RECOGNISING A RAJA
The most deserving, overdue and just decision at the National Awards this year is the recognition of Ilayaraja for best background score.
SEP 19, 2010 – A KINGDOM APPEARS TO HAVE been created so that a king can be coronated. By carving out a brand-new category for best background score and by singling out Ilayaraja as its first recipient, the National Awards jury has recognised not only an auditory aspect of cinema long languishing in the shadows of the film song but also one of its greatest practitioners.
To longtime admirers of the maestro, the award carries the suggestion of a benchmark – as if future aspirants will have to contend and compete with his staggering standards – as well the hint of an apology, for not instituting this category earlier when Ilayaraja was scoring music for the brightest and the best. Had there been an award for best background score in the eighties, for instance, Ilayaraja might well have shifted base to New Delhi, to save himself the trouble of having to return each year to collect his trophies for Moondram Pirai and Nayakan and a great many other films that he brought to life with his baton.
I use the word “baton” intentionally, for in terms of musical sensibility, Ilayaraja picked up where Salil Chowdhury left off. They were certainly not the only composers to employ the orchestra in its fullest sense – strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion – but unlike other music directors, their grammar was derived from Western classical music. Chowdhury and Ilayaraja were composers in that grand tradition, with the former taking his cues from Mozart and the latter genuflecting at the altar of Bach.
Considered in this light, the award for best background score is far more indicative of Ilayaraja’s talents than his earlier National Awards for best soundtrack album (of songs, for the Telugu films Sagara Sangamam and Rudraveena, and for the Tamil Sindhu Bhairavi) – because his most profound thoughts manifest themselves through instruments and through orchestration. If he spoke through his songs, he felt through his music.
His was not just stock music intended to give the audience Pavlovian nudges in the rib – the surge of violins for a mother’s tears or the urgent tattoo of drums for an action sequence. In the Western classical tradition, Ilayaraja wrote (and still writes) thematic scores, laden with leitmotifs, and in several films – say, Moondram Pirai or Mouna Raagam – these themes are bundled together during the opening credits, like the overture for a symphony or a Broadway musical.
And this, while also scoring the mandatory five songs that would play elsewhere in the film, themselves outfitted with exquisitely orchestrated preludes and interludes. And this, in an era of live orchestration, where the difference between the tuning of the second violinist and the fifth could result in instant disharmony. And this, without the guiding hand of a Hollywood-style temp track, helpfully inserted by a music editor to give the composer a sense of the tone, colour and mood of the moment. Film after film – a few worthy, a great many unworthy – Ilayaraja was the mighty bridge between the director’s vision and the audience’s perception.
It’s fitting, therefore, that the award for best background score be inaugurated with him – and I say this as someone with an ambivalent relationship with background music as used in mainstream cinema, whether in Kollywood or Bollywood or Hollywood, and if you sedated me and threw me on a couch, I’d confess it’s because I resent being told what to do, how to feel. I am simply uncomfortable when music is used to manipulate me, whether the manipulator is John Williams, RD Burman or Ilayaraja.
This is not to say that film music should be entirely diagetic, through audio sources visible on screen, like a radio or a nightclub singer we register at a conscious level. Background music is invaluable in uniting the various visuals of a montage, or in segueing from one scene to the next without shedding the semblance of narrative continuity. (Take the stretch from Nayakan where Kamal Hassan marries Saranya in a temple. Each time she rings a bell, a sitar issues a twang, and this sound links this scene subtly, subconsciously to the song that follows, Nee oru kaadhal sangeetham, whose prelude is ornamented with sitar runs.) And in larger-than-life films like Star Wars or our own masala movies, background music is absolutely essential in providing operatic commentary on par with the dialogue, so that we are elevated into the realm of myth.
But in human-sized films, the value of background music becomes more suspect. We already have images, dialogues, sound cues, and most importantly, songs. With five or six songs spanning the dominant tracts of the film’s emotional landscape, the moods (love, tragedy, and so forth) are already coloured, and the background music need only branch off from the overarching themes already present in the song.
Take the scene in Thalapathi where Shobana takes leave of Rajinikanth because her conservative father will not allow her to marry this benevolent hood. As she departs, the background echoes with an excerpt from their love song from earlier, Sundari kannaal oru seidhi, with stirring strings giving way to a mournful flute. We already know this song, we have already linked it to their love, and this re-orchestrated reiteration is sufficient to outline his despondency at the denial of the happy ending that the song promised. Rahman does something similar in Aayitha Ezhuthu when Madhavan murders his brother, by replaying the buoyant humming that opened his Dol dol song sequence but in a sinister lower register, on a cello. We don’t need freshly composed music to signal the depths to which this character has descended – this tweak tells us everything.
This is not to say that freshly composed music is not of value – but how many musical cues can a human-sized film hold? Ilayaraja recognises the usefulness of silence, but elsewhere, with his signature style – Baroque-era signatures throbbing with lush, Romantic-era expressiveness – the music is so distinctive, so breathtaking, that it has the power to pull you out of the scene and make you marvel at the score, and as a lover of cinema, I’m not entirely convinced about this operatic approach of underlining visual information with auditory information.
As a lover of music, however, I am eternally grateful for these outpourings of genius. We, sadly, do not have the tradition of soundtrack albums, and in that absence, the screen remains the only showcase for the craft of a composer so in sync with the emotional landscape of a film that if we were to close our eyes and listen to the music, we’d conjure up these very images. That is why Ilayaraja is celebrated as a living legend, and that is why the National Award for best background score could not have gotten off to a more salubrious start.
Copyright ©2010 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
rameshram
September 18, 2010
Alternate title : Bharat Ratna!
LikeLike
vijay
September 18, 2010
BR, that flute piece in Thalapathy you mentioned, its been a favorite for a long time. With the Sun in the background and Shobhana walking away it unfurls gently. Glad that you mentioned it.
I thought this was a balanced piece and I hope your point about how the BGM doesn’t always have to be grand is well taken and it doesn’t end up raising a shitstorm here. Unfortunately, a lot of times there is a tendency here to consider bombastic music and soaring violins with a big symphony orchestra as the only good BGM, where you are fed one cue after another relentlessly. I recently saw an Adam Sandler movie called Punchdrunk Love. It was just OK but what struck me was that the BGM was mostly done with just a drumkit. Rather than bringing a fresh approach different from that of IR’s, to the table, our MDs these days take the shortcut ripping off straight from Hollywood.
I haven’t heard you talk about BGM at all in the context of a Tamil film of late. Especially the non-IR ones. Heard anything recently that impressed? I thought GVP was’nt bad in Aayirathil Oruvan in certain scenes.
There is a slight contradiction at play here though, in all this. If the purpose of the BGM is to let you immerse in the film without attracting any attention to itself, then how would you spot/remember a good BGM? 🙂 Forget those pieces which are from the songs. The other pieces or themes that are not part of a song but which you remember after seeing the film.These might even be a one-scene piece that is not a recurring theme.
LikeLike
Tambi Dude
September 18, 2010
excellent article BR. You made my day. I have quite a few of IR’s BGM and each time I listen to it, I marvel at his creativity. Apoorva Sahodargal is another of his top BGM album.
In Hollywood, one music director I like a lot is Thomas Newman whose work in American Beauty is a real beauty in every sense. He was good in Shawshank Redemption, Scent of a Woman also.
I also love the combo of Steven Spielberg and John Williams – The title music (and later on repeated as the Motif) of Catch Me If you can is a prime example.
