Prejudice was good though. I don't usually spot specific tunes but it annoys me when the whole style is out for the period. When you get a waltz danced in the seventeenth century it is time to switch off, calm down and put on some music of your own.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 08:37 AM

Dad claimed that ragtime was anachronistic in The Sting.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 12:24 PM

I'm more forgiving of anachronistic steam engines or WWII bombers; it can't always be easy to get your hands on the right ones, even if you do care. I just find it odd that if a director says to a fiddler, 'We need you to play a lively tune for scene in a movie set in 1800', the fiddler wouldn't ask himself what tunes might have been around in that era. I doubt it's the director or the music director who's choosing the specific tunes, in most cases.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 12:30 PM

Re: ragtime. From Wiki: "Joplin's death [in 1917] is widely considered to mark the end of ragtime as a mainstream music format; over the next several years, it evolved with other styles into stride, jazz, and eventually big band swing."

Dad was probably right.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 02:11 PM

It's not just films and the telly. We went to see "Quality Street" last week at the viaduct in Halifax. They deliberately used anachronistic music for the ball scene to make a humerous point, but the pupils were being taught to dance to "the downfall of Paris".

As for railway scenes I despair, as quite often an appropriate loco and rolling stock is available with a quick repainted (which can be done with wash-off temporary paint; anyone remember the advert with GWR 6106 in psychadelic colours).

Robin

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 02:15 PM

It's probably cheaper these days to do steam trains with relatively convincing CGI.
Then there's no excuse for shoddy research.

However a film maker might still deliberately decide that a CGI'd train from the wrong period
looks better on screen...

Like intentionally incorrect music, it's movie magic...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 02:36 PM

In Sharpe's Justice set during the peace of 1814 at the funeral of Sharpe's brother the mourners led by the character played by John Tams sings the Horatius Bonar Hymn "Only Remembered" which Bonar didn't write until 1872, it also had nothing to do with the First World War but was trotted out with an adapted verse in War Horse.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 04:29 PM

Before I ever get around to throwing things at the TV, I remind myself that they have the term Routemaster Moments, to belittle transport buffs who write in and complain about Routemaster buses, for example, appearing in London based dramas of the wrong decade. I suppose as long as they cover up the yellow line road markings with straw, or fake snow, on Thomas Hardy or Jane Austen dramas, perhaps we should just let it go.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 07:56 PM

@ Gordon Jackson: have you ever seen Fisherman's Friends on stage? They DON'T sing all of their songs a cappella; guitars and orher instruments very much in evidence, I too would prefer the unaccompanied versions of shanties.

Can't remember the name of the film now, but it was shown at the Scots Fiddle Festival a couple of years back: talking about 18th century musuc and playing Scott Skinner's "Hector the Hero": only a century out!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 08:19 PM

I can easily imagine a fiddler turning up with a practiced 18th century piece, only to be told by a director "nah, I don't like that, can you play ........? It'll sound better"

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 08:30 PM

I completly enjoyed the "Hell on Wheels" yarn about the cross continental railway presented by Netflix.

However, my skin crawled when a queer presentation, in a bar-room, was sung with tune and verses written decades later.
The song, "I Come to the Garden Alone," was included by purpose and not accident.

"In the Garden" (sometimes rendered by its first line "I Come to the Garden Alone" is a gospel song written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles (1868–1946).

The railroad line was constructed between 1863 and 1869.

Sincerelh,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 08:54 PM

Precocious one-year-old.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Pappy Fiddle
Date: 26 Feb 20 - 10:49 PM

I've noticed that musicians are a light-hearted bunch. Good thing. So I suggest we stick to that and laugh when one of these musical or other blops comes along.

In Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, there is frequent repetition of Ashoken Farewell. It does seem to fit but it was created by Jay Ungar in 1982, over a hundred years after the war.

If an anachronism really bothers you, I suggest you put some words to the offending tune, words that make sense in the situation or just loosely making sense, which I did for Ashoken Farewell.

Some will wonder how to do that. There's always a dozen YouTubes about any task, but what I do is start by writing some prose that sez what I want to say, then work it over to make it fit rhythm and rhyme.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 03:11 AM

@ Gordon Jackson: have you ever seen Fisherman's Friends on stage? They DON'T sing all of their songs a cappella; guitars and orher instruments very much in evidence, I too would prefer the unaccompanied versions of shanties.

Hi Tatie, no I've never seen them on stage, but that wasn't my point. My point was that in the film they are shown singing unaccompanied, and yet guitars et al are clearly heard. There is no sign of a PA that could have provided backing tracks. Perhaps some might consider it a bit anorakish, but were I standing in the harbour listening to unaccompanied singing, I'd have been looking around for the guitarist!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: BobL
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 03:39 AM

At least thy don't have an invisible orchestra... (or so I assume, not having seen the film myself)

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 05:18 AM

I doubt it's the director or the music director who's choosing the specific tunes, in most cases. - er.............
"nah, I don't like that, can you play ........? It'll sound better"

Exactly the point I was about make. The Fiddler would play his best fit, and the "xyz director" would say, "got any more?" and 10 minutes later the fiddler (if he had any nouse) would suss the ignoramus & improvise &/or play one he wrote earlier and claim copyright. Why do you think the credits are so long and detailed?

