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].

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 04:24 PM

The usual railway equivalent to the 1958 Edsel in a 1955 film is more like a Morris Minor in Victorian London, 1960s carriages in 1890s.

Robin

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Brian Peters
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 04:58 PM

Great work, PHJim, each to his or her area of expertise. Disappointed I didn't spot the Shubb, though.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: John P
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 06:10 PM

These are movies made by people who don't care about musical authenticity. They care about whether or not a piece of music fits with the feeling they are trying to create in the movie. Also, the movie audiences don't care - we folkies are a minute minority of people and most people just want it to sound good, and especially to not stand out from the movie to a modern ear. Remember that most people don't really like traditional/historical music. If the director were trying to make a movie that was historically accurate, I would expect them to look at all the details. But most of them aren't trying to recreate history. They're just telling a story, in modern terms, that happened in the past. Think of it like all those King Arthur movies where everyone is wearing medieval armor. They're establishing a milieu for their movie, not reproducing one from the past. We shouldn't judge whether or not they are successful at something they're not trying to do.

That said, I am also a person who notices historical inaccuracies. It doesn't drive me crazy so much as make me feel smug and superior ;^) I've been watching a lot of Jane Austen movies over the last year, and they all have dance scenes. Some actually use English country dance tunes and dances, but most have modern music that's trying and failing to sound Olde, and those have REALLY bad-looking dancing, again that's trying and failing to look real. Modern music and dance just don't go together with period costumes in my mind.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 07:09 PM

I don't care about the background music, it is there to produce a mood not to reflect historical accuracy. Music being performed as part of the action is another matter.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: CupOfTea
Date: 27 Feb 20 - 07:16 PM

I'm in the same camp as John P - spotting anachronistic tunes makes me a bit smug, pleased that I'm educated enough to know the difference. I'm also realistic enough to know nobody much cares other than other trad enthusiasts....
Except...
There is one shining example of consequences hitting hard. The film makers of "Napoleon Dynamite" realized a bit too late that "Music for a found Harmonium " wasn't trad, and taking it from an album recently produced w/out permission had even more costly consequences.

Taking the smug knowledge and making it useful is sometimes possible. A dance band I'm in plays some benefit gigs for the (non-folkie) general public. When someone comments that Ashokan Farewell is a civil war tune, I enjoy buttering up my correction of that by describing Ashokan, the setting, how enjoyable the music camp is, and one's reluctance to leave such a great experience, the source of the tune's inspiration, and how that place rings with traditional tunes year round.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 02:59 AM

CupOfTea, the Show Riverdance discovered that problem with Dave Richardsons tune ' Caliope House ' and dropped it from the show rather than pay royalties.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 05:02 AM

I don't think that was Riverdance, they only used Bill Whelan's music. Perhaps their split off, Lord of the Dance?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 06:27 AM

They had an 'intermission' featuring live musicians playing traditional music, maybe they had been using Calliope House in this part of the show. I understand that in many places on their tour the music (and footsteps) were recorded and the intermission was the only part with live music.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 09:47 AM

Looks like it was definitely Lord of the Dance, exactly as I (half) remembered it.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 11:04 AM

'The Fiddler would play his best fit, and the "xyz director" would say, "got any more?"'

I didn't think of this, but, based on my very limited experience in show-biz outside playing in pubs, it sounds likely. So a fiddler actually might have put in considerable time preparing 'authentic' material, and then end up having to play something that is more appealing to the director. So I hereby withdraw my snooty insinuations about the fiddlers themselves.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 28 Feb 20 - 01:00 PM

Spoken like a gentleman, sir.

An interesting thread this one, with some good thought provoking points. It’s true that those people that write to the BBC pointing out inaccuracies in some recent production, don’t elicit many reactions along the lines of ‘well done, you clever and better educated fellow than the rest of us”, but more typically “no one loves a smartarse, you smug pedant”. However, I worry that some of us contributing to some of these threads stray dangerously close to the same territory - how do you share knowledge and tips sincerely these days without being cast as a pedantic attention seeker?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 05:49 AM

how do you share knowledge and tips sincerely these days without being cast as a pedantic attention seeker?

anonymously!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 07:43 AM

True, but you could still accuse the poster of being motivated by the smug satisfaction of showing off their knowledge, rather than genuinely assisting the enquiry. I notice that it’s common for posters on US music bulletin boards to list all the instruments they own at the end of their message. Is that not about bragging? It seems like an invitation to burglars to my mind.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 08:50 AM

Watching historical films -- or any film with weaponry or military uniforms -- with Tom (Mudcat's "Curmudgeon") could be both distracting and trying. He curmudged his way through them and I watched most of these types of films with Tom's rant about weapons or uniforms that were just WRONG. Thank goodness most of these were watched on videotape or DVD in the privacy of our home, rather than in a movie theatre! (In which case, the rant would come on the way home...) I don't think his rants interfered with the entertainment...often his rants were quite entertaining!