BTW off topic, what does ‘diagetic’ mean? http://www.dictionary.com does not recognize it as a word 🙂
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 18, 2010
rameshram: Oh no! You love stirring shit up, don’t you? 🙂
vijay: Whenever Raja or Rahman enter the picture, I’ve discovered, shitstorms are inevitable. You just have to say your piece and move on and let the other duke it out 🙂
And yes, I do agree there’s a contradiction of sorts — on the one hand, I do enjoy these pieces as music, but on the other hand, I feel uncomfortable when they pop up in an overtly manipulative fashion. That’s why I look at this aspect from two sides — as a “cinema lover” and as a “music lover.” There is still a lot of scope for BGM in films (as I mentioned in this piece) where there are montages or just visual passages and so forth. What annoys me is the intrusion of music into dialogue passages and so on — you know, someone will say something sad, and a solo violin will issue a note. That sort of thing.
Tambi Dude: See the “Film sound and music” section here.
LikeLike
vipul vivek
September 18, 2010
diagetic http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diagetic.
You do explain it but still I felt queasy seeing such a “discursive” word since generally your pieces are direct yet insightful, which is so hard to come by in our papers (as I remember you too complained about while reviewing a “scholarly” book on films last year in NIE).
LikeLike
Shankar
September 18, 2010
Baddy, Thanks 🙂
One of my favorite scenes and scores from Nayagan…
LikeLike
Niranjan
September 18, 2010
Beautifully put, BR! Raja has, in my opinion, not been fully recognized for his unbelievable body of work. I think that when it comes to BGM scores, Raja is truly unparalleled. One thing very distinctly Raja-ish about the BGM is that (and I have seen this in many of his films) the motifs change as the characters do. One of my favorite instances is the score from Sagara Sangamam; the first time Kamal’s character meets Jayaprada’s, the BGM is outlined by a phrase in Kiravani with strong mridangam strokes at the end of each bar, invoking a kind of mutual respect of the characters, so to speak. It continues to do so, till in the scene where she hands him a set of his dancing pictures, and he runs through them, the BGM for the montage of photos takes off from the Kiravani theme, rushes through several wonderul variations, and finally settles onto the romantic theme, which becomes the motif hencforth. Raja’s score elevates the emotional content onto a higher plane.
LikeLike
Shankar
September 18, 2010
Some Nenjathai Killathe favorites…
http://raagadevan.blogspot.com/2010/07/point-blank.html
LikeLike
jaiganesh
September 18, 2010
nicely written piece , though I must bring to people’s attention that the notion that Ilaiyaraaja’s BGM scores are always in the john williams star wars mode (refer to vijay’s comparison with PDL) is a very misplaced one.
Case in point Adoor’s Nizhal Kuthu – Example of absolute minimalism. Please watch the movie, listen to the sounds and tell me if a full fledged orchestra was used in even one place. Yet the sound is so complete, so apt in underlining director’s vision. So raaja needs not the 120 piece ensemble every time. One flute, one violin and one cello is more than enough for him. The credit for using the electronic musical instruments for effective BGM in indian scene also belongs to Raaja considering what he did in his early movies (as early as Aval appadiththaan) onwards. My opinion on the award is that he doesnt deserve the award given to him….
The award must have been named Ilaiyaraaja Full music score award and given away to Amit Trivedi for his phenomenal DevD. That is the right recognition for this phenomenon.
LikeLike
Shankar
September 18, 2010
Baddy, about intrusion of music into dialogue passages, hasn’t it always been like that in the context of Indian films? Why film music, even in acting etc? The great Sivaji’s school of acting (over emoting) was justified in the context of tamil audiences needing that “extra” emoting to convey the thoughts. It even extends to dialogue writing (of that era and maybe even now in cases) where Major & Thenkai mouthed English dialogues followed by their tamil transalations. So, the general feeling was that the audiences needed that “spoon feeding”. Even now, in so many films, you see things being literally explained for the fear that it may result in OHT. I feel that’s what shows up in most background scores, the need to underline and reinforce the dialogue with an appropriate score.
Again, I’m not taking a POV here, just trying to delve and see if there is reason why MDs historically resorted to such treatment.
Seperately, I thank Raja for a number of movies that were rescued sheerly due to the rich, obtrusive BGM!! 🙂 The score, for me, atleast appealed to the music lover side…since the visuals were so crappy. Films like Ninaivellam Nithya are a case in point. I’m also amazed at this man’s motivation in delivering such scores for such abysmal films. It almost seems like he was effervescent with musical ideas and he had to let it out, good film or bad!! 🙂
LikeLike
vijay
September 18, 2010
BR, do you think that BGM in Hollywood/World cinema serves more to supplement the scene than to work as a standalone piece, atleast in their better films? Unless it is an epic or a giant sci-fi where grand themes are needed. (Of course I am excluding songs from popular albums that are used in the background. I get distracted by some songs in Tarantino’s films)Just think about the discordant-sounding pieces in There will be Blood. They might never impress as standalone pieces but supplement the scenes well. I think to be able to accomplish both though is a tremendous feat.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 18, 2010
Youre only saying thqt because I thought of it first.
It works on so many levels, think of it , it works as a Bitty Ruminations meme, no one is more deserving of a bharat ratna than ilayaraja(pbuh) .even if he doesnt get one, he’s the jewel in tamil cinema’s crown….and Id rather they give him one before the Blasted Roboda becomes a hit and they start plotting to give it to Bloody Rahman!
LikeLike
pulikesi
September 18, 2010
//Take the scene in Thalapathi where Shobana takes leave of Rajinikanth because her conservative father will not allow her to marry this benevolent hood. As she departs, the background echoes with an excerpt from their love song from earlier, Sundari kannaal oru seidhi, with stirring strings giving way to a mournful flute.//
I remember the BGM here starting with ‘Naan unai Neenga Maaten’ instead of ‘sundari’. We call him a Genius only because he starts with ‘Naan unai Neenga Maaten’ when they are Parting their ways. Sheer Brilliance! Someone clarify whether my memory is right 😐
LikeLike
pulikesi
September 18, 2010
Saved 😀 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpAgeOQH9xg
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
what was that about john williams and inability of ilayaraja to do runs up with symphonic sound?
cumma artificial opposites set up panna koodathu.
man’s pretty much god.
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 19, 2010
vipul vivek: The term is fairly commonly used in music discussions, but I did explain it immediately after. Still no help?
Shankar: Idhu onakkaaga ezhudhinadhu. You kept asking me, right? 🙂 Again, I’m not saying this is a “problem” unique to Raja — I have a general problem with intrusive BGM in general. But that said, yes, I do agree that in the context of audiences, this may be justified. It’s just a personal preference, really. If you can live with music intruding into dialogues, hey, knock yourself out.
jaiganesh: No one is saying that Raja’s score is always like John Williams. For that matter, even John Williams’ score isn’t always in the Star Wars/Indiana Jones mode. Case in point, the delightfully light-jazzy score for Catch Me If You Can.
vijay: I do think that it’s less intrusive. That’s a terrific example of There Will Be Blood, because that’s a deliberately intrusive score in a very larger-than-life film. My point was more with the intimate films. Also, as you noted, Hollywood films use a lot of pop music, which lend their own colour to the scenes.
The question is really twofold. Let’s forget other Indian MDs and take Ilayaraja in particular. Is this the best way the emotion could be expressed through music? Absolutely. But was this music needed in the first place? That, I’m not so sure. Like Shankar says, the cultural element of spoon-feeding also plays a part, which is why Raja’s scores for mainstream films are quite different from the ones for the offbeat ones.
pulikesi: yes, you’re right. That’s the exact line the music starts, and you have a visual/aural “counterpoint.”
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
its not that ilayaraja lacked bombast in his 80’s sound(btw rangudu, nice touch referring to ilayaraja’s music in the past tense.) only that he had it ALL. people could pick what they chose to love in it..
