sophistry | (no subject)

Current Mood: tingly
Current Music: three guesses

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I don't think I'll ever be able to explain the effect the soundtracks to the LotR movies have on me.

I was saying to Aspen the other day - you know how, as a fan, there are certain things you can't hear without experiencing a physical sensation? A deep-seated wriggle of sheer, inexpressible, flappy-handed glee, a swelling and tightness in your chest like your heart is trying to crawl out your throat with how much you love something, the crystal clear sense-memory of waiting outside the cinema with your tickets in hand and feeling so excited that you think you might throw up? The tiptoeing promise of 'Hedwig's Theme', the follow me fiddles that preclude the main theme for PotC, the big gay violins from the big gay boat movie that give you a big stupid grin. Howard Shore's music is like that, for me.

They make me cry - all I have to do is sit back and really listen, and the tears come, like clockwork - but not solely from the sheer gutpunch-beauty of the music, and not solely from association with the films in and of themselves, though both of these are part of it, and both these, too, in and of themselves elicit visceral reactions from me, leave me short of breath and exhilerated and... uplifted.

It's because - and I don't even consider myself A LotR Fan, as these things go. It's because I can still feel the bite of winter air and the taste of it on the roof of my mouth and in the back of my sinuses, and still remember knowing that all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people were just as ready to pee themselves with anticipation as I was. It's being that excited about something, and saying FUCK CLASS and going to the opening and knowing your English teacher not only wasn't judging you, but was wishing he was there. Remembering that for these films, everyone was a geek - and that it still doesn't take away the special geeky importance of these films to you, personally.

It's - oh my god, it's everything you read about, right there for you, on the screen. Real. It's... breathing in and not being able to breathe out the first time you saw the sun rise and the Rohirrim coming over the crest of that hill. It's hearing the strains of 'Minas Tirith', and knowing that the sight of Gandalf and Pippin flying across the plains on Shadowfax, towards those gleaming white spires, like nothing you'd ever seen, will last - or seems like it could last - forever.

It's hearing 'Into The West' and knowing that millions of people, who weren't even LotR Fans, just like you weren't, sobbed their eyes out in the theatre, just like you did - and probably can't listen to the damn track without getting snuffly, just like you do.

But it's not even that.

It's... it's fuckin' Lord of the Rings, man.

That was a fuckin' era.

And I still don't think I'll ever explain it properly.

Friendslist - what does this to you?

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If I'm ever in a funk so deep I can't dig myself out by music alone, I start up The Two Towers at the point where Aragorn asks Theodeon to ride out and meet the Uruks. Where Gimli points out that the sun is rising. And watching Gandalf and Eomer race down that mountain, with Ben del Maestro's vocals and the horses' hooves and the sunlight and then the cut to Isengard, when the river is undammed -- I just -- it sings.

Howard Shore's score is one of the greatest motion picture soundtracks ever recorded. "The Bridge of Khazad-dum" gets me every time; all those "Gandalf riding forth" themes are heart-stopping; Renee Fleming as the voice of the ring at Mt. Doom, and the eagles -- I'm not a fan of the books, but the movies, the movies, oh.

It does not compute at all that it's been almost six years since Fellowship came out.

I worked at a movie theater in college... I worked there when Fellowship and Two Towers came out. I had the movie timed so that I knew exactly how long after previews started that I had before I needed to go in to whichever house and watch that scene. Oh yes, that scene. It still gives me chills just thinking about it, and thirty feet high, and so loud you can feel the horses hooves... yeah...

Exactly.

"Into the West" and "May It Be" from the Fellowship soundtrack both had the same affect on me, which was that I made it through the movies going "ow ow ow my HEART, YOU GUYS" but never actually crying, and then went home and listened to those pieces on the soundtrack and just sobbed.

Non-LotR things--the PotC theme and the big gay violins will never not make me happy and bouncy, and there's a particular piece of soundtrack attached to a particular five minutes or so right near the end of Last of the Mohicans that gives me CHILLS.

Wasn't that us skipped off school, had a LOTR marathon and then went to the movie?

Aah the good oul days.

We claimed that as a mental health day :-) and the music was totally mental health positivity

It was us! I still remember the look on the Reidmeister's face when we were like, "By the way, we won't be here tomorrow, because we're ditching school to go see Return of the King. Is there any reading we should do?"

Sure, he said, "You really shouldn't... I mean... it's your Leaving Cert... but still...", but he was thinking, "Those assholes. I wish I could ditch school for RotK."

I have qvestions!

1) Is your timetable up on isservices.tcd.ie yet, or is Trinity just not bothered because I am a pansy arts student/pansy Classics student/taking *dramatic pause* optional modules DUN DUN DUNNNNNN?