But it isn't just music, weapons and uniforms that film production gets wrong so often. I learned a lot about historical political nuances from Tom while watching popular films whose plot line treated historical truth carelessly.

We have a friend who works in Hollywood and he confided to us years ago that fact checkers, consultants, and writers in the film industry only worry about things that could get them sued. Nothing else matters or interferes with their highly fictitous world-view.

Linn

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 09:39 AM

What is very interesting is that the recent death of Terry Jones
reminded us that out of all movies and TV,
Monty Python is probably amongst the most scrupulously stubbornly historically accurate...!!!???

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Mar 20 - 03:52 AM

yea like Eric Idle singing a Universe song, so? emerging out of a fridge? I know space is cold, but ............

What's that all about?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 12:33 AM

There are cases and cases:

1) Music that is anachronistic because the writer/director/producer/musicmaster got it wrong. There are probably many cases of this that are unknown to this day because nobody knows.

2) Music that is anachronistic on purpose. Case in point is the brief but intense series "The Knick" which takes place in turn of the (last) century New York City, but has very modernistic music.

3) Music that is anageographic(?) The famous use of bazouki music in "The Third Man".

4) The case of it's just music. I'd put forward the memorable "Dueling Banjos" and the use of "Ashokan Farewell" in the Burns Brothers Documentary "The Civil War".

And Butch and Sundance will always have "Raindrops".

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 03:45 AM

To say nothing of the tyre tracks, standard lamps etc. which sometimes turn up in historical films!

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 04:31 AM

Ben Hur (Ben was OK but shame about her)

The chariot race. Tyre tracks in the heads-on moving scenes.

Today it would be removed with CGI.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 04:47 AM

I always thought it was a zither played in The Third Man, rather than bouzouki. Whereas there seems be ukuleles used in The Durrells series, rather than bouzouki or baglamas. Come to think of it, the bouzouki featured greatly in the film of Zorba the Greek, but technically should have been a Cretan Lyra. Dies anyone recall whether Hawaii Five O featured any indigenous instruments?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 05:40 AM

The story behind the "Third Man" music:

Anton Karas

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 11:31 AM

There are cases and cases:
The only case where it matters is if the musical performance is part of the screenplay.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Mar 20 - 12:10 PM

Yes, zither not bouzouki in The Third Man: thanks for the link, Jack.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 03:36 AM

We went to see "Emma" last night. After viewing this thread it was almost disappointing that everything seemed correct!
Incidental music from the Watersons, Silly Sisters etc.

Robin

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 05:29 AM

Why would there have been ANY English folk music in an adaptation of Emma? The people Austen was writing about never encountered it.

There are a couple of CDs of Austen-related music - we know what she listened to. Mozart and Pleyel, now you're talking.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 12:42 PM

Jack: why would you say that Austen's characters would never have encountered English folk music? Not saying you're wrong, just wondering - particularly as one of her characters does reference 'that old song about the maid who lives in the garrett' (paraphrasing)? I would be surprised if Jane Austen didn't hear as much folk music as she did Mozart, et al ... ?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: meself
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 12:44 PM

robomatic: What is your point re: Dueling Banjos?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 05:29 PM

The people Austen was writing about never encountered it.

Well now, there is an organisation called the Jane Austen Dancers of Bath who dance Playfordish, often in costume of the Jane Austen era see the video. The inference must be, Jane Austen knew and danced such polite social dances, especially in Bath. Quite complex when it gets into triple minors. And none of yer rumbustuousness - the essence is on flowing and grace. I have even been at a workshop with the doyen of advisers to the film industry on the dances of the era.

Rigadoon anyone? Or is it rigadon?

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Neil D
Date: 04 Mar 20 - 10:11 PM

The western movie "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" features the music of Leonard Cohen. I'm quite grateful to that movie for turning me on to Mr Cohen when I was 15. It was the first time I ever waited through the credits for the music credits (why are they always so near the end?). This is something I do all the time now.
As for as anachronism is concerned, even The Bard was guilty, note the clock striking the hour in Julius Caesar.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Mar 20 - 06:39 AM

note the clock striking the hour in Julius Caesar.

Yea, sundials can get pretty loud on the hour!