LikeLike
nitu
September 19, 2010
having been listening to a larger proportion of IRs music for the past 3 decades, I wonder why I refuse to come in terms with current music. The term I refers not to my conscious I, but my sub conscious I, which decides my likes and dislikes. Superficially I may some enjoy some songs in the recent past, but it does not go beyond. Reasons ? many..
1. didnt IR include western music into tamil songs, so whats the harp now ? Agreed. There are lot of songs in which IR adapted western style. But it just stopped with the orchestration and didnt mask the lyrics . the words were pronounced the way it has to be. You ears neednt be strained or ask your friends for the lyricsOn the whole its a tamil song devoid of Indian instruments i.e., what we got was a fusion
2. when watching movies like PANNER PUSHPANGAL or MOONDRAM PIRAI, salangai oli , I wonder who asked him to compose BGM that way. BGM was an unknown concept those days,( even these days ). the songs were the directors concern. But didnt he do it it without asking ? Doesnt his BGM take over the movie on screen right after the Censor certificate till the end . Was he paid extra for the bgm, was he awarded for bgm ?. Nope ! but still his experimentation in bgms continued giving us some wonderfull music albums in the name of movies.
3. I can challenge on one point .he worked 10 times more than what he was paid for. What drove him to do so. Its his passion for music….
4. Most importantly, I salute his ethical standards. when AAN PAAVAM was released , he was already an established MD. Looking at AP, I cant but be moved by his sincerity for a PANDIARAJAN movie , with new actors and actressesImagine giving his voice for a hero like Pandiarajan for kadhal kasakkuthaiya. he doesnt care about box office, image , big banner , hero . his music is
like the rays of sun nourishing everything equally. He works the same for MR and Bhagyaraj, for kamal and thiagarajan, for saritha and sridevi..
LikeLike
S.Suresh
September 19, 2010
Adding to what Jaiganesh said, one movie where the score superbly supplemented what was happening on the screen, added tremendous value and was mostly done on synth, was the BGM of the Kannada film ‘Aa Dinagalu’. The movie is about the gangsters of those days, the director refrains from showing any violence and yet it is menacing throughout. If you carefully observe you can see (hear) that Raja sets that tone throughout the movie. As I said, mostly on a synthesizer. Sheer genius.
LikeLike
S.Suresh
September 19, 2010
Here are a couple of links to important scenes in Aa Dinagalu. Enjoy the scenes and the BGM.
LikeLike
Shankar
September 19, 2010
Baddy, enakku theriyum, da. Adhukuthan oru periya Thanks unakku for this post!! 🙂
LikeLike
s
September 19, 2010
how about mouna raagam, filled with background scores, mostly not from the songs but specific back ground scores and is a very personal sort of film – but yet worked wonders for the film.
If the MD knows the mood a music can create which illayaraja knows very well, this will never be a problem.
It also seems better to use music to up the mood quotient than to say use dialogue which sometimes crosses the line and throws you out of the film.
A lesser music director, yes what you say is true?
LikeLike
Mambazha Manidhan
September 19, 2010
@ Rameshram : Also, its lovely how they don’t have a shot of Rajini sleeping at all after they part ways in the movie as if to concur the ‘ Neengina Thoonga Maaten’ line. Genius.
LikeLike
Hermoine Granger
September 19, 2010
Some of Yuvan’s BGMs are really good. Any thoughts abt it,BR Sir ?
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 19, 2010
Mambazha Manidhan: You, sir, are an ISI-grade Naradar! 🙂
LikeLike
vipul vivek
September 19, 2010
oh, yes it certainly helped. I did say you explained it in the article itself briefly. I was just wondering if it is possible to avoid it and still convey the meaning.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
cha, nallathukke kaalam illayappa!
MM, I would have liked to see the dialog in that scene
Manvetti: ennada thungalia
Rajini: illai. matten
mv: thoongave mattia?
Rajini: neenginal thoongamatten.
( ilayaraja’s single flute plays, to general approval from shankar, rangudu et al: “sernthathenam jeevane”)
fadeout.
LikeLike
Senthil
September 19, 2010
Have you considered interviewing Ilayaraja ? It would be pretty awesome to see him react to questions regarding the change in his sound over the ages, your issue with the cheesy synth programming in his songs these days and about adapting to the evolving world of recording technology. And, I am pretty sure the interview will be devoid of questions like what he was asked recently by another journalist with another mic ” How do you feel after winning the National award?” He said ,” I ve already won before.Three times.”
If I were to do it, one of my questions would have to do with his opinion on contemporary music. He has states on a number of occasions said that what he gives is a full sapaadu , but what others give is just popcorn and its not possible to survive only on pocorn. I am curious to know how versatile a composer is he given the musical palette we have today. He is the go-to guy for orchestral scores and rustic songs. But, in the 80’s he could adapt himself to ‘in-thing’ styles such as disco,glam rock type anthems etc. Today, he has ventured into pseudo-jazz territories with films like Mumbai Express.But, would he feel comfortable if the movie requires a gangsta rap tune or a reggaeton song like Taxi Taxi or would he dismiss it as popcorn?
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
one apology owed. the vaa indha pakkam somg was shyam”s not ilayarajas.(whatever happened to shyam?)
LikeLike
Krishna
September 19, 2010
can never understand this rameshram fellow. critic sounds cryptic. 🙂
LikeLike
Amrita
September 19, 2010
Is this the best way the emotion could be expressed through music? Absolutely. But was this music needed in the first place? That, I’m not so sure.
I think it depends on the director. Have you seen The American yet? Right on the other end of the spectrum from There Will Be Blood.
BR – slight tangent: have you seen The American?
LikeLike
Amrita
September 19, 2010
Um, sorry about that – multitasking fail. 😀 Edit/ignore last line pls?
LikeLike
S.Suresh
September 19, 2010
Senthil,
Listen to the latest Telugu movie Gayam-2 which has music by Illayaraja. All the criticism about cheesy synth, recording quality etc vanish when you hear the songs of this movie. It is clear that Raja has caught up quite well with the recording techniques and that has not been an issue in the recent releases.
Link to Gayam-2 songs: http://www.raaga.com/channels/telugu/album/A0002643.html
(check out ‘Anandala Lokam’. Just amazing composition. All worked around a single motif, a variation of ‘kattuvazhi’ & ‘Paa’ theme):
LikeLike
vijay
September 19, 2010
So now that it is Shyam and not IR, is the BGM still grand or is it just mediocre? ;-):-)
BR, I still am not sure how IR would handle something which doesn’t have a lot of emotional conflicts and such. Something like a half-dark comedy like say, Mithya or say, a desi version of Fargo or No Country for Old Men. Or these kind of new age Hindi films the likes of Kashyap make. Granted, we dont make such kinds of movies in Tamil, but still. The range of tones needed for the kind of movies IR has done so far is very limited, which is a shame. Mostly emotional dramas or occasionally historicals/epics and goofball comedies.Thats about it.
BTW, did you catch IR’s reaction to it? A bit of frustration in there. But in another sense, quite typical.
http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/tamil/gallery/events/23554.html
LikeLike
Raj Balakrishnan
September 19, 2010
Thanks for a wonderful piece Baradwaj. Ilayaraja is the god of background score. The Mouna Ragam theme still keeps playing in my ears. In fact I had it as my ring tone for a long time. Sad that Raja’s enormous talent was wasted in a lot of rubbish movies in the 80s. Also tamil movies were hardly known outside Tamil Nadu those days. Ilayaraja also contributed in a big way to the success of Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Bharathi Raja, Bhagyaraj, Mani Ratnam etc. Therefore, it was terrible on their part to dump him and run to Rahman.
On a different note, would like to know what did you think of Inception’s background score. I was completely blown away – keep listening to it often in youtube.
