Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[Sureshs65]

For some reason, the reply with quote is not working on my browser. So I need to cut and paste. Here is what Maddy said:

"i do agree that thalaivar doesent score for every window, car door open shots etc in a movie.....he goes with the general mood of the film(using song's tunes in BGM) and sometimes goes conveniently silent on some of the scenes - short circuting the whole tedium of scoring for repeated cliches........but many of AR's BGM works like RangdeBasanti, Rockstar are a complete 180 degree turn from the IR's or any other indian composers way of scoring BGM......"

And neither do the good MDs. They too don't score for every car door open shots etc. And yes, silence is an integral part of Raja's BGM. He knows when to be silent and when to score. And yes, some of the Rahman scores may be 180 degree turn from other composers but just being 180 degrees away is not enough. My question is, is it effective in the context of the movie? I haven't seen both the movies you mentioned so I cannot comment. In the movies I did see, like Jodha Akbar, Kizhakku Seemaiyile the BGM was not at all effective in the context of the movie. It did nothing to many of the scenes. In some movies like 'Ravan' I actually laughed out in the theater as I found the BGM very inappropriate in many places.

I don't have the patience to sit and watch 'Ravan' again to give you the exact scene but I do remember a scene from 'Zubeida'. The grandson wants to find his mother's dairies which his grandmother has locked in a cupboard. So he goes to steal them from his own house. It is an emotional scene but Rahman gives music as if it is part of a thriller movie!!! 180 degree turn alright, but appropriate?

" even the stories/performances need to be customised"
Maybe even the BGM

"AR is a legend in bollywood"
No one would dispute it and in my opinion it has everything to do with his song making skills, not his BGM skills.