If you were a motorcycle buff, you would spot the two-stroke jumping over the Panza tank and be looking for the bolt-on horizontal cylinders to make the light 250 Honda single shock motorcrosser look like a heavy 500 BMW boxer (with a plunger back-end). Following me so far?

The Butterworth movie - was (I presume) a very accurate documentary, but the director illustrated the burning of some manuscript with a scene of hands striking matches. The box was of modern safety matches, which before WW1 the more likely product would have been "Englands Glory". Even Wiki doesn't show images of old boxes like image - as made in Gloucester. The director laughed at such a detail, given just finding the money and hawking it around the country showing it must have been far more important, but he did have an eye for detail - usually.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 05:28 AM

As for CGI - it is eminently possible these days for AI to spot adverts in scenes and follow them in the footage (even with scene switches). And insert "product placement" ads instead. So start looking for adverts for Patak's Curry Powder in "Gone with the Wind" any day soon. This might be years after the film was made.

I always look for newspapers and hoardings in Nick Park/Ardman Animation films - Grommit reading "the Doggy Times" etc. They are a joy, and so is waiting to the end of the credits, well worth the wait and the reading.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 05:55 AM

Yes, good point. When you see how much money people make out of films, in some cases for just submitting recordings they have already published, why would a poorly paid live fiddler miss the opportunity for a slice by sticking strictly to a traditional tune? My only experiences of film and television, has been hanging around for hours and hours for about fifteen seconds in the final cut, and about as much pay to cover the trip home. And you don’t get paid until you’ve signed the disclaimer waiving your rights to any further recompense.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 07:06 AM

The way the godawful Ashcan Farewell was used in the Civil War series didn't imply it was from that time, did it?

Pity they didn't use The Hills of Shiloh instead - which is also 100 years after the event but a really fine and moving tune.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 07:22 AM

A recent big budget movie where historical music was used to great effect,
was "The Outlaw King" [Netflix]..

I posted a link on an earlier thread regarding the music supervisor's role
in recruiting folk musicians and academic advisers,
but I now can't find it...

Nit pickers might have a go at the music in this movie at their leisure..

The film itself is structurally flawed,
characters and events probably historically 'modified' for dramatic effect,
but it is still a very entertaining blood n guts battle romp...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 07:40 AM

Eh? There is NO music surviving from Bruce's Scotland except Latin liturgy.

A historically authentic sound track would be an extended disco remix of 4' 33".

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 08:18 AM

I still can't find the link I posted months ago..

but the trendy phrase for it is..

"Diegetic film music..

..is music in a drama that is part of the fictional setting
and so, presumably, is heard by the characters.
The term refers to diegesis, a style of storytelling. Wikipedia"

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 08:26 AM

This might be it, it seems familiar enough...

Worth a read to get an idea of some of the realities of providing music for big movies...

https://lbbonline.com/news/an-in-depth-look-at-the-on-set-music-for-david-mackenzies-outlaw-king/

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 10:44 AM

Where does that leave piano players who sometimes accompanied silent movies?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 10:46 AM

mostly in the grave by now...

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 10:55 AM

Fishermen's Friends
with instruments!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: PHJim
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 12:42 PM

"Mind you, I am the kind of bloke that shouts at the telly when a period drama uses the wrong kind of steam train - which is just about every time." I assume that Brian is a rail fan.

Using a 1958 Edsel in a movie set in 1955 would jump out at a car fan.

Being a musician, certain things jump out at me. In "Inside Llewyn Davis", Llewyn's character plays era appropriate guitars and music. They were even careful enough to show him with an old Hamilton capo early in the film, which made it bother me even more when he was later pictured using a Shubb capo.
A minor mistake was a Martin guitar with a black pick guard in the fifties in the Johnny Cash movie "Walk The Line".
Woody Guthrie was pictured playing a Mossman guitar in "Bound For Glory".
In the movie "Horse Feathers", Groucho uses a different guitar to play than the one he throws out of the canoe.
Horse Feathers Canoe Scene

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: PHJim
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 12:48 PM

Sorry. I put the wrong link in that post.

Horse Feathers Canoe Scene (I hope)

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Bruce
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 04:00 PM

I'm a Coen Brothers fan and appreciate the choice of instruments [probably T-Bone Burnett's decision]. However, when Llewyn visits his ageing father and sings him a song his dad liked when he was 'young', the song he plays is Shoals of Herring, written no more than a year or two before the film is set.
My current favourite is Jojo Rabbit - set in world war two, but opens with I Wanna Hold Your Hand [in German] and closes with Bowie's Heroes [which may be anachronistic, but fits the scene perfectly].