LikeLike
vijay
September 19, 2010
Hey BR, I just re-read your review of Mithya and how did I miss this line? “..MITHYA COULD BE DESCRIBED as the pitch-black sludge that trickles out of the bottom of a distillation tower”
Looks like the chemie in you is’nt completely buried yet? 🙂
Incidentally the comment space there seems to have had lot more fireworks regarding IR-ARR BGM and such, than about Mithya itself. Funny.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
krishna,
im like the villain in tik tik tik, whom ive always thought was modelled after the safire theater owner.
vijay,
Awesome grand still, apologized for the miss attribution.
Amrita,
we get it . you wanted to give us old schools the benefit of your awesome wisdom.
LikeLike
Venki
September 19, 2010
Excellent piece. Kudos. “Naan unnai neenga maaten” from Thalapathi will be scene that comes to mind when I think of Raja’s BGMs. Quite a genius. The pauses more than the music on more than an occasion has a major impact, most typified by that stretch in Thalapathi where Shobana takes leave of Rajni. Beautiful scene, beautifully shot and sublimated by a genius of a score. Btw, the same score reappears when Rajni meets Shobana after her marriage to Arvind Swamy. This time there is no mourning flute to sublimate the score but just soaring violins that play the same notes. Again the interspersed silence elevates the scene. What could be the purpose of not using the flute here? And I really wish you did an interview with the man.
LikeLike
Tambi Dude
September 19, 2010
Raj – Inception’s BGM is typical Hans Zimmer Stuff. Same as in Dark Night. I find him quite repetitive. Only in ‘The Thin Red Line’ was he really different.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
and ive seen the american. its crap. 1960’s godard’s contempt style crap without the politics(or dear dear fritz) but still substantial bat G.
LikeLike
sureshkumar
September 19, 2010
I was expecting a piece from you about Ilaiyaraaja winning BG Score national award, and there it is. Thank you for writing about it.
Just few weeks ago, I discovered yet another BGM moment in Thalabadhi, which I call “sheer brilliance”, but you might call it an intrusion or spoon-feeding. Anyways, here it is
http://www.backgroundscore.com/2010/08/counterpoint.html
LikeLike
Raj Balakrishnan
September 19, 2010
Tambi dude, I liked Dark Knight score too. But I haven’t heard much of Hans Zimmer.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 19, 2010
speakimg of john williams, did you knw that the opening credits in star wars (long long ago in a galaxy far far away…) the style they roll was ripped off from baiju bawra?
star wars :
baiju bawra:
LikeLike
Prakash Srinivasan
September 19, 2010
Enlisting Ilaiyaraja’s best BGM’s is an impossible task! I am not exaggerating when I say almost all his BGM scores are worthy of being archived in CD. He is the best BGM composer in India ever considering his large body of work in Indian music. He is second to another genius (MSV has scored music for the maximum movies, 1000+ among Indian composers, followed by Ilaiyaraja, some 950 odd) in the number of music scores for movies in India.
LikeLike
S.Suresh
September 19, 2010
vijay,
If you want to know what Raja can do in a film which is not typically ’emotional’ in the popular movie sense, you must listen to his score for Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s ‘Nizhalkuthu’. This will give everyone an idea of Raja’s understanding of movies and his style complements the movie style gloriously. If the movie is made in the ‘spoon feeding’ way, he knows how to score and if the director has confidence in the audience intelligence, he knows how to score for it as well.
‘Nizhalkuthu’s BGM is wonderful for the reason that Adoor wants a very minimal BGM in one part and a glorious BGM in ‘filmi’ style in another part and for very good reasons. Raja understands Adoor’s vision perfectly and provides a score which complements that vision. So I am sure if given the new Hindi films or dark comedies, this man will come up with a score to match.
LikeLike
jaiganesh
September 19, 2010
@vijay – Though not totally dark – Michael Madhana Kamarajan and Mumbai Express are dark comedies in themselves. I would even include Apoorva SagodharargaL in dark comedy genre (with enough tailoring to add Manmohanesque elements into the genre).Raaja’s score in these movies have been truly apt – so I wouldnt have any doubts about Raja’s ability or calibre to score such movies. Come to think of it even Mithya is a clever genre subversion done to Don – There are enough reference points in the content and characters in that script that Raja can easily underscore with his music.
As far as new age directors and their compatibility with Raaja is concerned, they seem to contribute a lot to the musical score. For example, Dibakar’s ideas are dutifully echoed in the insert of some elements of background score in OLLO. Whether Raaja will graciously play host to such ideas or whether he will say “this is my area – dont butt in” and whether Anurag and likes will tolerate such larger than life collaborators in his/their project/s is the million dollar question.
LikeLike
complicateur
September 19, 2010
The standout usage of Sundari and BGM in general is the scene where Surya goes to see Arjun and asks him to leave Pandavapuram. Ridiculously brilliant transitions and score. In fact Mani could’ve really done away with more dialog in that scene purely on the strength of the music.
Thanks for writing this Baradwaj. Having seen Nandhalala do you believe that Raja’s best has passed?
LikeLike
Nithya
September 19, 2010
Awesome! Such a pleasure reading you write about Him, pity this award is being given after all these years.
Have you ever interviewed him? I really hope you get to, I just can’t stand these dumb interviewers asking crap like indha award pathi neenga enna nenaikkareenga!!
LikeLike
Gradwolf
September 19, 2010
I think the title of this post also includes a chuckle at yourself? So many people have asked you to write on IR, especially after too many ARR articles. So, about time! Wonderfully written as always.
I read in a background score blog I recently discovered about the scene where Rajini comes to meet Arvind Swami to apologize to him when the familiar Deva/Surya BGM plays and faintly in the background, simultaneously, the Chinna Thai Aval plays. Brilliant scene/bgm, that!
PS
I am surprised the GRCA President, the biggest IR fan/IR walking encyclopedia I know, hasn’t commented here yet.
LikeLike
Gradwolf
September 19, 2010
Here it is:
http://www.backgroundscore.com/2010/08/counterpoint.html
LikeLike
Gradwolf
September 19, 2010
Ok not “apologize” to him. Wrong word!
LikeLike
Zero
September 20, 2010
Baradwaj,
I couldn’t agree more with Ramesh Ram regarding the Bharat Ratna award. There’s simply no Indian film artist more deserving of the award than Raaja.
And, seriously, I wonder what’s “stirring shit up” about this. One could either agree with the assessment, or not. If the mere mention of a prestigious award for a stalwart like Raaja automatically brings in Rahman to the discussion, so be it! To my mind, Rahman does not at all deserve to be equated to Raaja in terms of their respective overall musical accomplishments.
LikeLike
Venkatesh
September 20, 2010
@JaiGanesh : “Ilaiyaraaja Full music score award” – This is a splendid idea.
BR: About Time is right. – should have been given ages ago.
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 20, 2010
Senthil: “But, in the 80′s he could adapt himself to ‘in-thing’ styles such as disco,glam rock type anthems etc.” Exactly. Listen to him in the Nizhalgal-Raajapaarvai-Ullasa Paravaigal phase. He was, to borrow a phase from Almost Famous, a golden god — so much variety in the instruments and in the genres of music. At some point in the mid-to-latter part of the 80s, he settled into his symphonic groove and — barring the odd exceptions every now and then, like MX — never deviated from that. That would be a question I’d like to ask. I mean, did he want to explore the symphonic structure and did that leave him little time for the good old wah-pedal distortions and stuff like that?