2) Did you get my email? (I sent it to your gmail one.) I SWEAR I AM NOT IGNORING YOU. It contains rambly thoughts about Heroes! It is just that I am fairly convinced that someone at Vodafone is fucking with me for their own amusement.

Did not get email, but presume it was anger directed at stupid, STUPID, dreadful Irish accents.

Oh that was a good day, i can't believe my parents actually agreed to it, and everybody else was well jealous :-) I'm also impressed that we told Reidmeister about it, and he obviously wanted to go and didn't give a rat's behind if we skipped or not.

Trinity has decided that they don't want to give me any maths classes on my timetable, even though they count for 50 percent of my grade.

I, like you, will have to get up early tomorrow, and since i don't have physics til 3, i swear, if i don't have any maths classes tomorrow morning............

I think that Trinty just enjoy fucking with our minds and sleep patterns.

Optional modules???? Ooooooooooooooo

Shiny.

Total non-secret: I've never cried at a movie.

But My Neighbor Totoro (old English dub; NOT original Japanese or new English Dakota Fanning dub) IS MY WHOLE CHILDHOOD in animated form.

Me neither!

(However, Sophie, I totally get that kind of . . . epic-movie LOTR upswelling in my heart whenever I hear the violintastic Rohan theme. Specifically the Rohan theme. The strings. Oh man.)

YES ROHAN THEME.

I could make a list of tracks from the LoTR trilogy that give me Feelings, but it would be long and I should go eat dinner right now.

HA. HAHA. Wow, I totally composed my comment and posted it and then looked up and saw what you and Shati had said.

ROHAAAAAAAN.

Me neither, really. Dexter icons for great solidarity!

HOWEVER. I get tingly warm upswellings in response to a) big gay violins from big gay boat movie, b) 'Up Is Down', c) anything from LotR that contains the Rohan theme.

'UP IS DOWN', FAHYE. SJKDFHSDLAKFUCK IT'S SO GREAT I CAN'T EVEN COPE. Boxchat can testify as to how keymashy that track makes me. In fact, I'm actually fairly sure I'm responsible for at least two people going out to buy the AWE soundtrack purely because of all the times I went CAN'T TALK NOW 'UP IS DOWN' AHHHHHH *TURNS UP VOLUME*.

(Though it is... weird? I mean - WHAT A FUCKING AWESOME PIECE OF MUSIC. And the tingly warm upswelling is part that and part fannish, but - not the same fannish as the main PotC theme? I think maybe because it doesn't (yet) have the slightly... nostalgic ah-those-halcyon-days associations as PotC1/LotR. I... I don't know. I won't try to be coherent.)

UM YEAH OKAY YOU KNOW THAT HUGE FIX-ALL POTC FIC I WROTE?

ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY WRITTEN TO 'UP IS DOWN'. I love it. It's repetitive and simple and lively and I LOVE IT, possibly because that was my favourite scene in the entire film.

Also, my sister is using that track (and a bit of the slower stuff from 'One Day') for her next technical figure skating routine, which I am quite excited about. My family has a special and immediate ear for film soundtracks and their potential to be skated to. She had a routine a couple of years ago with music from CotBP and my mother made her a gorgeous costume that was kind of like Elizabeth's dress: dark red velvety stuff over white lace.

There are a number of scores that get me, but I think the Harry Potter theme, the theme from the original Battlestar Galactica, and--please don't laugh--the opening strains of the theme from the first Batman film would have to top the list.

Probably at least eighty percent of the music that can really grab me and wrench out an emotional response like that was composed by either John Williams, Danny Elfman or James Horner.

LOTR never did this to me, it must be said (I, er, never saw the last two films in the cinema. Honestly. I was the only person in the UK who DIDN'T, I think), but F1 car-racing does this to me. Possibly in a different way, but the sheer excitement factor is there. Just waiting two weeks to see whether maybe, maybe the person you're supporting might just win another race, eventually a championship, it's a huge rush. And when they do, that's an even bigger one -- you go around with a stupid grin on your face that you can't explain. When they don't, it gets you into a funk, but you know you've just got to wait for another two weeks and maybe it'll be different.

On a fictional level, though, Haruki Murakami's books do this to me. I want to explode with glee when I read them, I always wish there were someone else I could read the books with, line by painstaking line, so we could look at each other and just go, wow. Occasionally I actually just say 'wow' to myself, I get shivers and tingles and just, I loveloveloveLOVE his damn writing. *_*

Wilco, live.

...and the cello at the beginning of Serenity when the ship comes into view. Every. Damn. Time.

But also: Wilco, live. Oh, my heart.

I asked my mother to consider the psychological impact of screaming what you once were isn't what you want to be any more over and over with several hundred people.

Just...think about it.

Because that is why.

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