Tag Archives: Action

Writer’s Music: Richard Tognetti

Posted on by
22

246828b86b597eace58e331ffce41e4aSome stories cannot be told with crashing-techno, happy pop, or lonely piano. Some stories call for the drums of battle.

And strings. Lots of kick-ass strings.

Such is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World as composed by Richard Tognetti. I can’t think of any other film where the story, character, and score entwine so completely. Normally I don’t bother with movie trivia, but I have to note that Richard Tognetti not only composed the score, but he performed as the violin solist and tutored Russel Crowe when it came to playing the violin.

Why did Russel Crowe need tutoring? Because his character, the captain of the HMS Surprise, is also a violinist. His best friend is the naval surgeon and a cellist. In the quiet moments at sea, these two play duets of such sweet sways you can feel the ocean rock the boards beneath your feet. These are but classical duets, however. The moments of battle between ships lets loose the drums and brass as cannons between the bows. “The Far Side of the World,” the opening track on this score, captures the rise and fall of battle in the fog as well as the celebration of friendship. Violins and cellos both sing and echo the melody to one another; all the while the song builds with a light intensity. What friendship doesn’t go through its moments of tension to come out all the stronger for it? Just so as the captain and surgeon work together to save ship and crew.

Unleash your characters to the drums of battle, and see what they discover in the fog.

Click here for more on Richard Tognetti.

Click here for more on MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD.

 

Lessons Learned from Umberto Eco: Like these characters? Good, because they’re going to talk. A lot. And I ain’t tellin’ you who’s talkin’.

Posted on by
27

14abfqTo be clear: I LIKED The Name of the Rose. I admire Eco’s grace with language–hell, the man could write in what, four or five languages with ease? He felt the thrum of narrative in his fingers and his heart. As a reader, I took great pleasure in the rhythm, and danced where I was led.

But just because I danced does not mean I agree with how this dance went. Two steps in particular irritated me time and again. This is the first.

~*~

In the prologue, the narrator Adso states he’s not going to bother describing people because “nothing is more fleeting than external form.” Fine. I suppose describing a bunch of monks will feel repetitive in some respects. Part of me feels like this is a cheat on Eco’s part, though. This is a record from centuries ago. Imagine your own version of these people while I put words in their mouths. And boy, does he.

Time and time again I find myself turning back pages to figure out who’s talking. Of course, dialogue and rhetoric are lifelines for those in the cloister. Plus, there are hundreds of pages of history to share in order to bring this story to life. That history’s got to come out somehow. Why not in dialogue?

But that means pages upon pages of talking. Just. Talking. If you’re lucky, you get a “William said,” or “the abbot nodded.” While omitting dialogue tags isn’t a sin outright, it DOES become a nuisance when characters often speak for more than a page, and then someone responds with a page’s worth of dialogue, and so on. Readers shouldn’t feel like they’re experiencing the story blindfolded.

On a preferential level, I also find it important to share what on earth characters DO while they talk. How many of us literally stand still and speak to one another for several minutes at a time? Isn’t there other stuff going on around us? The world’s stimuli can open up so many opportunities to learn about a character. Take a bird. Let it fly over the abbey. Let it relieve itself as it flies over some monks. (Hey, I’m a mom of small children. “Poop” is one of the top ten words in this house.) I bet the abbot would be horrified. The oddball Salvatore would have likely laughed and eaten the stuff, or maybe thrown a rock to kill the bird and then eat the bird. And William of Baskerville would have likely raised one of his Connery eyebrows and rubbed the stuff off with snow while never losing his train of thought.

I dig moments like this. Characters don’t speak to one another in the Cone of Silence from Get Smart.

Get_Smart-Cone-of-silence

Life is going on around them, and it’s NOT going to leave them alone.

Did Eco miss a mark? Technically no. Adso does state this is a record he wishes to leave for future generations to help record signs of End Times. What would it matter to future scholarly monks if bird droppings landed on an abbot’s head in the 14th century?

Yet I cannot help but wonder what this story could have been had all our senses been  engaged.

Click here for more on THE NAME OF THE ROSE.

Click here for more on Umberto Eco.