Amrita: No, haven’t see The American. What did you think about it?
vijay: I look at it in a different way. The burden of all-roundness is something we love to thrust on creative people, and nobody can do everything. Whether musicians or artists or writers or filmmakers, people have their specialties, the areas they are best at. Can IR score for Dev.D is an interesting hypothetical question. I don’t have an answer to that. But I would say that not scoring for Dev.D doesn’t take away anything from his talents and his achievements. The fact that Stanley Kubrick never made a rom-com or a Western (no, One Eyed Jacks doesn’t count) doesn’t in any way diminish his eminence as a filmmaker.
About his reaction statement, I don’t know what he meant. But I only concern myself with Raja the creator. Raja the human being is not my area of interest at all. And to be very frank, the burden of gentlemanliness is another thing we thrust on creative people 🙂
Raj Balakrishnan: Hans Zimmer has a constant over-scorer, IMO. Most of his films have way too much BGM. The score itself isn’t bad, though.
sureshkumar: Like I said, the brilliance of the score as a standalone musical rendering of the emotion is one aspect. Its necessity in between dialogue that already establishes (and earlier scenes that have already established) these conflicting emotions is another aspect. About the first aspect, there is no doubt. About the second aspect, I have my reservations.
complicateur: What do you mean “best has passed?” As in “is his best work behind him?” Not sure.
Nithya: Nope, have not interviewed him.
Gradwolf: Yup, it is a dig at myself. Glad that someone caught it, though I thought it would be Shankar 🙂
Zero: “One could either agree with the assessment, or not.” True. But those who don’t agree won’t do so in a civilised manner, and it will become a rancour-filled shitstorm like all the previous times. That’s what I meant.
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 20, 2010
A non-Indian instance of one of my favourite background scores (in the same Romantic-era template), from OUT OF AFRICA:
The noise of the biplane, at first, is a sound cue that obviously needs no BGM. Then he lands and she runs up and asks where he got it. He says Mombasa. No need for music at all. Just expository dialogue hinting at his itinerant ways. The whirring noise is enough to establish context. She climbs in. She asks when he learnt to fly. He says yesterday. A funny moment, but the humour is in the throwaway line and there’s no need to underscore/highlight it with BGM.
The whirring intensifies as the plane begins to move. The natives provide more sound cues that “act” as BGM. More whirring in the initial bumpy portions, and it’s only when smooth takeoff happens that the score sets in. It’s one of my favourite John Barry pieces — a mildly melancholy beginning belying the instant exhilaration of flight (and hinting at the doom to come with the future plane crash), then a spiritual tinge hinting at the soaring heavenliness of it all, intercut by a dash of whirring again so we don’t forget the human aspect of it all.
And then, around the 1:46 mark, the build-up to the extraordinary love theme sets in. And at 2:26 the love theme begins, two iterations of the four lines — the first iteration ends in a “unfinished” lower note, the second iteraion “completes” it. This could have played right from the time they took off, but in making us wait for this emotion, we feel the extent to which she is overcome when she reaches back to hold his hand — at the highest note hit by the strings. Then BGM stops. Wind cues. End of scene. A beautiful instance of the sound people, the editor, the scorer being in complete sync.
LikeLike
Praveen
September 20, 2010
You might like to listen to this:
And then even Agni Nakshathiram had some brilliant bgms.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 20, 2010
brannigan, I wasn’t around for your last few IR ARR wars.I interpreted “Shitstorm” to mean your usual theme about my posting “youre baiting my readers”(im not but if some of my opinions amount to red flags to a bull for some, so be it.
So if this is what you meant then i say brang it on.
if someone has the bad grace to come to whats essentially a tribute to raja, and start bringing in other people(what did raja call them? instrumentalists.. keyboard players.. or something) , then the muck raker is not me.
LikeLike
vijay
September 20, 2010
“Can IR score for Dev.D is an interesting hypothetical question. I don’t have an answer to that. But I would say that not scoring for Dev.D doesn’t take away anything from his talents and his achievements.”
BR, of course. Iam generally not the type who thrusts the burden of all aroundness or humility on him or anyone else, although our better MDs have always been some kind of all arounders. Especially the TFM legends. And we are always a little greedy as fans.
But its just a thought I had. Kind of like how sometime back you were wondering about whether Kartik can sing a semi-classical like Madhu Balakrishnan and whether he has enough range to do that. That might not take away from the fact that Kartik might be already singing well, the kind of songs generally given to him-pop/rock ballads or folk numbers and so on. I am not a Kartik fan myself, but just to give you an idea of what I was talking about earlier. A movie like Mithya is fresh territory for IR.
I was thinking that sometimes Hollywood composers, even if they do very few films in numbers, get to work on a wide variety of moods/concepts/themes. Someone like IR doesn’t get that chance, and gets restricted in TFM, despite doing 800 odd films, which is a shame. He deserved better films sometimes. But then again, within what he could do, he has shown enough variety. And without those films we could’nt have gotten those songs.
And regarding Kubrick, I wouldn’t have expected a movie like Strangelove from him. Actually within the 10-15 films he did I think he covered a lot of genres from historicals to sci-fi to thrillers to war dramas.
Jaiganesh, Aboorva sagodharargal, MMKR ellam dark comedy illa pa. They might have had some serious scenes in between but the comic portions had a clear single tone to it.
What is a challenge, IMO, to composers is when you have to maintain the balance in your music in a film where the tone itself is constantly in question. Kind of like the Coen Brothers films. It is a tight rope walk. Closest parallel to that in desi films that I could think of is Mithya.
I have not seen Adoor’s Nizhalkuthu. But from what I have read it would fall under emotional drama again.
LikeLike
vijay
September 20, 2010
Or even a futuristic sci-fi thriller made by an accomplished director.It would have been interesting to see how IR scores for that. No, dont tell me “Vikram” 🙂 Its kind of sad that he was saddled with mediocre films of the same kind.
LikeLike
apala
September 20, 2010
BR,
Excellent article! Enjoyed it!!
Being a longtime Raja fan, you made my week/month/year!!!!!!
Well, I like Rahman a lot….but from the days of Pudhiya Mugam (where he played “flute” in a stunt sequence) to the Oscar winning BGM in SDM, his growth is really questionable! He has immense talent in composing songs but for BGM, I still think he is pretty ordinary……just my humble opinion. (sorry for the comparison……just could avoid it!).
I thought Raja showed that even silence is the best BGM which can bring life to the movie in Mahanadhi……I think it’s one of his best works…………
Again, thanks for the beautiful piece dude……
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 20, 2010
And among the recent search terms that led to yours truly:
“blindfold ladaki”
“jugnu beauty parlour”
“mangal”
“personal guaranteed sita jaminan”
“aishwarya rai 2009”
As bizarre as the earlier ones are, I find the latter the oddest. Why Aishwarya Rai in “2009”? What did she accomplish in that particular year? Hmmm…
LikeLike
Krishna
September 20, 2010
To something that is usually overlooked…
George Fenton’s (the dude collaborated with Ravi Shankar for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi) background scores for some of BBC’s flagship natural history series like David Attenborough’s The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and, more recently, Life.
I think here ’emotion’ takes on a whole new meaning.
LikeLike
Hemanth
September 20, 2010
Absolutely cannot/will not imagine Geethanjali (Idhayathai Thirudathey) without Illayaraja.
LikeLike
Prasanna
September 20, 2010
Hi BR,Great one yet again…in the Background Score context,we need to talk of IR vis-a-vis an L.Vaidyanathan of “Pushpak” fame or a V.S.Narasimhan of “Achamillai Achamillai” fame,whose body of work may unfortunately not be vast.However, the importance of background score gets accentuated in the films made by directors with a certain minimalistic approach-a Mahendran/Balu Mahendra/MR types who’re not really out to milk the “talkie” portion of their movies and let other aural/visual enrichments to their end-product.It’s to IR credit that he made background score non-elitist 🙂
LikeLike
anamika
September 20, 2010
Pranams to the maestro and heres to someone whose work will continue to enchant long after the National awards are over.
