Combined Review:-
Nino ROTA La Dolce Vita
OST
CAM CSE 800-009
[41:25]
Nino ROTA
8½
OST
CAM 493091-2
[42:09]
Here are reissues of the soundtracks of two of the most important Italian
films ever made, very major works by Frederico Fellini, perhaps Italy's most
important director, featuring music by Italy's most important film composer,
Nino Rota. Not that Rota was 'just' a film composer, but as increasing numbers
of recordings of his concert music demonstrate, he was simply a major composer.
Given the importance of these two films in world cinema history, I am going
to begin with a grumble. Like it or not, La Dolce Vita and
8½, dating respectively from 1960 and 1963, being in Italian
and made in black and white, will regardless of their classic status be unknown
quantities to a many potential buyers. It's not my function to deliver a
lesson in cinema history, but suffice to say that if you've never seen these
movies, pester your local cinema until they give each a one day showing,
and see them where they were meant to be seen, on the silver screen.
The point of my grumble is that for such classic yet relatively unseen films
these two soundtracks are hopelessly documented. We get a short cast &
credits listing, and one very short paragraph outline of what each film is
about, repeated in five languages, and then quite pointlessly partially repeated
again on the back of the insert and again on the back cover of the jewelcase.
There is not one word about Nino Rota, about his approach to scoring the
films, or about the presentation on the music on the CDs. We do however get
a quite surreally pointless list of the countries each film has been distributed
in. Making this all especially irritating is that these woefully inadequate
booklets carry the heading "CAM's Soundtrack Encyclopedia"!
Some word on the presentation of the music on CD would be particularly valuable,
because both discs carry the Dolby Surround logo. With no information provided
I can only guess at what has been done. The discs certainly don't sound like
they are in surround sound. The films were made in mono, and at the very
best it is doubtful that the original music tracks were recorded in anything
more than stereo. I am guessing, from the age of the recordings, and from
the fact that they come from Italian movies, where multi-channel sound was
not generally in use in the early 60's, that these are mono recordings processed
with a three-dimensional digital reverb in an attempt to create a greater
sense of spaciousness. To my ears the music sounds much more focused and
coherent when I switch my amplifier to mono, and for the age of the recordings
the sound is then good, though not exceptional.
Notes on Rota's actual use of music would be valuable too, simply because
with these Fellini films he did not take a direct approach, but utilised
everything from jazz and ragtime idoms, to interpolations of sometimes
idiosyncratic arrangements of popular standards and classics. Quite simply,
one might like to know what is going on during the hilarious arrangement
of 'Jingle Bells' in La Dolce Vita. These are effectively patchwork
scores, Rota's own wistful, sometimes swinging and infinitely catchy music
blending with takes on 'Stormy Weather and 'Yes Sir, That's My Baby' (La
Dolce Vita) or Rossini's overture from 'The Barber of Seville', and Wagner's
'The Ride of the Valkyrie', (8½), years before Kubrick and Coppola
got their hands on them for the ultraviolence of A Clockwork Orange
and Apocalypse Now.
Given that La Dolce Vita is a prophetic portrait of well-healed nihilistic
youth in Rome circa 1959, it is hardly surprising that Anthony Minghella
seems to have been inspired by Rota's mix of swinging jazz and pre-existing
musics when it came to deciding upon a musical direction for The Talented
Mr. Ripley. Doubly unsurprising when one remembers that the first screen
version of Patrica Highsmith's novel, Plein Soleil, was released in
the same year as La Dolce Vita. So, if you enjoyed the blend of music
was soundtracked Minghella's film, you may well appreciate both these releases,
spanning as they do, Renaissance to rock. Likewise, if you want souvenirs
of a pair of cinema classics these are well worth seeking out. Be warned
though, great scores as these are, and melodic as the music is, the cues
are very much integral to the films, such that to the uninitiated the eccentric
flavourings and changes of style may make very little sense. Very '60's,
very cool, very Italian, not a little strange.
Reviewer
Gary Dalkin
La Dolce Vita
8½