My point about speaking to the audience in their language.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 05 Mar 20 - 05:26 PM

The dance music used for the ball scene included Michael Turner's waltz, credited as Mr turner's waltz in the end credits (nothing about Mendlesson for that one).
The other folk tunes were used as scene setters partly to indicate passage of time.
One of the secondary charaster is a farmer, who would have not moved in the same circles as the main characters so it could be said that more rural folk music was appropriate for him.

There was a trailer for the forthcoming production of "The Secret Garden" which seemed t show a 1950s railway carriage!

Robin

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 05:06 AM

Playford was history by Austen's time - like setting a film in the 1980s Manchester club scene and having a big band in suits playing Begin the Beguine for the dancers. There are lots of dance/tune publications of the period - Aird seems to have been the go-to source, and the number of booklets William Campbell managed to sell suggests that Scottish dances were hugely popular in 1800-ish England.

Minuets persisted at the top end of the market (I don't think the Playfords published many of those), soon to be eclipsed by the waltz after 1815.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 09:04 AM

There was a trailer for the forthcoming production of "The Secret Garden" which seemed to show a 1950s railway carriage!

I wondered why that book had suddenly got popular. Had a few people asking for it in the bookshop last week. We didn't have it, but would My Secret Garden do? (I'm sure there are trains in it. Or at least thrusting pistons).

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 11:56 AM

As for as anachronism is concerned, even The Bard was guilty,

... of this and many other anachronisms, but playwrights and stage directors etc. are totally unashamed, rightly so. The special problem with most genres of cinema (and TV) is that they claim a much higher degree of realism than they can deliver. And, as the OP and the above posters rightly deplore, music is often treated particularly carelessly, when a fortune is spent on correct buttons for every single uniform, for example.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Mar 20 - 08:58 AM

Wiki on Jane Austen suggests her time in Bath was unproductive and that may have been she had a social life.

And my reference to the Jane Austen Dancers, who I have seen in the flesh, was Playfordish. If I said pre-Regency would that describe it any better? Not visually - from what have seen and danced.

Any more than dancing Roger of Coverley (aka Sir Roger de Coverley) or the Virginia Reel. Are they Playford, as defined by the English Dancing Master, or are they E-Ceilidh as defined by the ceilidhnauts I know and dance with 270 years later!

I thnk it is safe to assume they danced some dances that purists would call Playford in the pre-Regency. Much as we do today, with the Waltz and the Valeta and Horses Branle. Jane was a single lass, daughter of a clergyman, she had to move in certain circles, or did I mean conservative?

Gone with the Wind - Scarlet said "let dance the Virginia Reel" and what I saw was probably just that.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Mar 20 - 09:31 AM

Not sure when Gone with the Wind was written - about 1950? - but it was long after the civil war. So if you make a film of the book, there is an argument fir reproducing the 1860s as imagined by 1950s America, as you might do King Lear in Elizabethan clothes though it's set in the Dark Ages.

An oddity about film music. Watching the credits at the end, there are always far more pieces listed than I remember hearing. Somehow most of it is buried in the background where I don't notice it but where the producer thinks it would contribute to the overall effect.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 07 Mar 20 - 02:25 PM

I may be wrong, but I assume there is a lot of ‘product placement’ by entrepreneurial music agencies/publishers in films. The list of songs in the credits is usually so long that to have used each in their entirety would be longer than the film itself, with no space for any dialogue. Often only a snippet is used, or is lost behind dialogue or action sounds, so why do they bother including it at all? Is it to allow industry associates to share some of the money being made, or is just to flog contrived soundtrack compilations afterwards? In the past, film scores were produced by in-house studio musicians, but now many tend to be just vehicles for publishers to re-sell stuff from their back catalogue to a new audience. Bring back Max Stein, Ennio Morricone, and that guy who did a lot of Hitchcock’s films I say. Sorry about the thread creep....

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: michaelr
Date: 07 Mar 20 - 02:43 PM

Black Belt CW - Mendelssohn? Michael Turner's Waltz is Mozart.

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 08 Mar 20 - 04:30 AM

I always get them mixed up!

Robin

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Mar 20 - 03:33 PM

Just watched an old episode of the TV series ' Waking The Dead ' the tune ' Carrickfergus ' was played as background music throughout.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Anachronistic Music in Movies
From: GUEST,CupOfTea at work
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 05:15 PM

Thought of this thread while listening to a recording of Bob Zentz elaborating on the mechanism of an Anglo concertina being like a harmonica, commenting on how popular concertinas were with sailors, so much so that it was shown in the historical series ROOTS 100-some years before it was invented.

Joanne in Cleveland