A few years ago , we had initiated a monthly program at the Alliance Francaise in chennai called “Travelogues”-the idea was to invite personalities from diverse fields and have an evening where they would talk about their sources of inspiration.
When we approached Illyaraja, he told us that his work/inspiration /life was the studio and removed from there , he had nothing to say.
That is the mark of a true genius.
LikeLike
raj
September 20, 2010
A few thoughts
To Prakash srinivasan:
1. MSV sure hasnt done 1000+ movies. For this to happen, even generously granting that he has done 150 movies post 1980 – and that is a stretch because I know about this period first hand and I know it wont add up to more than 150 movies post 1980 – he should have done an AVERAGE of nearly 40 movies per year from 1952-1980 for this. Doesnt add up given the TF numbers those days and much greater competition among MSV, KVM and others than during IR’s monopoly days. This is a purely academic point and has nothing to do with MSV, IR or anyone’s talent or genius. Equally, Raja’s numbers include double counting for Dubbed movies. A cleaned up list will probably be around 800-850 or even less.
2. In IR-speak, I find this article Pop-Corn as opposed to full meals. Rangan sure has a lot more to share, and he has not even grazed the strands of the perimeter of that in this article.
3. Loved Suresh’s and Jai’s comments – on nizhalkuthu and Can Kashyap Handle IR respectively. Nobody possibly understands the director’s vision as much as IR does – you can see that in the variety of approaches he has employed in a whole range of movies – starting from Rama Narayanan to Manirathnam to Adoor to Padmarajan to K Vishwanath to KB to Balki. If that doesnt tell you that he can pretty much handle any challenge, nothing will. Well, someone asked if he will do gangsta rap. Maybe he’ll, but they’ll get IR-ised – because even WCM passes through the IR-ism filter before being offerred to us. You’ll get IR-ised Gangsta Rap – we may or may not like the end result but that’s a different story altogether.
3. BR, a few questions for you
a) What do you think of BGM telling the story, a very popular mode of acclaim for IR – such as, for instance, the climax of Kaadhalukku mariyaadhai? Do you think BGM can substitute for words? Chuck that, first of all, do you think Acting can substitute for words/dialogues/writing?
b) Why is it that good writers I know of think that a Goat doesnt need a beard, a state doesnt need a governor, and a movie doesnt need BGM? Is it something to do with “turf protection”, as in “Hello, telling the story is my responsibility, you just back off, Mr MD?” (Dont answer this, though! Just a rhetorical question)
c) Granting that BGM is allowed, in what way do you think IR differs from other purveyors (restricting to Indian or rather Hindi/Tamil considering your areas of interest) of the same?
I have a few more questions but not quite able to articulate now – some other time
LikeLike
raj
September 20, 2010
“And to be very frank, the burden of gentlemanliness is another thing we thrust on creative people ”
Well said. Even Rahman who started out with some kick-ass statements*( Till I came around, Indian Film music was only dholak/tabla/violin) withdrew into his shell, thanks to our humility/politeness mafia.
* Politeness mafia – just shut up and lay off Rahman. ungaLukku bayandhu dhAn adhukkappuram avar vaayE thORakkardhillai.
Zero – *Anandha kaNNIr*
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 20, 2010
Krishna: Also, dialogue-free films like Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. I know Philip Glass is not everyone’s cup of tea, but his work is astounding here.
raj: I think BGM telling the story is fantastic. It’s even better if BGM can susbtitute for words, because that would render the scene more abstract, more open to personal interpretation — like listening to a symphony but with images. And you continue to put words in my mouth. I never said “a movie doesnt need BGM” in this article — though I certainly do think not all goats need beards 🙂
I’m not sure you read all the comments but this is just a personal reservation I have against, as Shankar put it, “spoon feeding” in mainstream cinema, whether from here or Hollywood. And yes, initially, I did want to write a much bigger analysis, but at first they didn’t have the space, and later I didn’t have the time because they said yes to this article at the last minute. Perils of writing for the weekend magazine section.
LikeLike
Hamsassa
September 20, 2010
really thank u so much for this posts
LikeLike
Dualist
September 20, 2010
Deserved! A shame that the category was introduced this late, or he’d have gone double figures by now!re
I have to take offense at “that it has the power to pull you out of the scene and make you marvel at the score”, actually it accentuates the scene without pulling us out of it. At least in hands of best directors, the visuals goes hand-in-hand with the bgm. And BR brings up a customary mention of Rahman.(while the context ‘re-orchestrated reiteration is sufficient to outline his despondency’ isn’t totally amiss, AE is nowhere in the league of BGM registers in Thalapathy, possibly the best of TFI. Dol dol isn’t registered well, ditto the bgm rework in the scene Inba executes his brother. )
—————
Btw Paa winning best actor makes one to puke over the breakfast. It stills squirms the insides how Mammootty missed it, would have been a record for the category too(4 wins).
LikeLike
raj
September 20, 2010
Ah! So, your editor played spoilsport again. What’s his contact details, again, please? Don’t worry I will not bomb his house or something 🙂
But you can do Bitty Ruminations right?
Again, coming back to spoon feeding, I think again IR does differentiate cases where spoon feeding is needed and where it isn’t.
1. Think Agni N. Here, the BGM accentuates what is already obvious from the screen. But it adds a dimension that constitutes the experience of the movie in sum total. Without the BGM, the movie seems to be incomplete. I dont know if I’ll feel the same way if it had been delivered without IR’s BGM in the first place. Spoon feeding? I dont think so. It is like a designed part of the movie experience. Like, do you really need lovely paintings in your drawing room? Maybe, not but a good one there adds to the experience of your living room, and if my first experience of your living room was with that painting, perhaps I cannot imagine your living room without those paintings. I think this falls in that category
2. kAdhalukku mariyAdhai – here, by design, IR tells the story. The movie has been visualised that way. A good comparison would be how the corresponding mallu version(aniyathi prAvu) was handled by the same director. But I dont remember much out of it so this is an experiment waiting to be performed. Again Spoon Feeding? No. Painting in the living room? No. This is as essential as the couch in front of your television – an essential part of your living room is lost without it.
3. Some Kasthuri Raja movies etc – what IR calls “correcting the flaws in the scene”. I am not quite sure what example to take but this is another category to research. More when I get a concrete example.
4. Nayagan – probably one case that can be close to Spoon-Feeding. When Nayakkar sees Karthika’s photo in Nasser’s house, Kamal is enough to tell the story but Raja adds this nadhaswaram-veenai recital. It is not a fair comparison, but the same scene in Dayavan perhaps puts forward the case for BGM. Ofcourse, Vinod Khanna is not Kamal, and Dayavan is anyway not the best of his performances but still, one feels L-P(or whoever proxied for them in the Re-recording) could have done better than the library music they insert here. I do feel that a replication of IR’s score in BGM would have enhanced the scene in the Hindi version. Perhaps, it would have corrected the flaw caused by inferior personnel in the acting department.
I’d say the scene in Nayagan was a case of an extra beautiful painting in the Living Room that cramps up your wall and the one in Dayavan could have been the wall paper to hide the cracks(but L-P created another crack instead)
I can think of more but I dont want to do it all in a single comment.
LikeLike
Dualist
September 20, 2010
“Nobody possibly understands the director’s vision as much as IR does – you can see that in the variety of approaches he has employed in a whole range of movies – starting from Rama Narayanan to Manirathnam to Adoor to Padmarajan to K Vishwanath to KB to Balki. If that doesnt tell you that he can pretty much handle any challenge, nothing will. Well, someone asked if he will do gangsta rap. Maybe he’ll, but they’ll get IR-ised – because even WCM passes through the IR-ism filter before being offerred to us. You’ll get IR-ised Gangsta Rap – we may or may not like the end result but that’s a different story altogether.”
Aye, Raj. Aye.
LikeLike
complicateur
September 20, 2010
I realise now that the question might be both cryptic and misleading. In many ways, despite his stellar work in the occasional Bala film, I still remain partial to his older stuff. I’m still ruminating as to why, but saying his ‘best has passed’ is sort of a euphemism I coined for my continued preference for his older works. I was looking forward to seeing Nandhala after having heard stellar reports on his work there. So the real question is: Would you accord NandhalAlA the status reserved for say Aan Paavam or Gopura VasalilE or ThaLapathy or GuNA.
LikeLike
Krishna
September 20, 2010
Wow. And i thought not many people knew about the Qatsi trilogy. Underestimated you rangan saar. Mannikka vaendugiraen. 🙂
Oh, and i love Glass. Have you had a chance to hear his album ‘Passages’ (with Ravi Shankar)?? It’s wonderful. I have his sanskrit opera Satyagraha on dvd but never came around watching it. I am told it has supertitles for the english translation. 🙂
And on a related note, if you liked the qatsi trilogy, you’ll find ‘Baraka’ fascinating. If you haven’t seen it already that is.
LikeLike
Krishna
September 20, 2010
“I am told it has supertitles for the english translation.”
Of course i meant that in the live performance. dunno about the dvd though.
LikeLike
S.Suresh
September 20, 2010
raj,
Amazing. ‘unga kadama unarchiku oru ellaye illaya’ 😀 (You know why I am making that comment)
Anyway I too agree with you that no one in the Indian context seem to understand the mood of movie better and provide BGM as Raja does. That too consistently. As said above, the problem in many cases is that the director of the film wants his / her inputs to be taken into account but Raja firmly believes they have no clue on music. I remember an interview of Myskin during the ‘Anjathe’ times where he said that he sat with the music director (Sundar C Babu) and together they created the BGM. I am sure he would not have got that chance in ‘Nandalala’!! I guess that is one reason why directors are scared of working with him.
LikeLike
jaiganesh
September 20, 2010
I aint saying that nizhal kuthu is a dark comedy.
I just brought it up to say that it has a very minimalistic score.
Again I am not saying that Apoorva sagodharargal is a dark comedy, but it has enough elements of dark comedy in it (where in the heavens but in a dark comedy would u imagine a couple singing on a lorry along with a dead body – to top it hint at cupid’s arrow with the real one attached to the dead man’s tummy). Agreed that crazy might have tuned in the comedy quotient a little bit more while Kamal might have turned on senti quotient for apolegitic appu. somewhere in between all that comedy masala was a dark comedy that delighted in jaishankar meeting his death in the hands of a gun that shoots both ways. Considering all that Apoorva sagodharargal was a dark comedy sandwhiched between a tragic vengence masala and a crazy comic fest. MMKR is more of the same with comic fest dominating over the dark comedy and manmohanesque reunion of brothers. Now the jazzy score for the dark comedy portions for both these films are not in anyways lesser if you consider the modern “full dark comic satires” churned out in bollywood and elsewhere.
LikeLike
jaiganesh
September 20, 2010
As regards to BGM telling story making it more amenable to personal interpretation, I was reminded of the piece that Jeyamohan wrote on Naan Kadavul – about phases in the film which he thought were completed by the BGM – giving subtle hints, but still keeping the options open for understanding. I think that is where real power of Ilaiyaraaja comes to the fore – not at inserting a in your face BGM that shuts the door on the scene, but enough musical emotion in it to close some doors of obviousness, but enough windows open in it to let the light of perception seep in. Case in point would be the Nayagan theme on Saranya – Kamal scene. I could hear traces of this in “Then Paandi seemayile” what magic it was to conjure the piece on the softer side of a violent man and play it as a separate BGM on the softest moment of his life(meeting his wife for the first time) as well as a recurring lullaby underscoring the tragedy of his loneliness.
LikeLike
Gradwolf
September 20, 2010
Isn’t IR someone who composes and then the lyrics are done?(from my past discussions with complicateur).
On that note I wonder how he really felt about composing a BGM of a given scene. The results have been fascinating of course.
LikeLike
Gradwolf
September 20, 2010
Not like there was a choice with BGMs but still!
LikeLike
Aravindan
September 20, 2010
Scenes ku pOtta BGM-laam irukkattum. Title credits-ku pOtta bgm-kE idhu seriyA pOchu. 😛 (Listening to this one now)
>>A KINGDOM APPEARS TO HAVE been created so that a king can be coronated>>
🙂 🙂
Nice choice of pic!
LikeLike
Vishnu
September 21, 2010
BR –
You forgot to mention Idhyathai Thirudathey (Geetanjali) in your article.. I feel this is among the best BGM works of Raja, if not the best..The titles track at the hospital, Ooty theme, Market theme, the ‘they are in love’ track towards the climax – there are so many gems in this movie..
If ever an indian movie’s BGM tracks chosen/deserved to be released as an album by itself, this would be it..
Registered users can get those here — http://www.indianbackgroundscore.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 21, 2010
raj: “I think again IR does differentiate cases where spoon feeding is needed and where it isn’t.” You’re not saying anything all that radically different from what I did. Sometimes I wonder if you just skim through points in my articles and make up an essay in your head that most suits your penchant for argumentativeness 🙂
complicateur: Oh, but if those films are your benchmarks, I wonder what you’d say about his scores for Rajaparvai or Johny or Karayellaam Shenbagapoo, from the times he was at his most experimental, and music seemed to bend to his will 🙂 Just that flanger effect alone can send a shiver up your spine. As you can see, i too prefer his older works.
Gradwolf: Oh, but in general, you can’t edit a scene to BGM, right? 🙂 Unless it’s a song interlude or a dialogue-free montage. But as a rhetoreical question, yeah, it’s interesting.
LikeLike
raj
September 21, 2010
I wasnt even arguing. I was just sharing my thoughts on spoon-feeding. I didnt imply anything about you there – now you are putting words in my mouthsu 🙂
Anyway, the point is that this man actually understands the director’s vision instinctively, and atleast I can see different patterns that substantiate this. You may understand that but my comment was for others who do not really know about it or understand the phenomenon.
You can see that when Mani exclaims about his genius in deciding the BGM after one watch and writing the score from his head – and that turns out to be completely in sync with what he(Mani) wanted.
Someone actually wondered if IR didnt see doing BGM as a restriction to creativity just like he felt that way for lyrics. My feeling is IR has a great understanding of cinema, encompassing a wide range, and matching BGM to emotions/situations/sequences is something that he actually enjoys more than even songs. That’s completely different from composing to lyrics. Infact, perhaps it explains why he sees lyrics as no more than a necessary evil. See it this way – he wants to hear a situation, compose the tune and then get lyrics written. This is something he keeps emphasising – he always wants to hear the story, then the situations, and give whatever spontaneously comes to him at that point. No alterations, no changes after that(obviously, he exaggerates there possibly but the general scheme of things seem to be that way). So, clearly, the story and situation are the first trigger. He wants his creativity to flow from there as an inspiration. Which is exactly what happens in BGM.
A lot of us, ofcourse, are disappointed that he doesnt do independent albums much and doesnt really make an effort to convert his ideas into tangible results instead of scoring for azhagar malais and suryakanthis. There are market reasons for that – thiruvasagam for all the aesthetic results achieved, ran inot a lot of issues from financial perspective including fraud allegations etc – but one just wishes he does that. Until then, the BGMs are where you get the stuff.
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 21, 2010
Does any tech god here know how to restrict the “archives” and “search results” to a finite number of entries, with a “next” at the bottom? Danke.
LikeLike
Dualist
September 21, 2010
Excellent comments. Passionately written too Raj. Well done.
LikeLike
Anand
September 21, 2010
I happened to watch Nadodi thendral in a preview show before the film’s release. The ending was different with Ranjitha dying. Later much after the film’s release, I watched it again and was surprised to note that the ending was changed to ‘happy ending’ with Ranjitha and Karthik getting back to each other. The remarkable thing was that both the climaxes was without dialogues for about 3-4 minutes. It was entirely upon Raja to create the mood. And the second (happy) climax, was a ‘hotch-potch’ job with minimum amount of reshooting, and it mainly depended on editing and bgm. It was fascinating how Raja created the mood..I am not too sure if the first climax is available in youtube, so that it could be compared.
LikeLike
Anand
September 21, 2010
And in the last decade or so, just listen at the bgm in Hey Ram, Virumandi, Paa, Pithamagan, Sethu…I done think they are any lesser than his classics.
LikeLike
Krishna
September 21, 2010
That’s it!
raj is actually ilayaRAJa! get it, brangan??
Hey Anand, putting a spoiler alert is customary 🙂
LikeLike
tejas
September 21, 2010
“Does any tech god here know how to restrict the “archives” and “search results” to a finite number of entries, with a “next” at the bottom? Danke.”
Rangan saar, email me.
LikeLike
Mohan
September 23, 2010
Excellent article, brangan.
There’s a beautiful piece of BGM in Agni Natchathiram. Remember the scene where Karthik, along with his friends, goes to Prabhu’s house and indulges in stone pelting ? IR chooses to play loud and dashing music in this scene until PC Sriram beautifully captures, in slow motion, the falling of a window pane. IR now switches on to a soft violin piece. Cut it.
Prabhu throws a damaging question at Karthik, arouses his anger and arrests him ( errestukku nee kaeta karanam !) – dashing BGM again. Karthik is flung into the police jeep and his friends run behind frantically…..slow motion begins……IR wonderfully brings back the same soft violin piece (window pane !), which is the actual reason for the errest !!!
Only Ilayarara fossible.
LikeLike
Raghu
September 23, 2010
@ BR: The first one to be honoured with a National award for his background score – was Johnson for TV Chandran’s 93′ film “Ponthanmada”. It had Mammootty in the lead role along with Naseeruddin Shah and Mammootty won his 2nd national award for that. Ponthanmada didnt have any songs at all.
In 1994, the award for Music went to the malayalam film “Sukritham”. It was a film written by MT Vasudevan Nair and Mammootty played the lead role. The award was for the music of Sukritham and the committe specified that its for the soundtrack as well as the BGM and hence there were 2 awardees. Soundtrack (3 songs) was composed by Ravi Bombay (Known popularly as Ravi and he was the MD for some gr8 songs in films like Chaudvin Ka Chand, Neelkamal, Hamraaz, Nikaah etc) and the BG score was, again, by Johnson. Johnson won both his national awards for BG score.
Checkout Johnson’s BG score for many malayalam films by Padmarajan, Bharathan, TV Chandran etc..
sample this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3dP8BobNcQ
And Ilaiayaraaja collaborated with Padmarajan for 2 films – MoonnamPakkam and Season.. both had superb songs..
LikeLike
Raghu
September 23, 2010
Check out Johnson’s theme for another Padmarajan film “Thoovanathumbikal” – a complex film of a man’s relation with 2 women – one who wants to be a prostitute and another one who gets attracted by the brashness of the hero. There is incessant rain whenever the man thinks about the first woman, when he writesa letter to her, when a letter from her arrives at his address etc..
Just wanted to bring some gr8 BG score in Indian films to your notice. That was the sole intention behind the above 2 posts.
LikeLike
Raghu
September 23, 2010
And there was this malayalam film called “Sammohanam” which was about a mysterious woman, played by Archana, in a calm serene village and how her arrival changes the outward calmness of the village.. the film had no songs and the BG was done by raja Sir.. I consider tht as the most efefctive BGM I have ever heard in films..
It was sad tht it wasnt noticed anywhere outisde Kerala though he was awarded by the Kerala state govt: for tht film..
LikeLike
Aravind
September 24, 2010
Brilliant article! Talking about rajas, i was impressed with the use of shehanai in the movie pudupettai by yuvan in few of the most intense scenes.
LikeLike
rameshram
September 24, 2010
Time for America’s best bollywood critic to enter a cave and return only after the mummy has gone (all over his audience)
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 24, 2010
Raghu: Thank you for the comments and the information. So I guess Raja isn’t the first to be awarded for BG score, but this piece could still be read in light of the establishment of a new category. Thank you for the links too.
LikeLike
ManWithNoName
September 24, 2010
rameshram: Oh, don’t worry! It won’t be too long. Somehow, from the trailers, I get the feel that this is going to be a Pattimanram with “Aishwarya Rai yaarukku – Chitti the Robot or Dr. Vaseegaran” with the Climax proclaiming that it is for AB Jr.
LikeLike
vijay
September 24, 2010
And BR a late response- while you say that gentlemanliness shouldnt be thrust on an artist and I agree with that(my point in posting that video link anyways was not to knock IR on lack of humility or anything like that,but I was genuinely amused by the typicality of his response) then by the same token, then why a laudatory piece like “what Bollywood can learn from Rajni”? why should it matter to how Rajni carries himself in public view? Only his work matters right?
LikeLike
kashif
September 24, 2010
This has to be my favorite. Melts my heart every time I hear it.
LikeLike
snorter
September 24, 2010
@anand: naan kadavul is also astounding in its own right. the kaasi song which plays in the background when the credits roll, the bgm which is played throughout the movie whenever pooja undergoes suffering(which is incidentally, one of the interludes in the kannil parvai song, which doesn’t feature in the film) are mind-blowing to say the least!
LikeLike
I'mNotHere
September 24, 2010
On a totally different topic BR, any thoughts about the whole Joaquin Phoenix – Casey Affleck hoax and the movie I’m Still Here?
LikeLike
bran1gan
September 24, 2010
vijay: That piece was just about how Rajini and other Tamil stars are comfortable in their own skin — as opposed to Bollywood stars — and it was a little look at what’s behind that, invoking the Hollywood template of star-manufacturing and so on. The title was given by the people at the magazine, and I frankly thought it was somewhat misleading.
I’mNotHere: I tell you what. It made me very scared as a critic. Because you take something seriously and write an analytical piece about it, and then it turns out to be a big laugh 🙂 As a parnk, though, I thought it was supremely well-done.
LikeLike
Vaishak
September 24, 2010
Great article this BR. Honouring the legend.
@ Raghu: Thanks for those links as well.The score for those films are among the greatest ever. Yes Johnson is a pure genius. His music and background score are something that won’t just leave you until your lifetime.
And again two of Ilayaraja’s most magnificent works has been in the Padmarajan movies- Moonam pakkam and Season. Both masterpieces. The BGMs of these movies is difficult to be described in words. Amazing BGs to put it mildly. Padmarajan gives incredible importance to the BGs in his films and hence with him the MD’s are at their best.
Just to add to it, the 2nd half of Moonam pakkam has hardly any dialogues at all but conveyed just through its visuals and the BG score.The movie has 2 brilliant songs as well.
LikeLike
Rakesh
September 26, 2010
IR’s real name was Daniel ???
http://movies.rediff.com/report/2010/sep/20/south-ilaiyaraja-bio.htm
LikeLike
raj
September 26, 2010
Yes. Daniel Rasayya
LikeLike
rameshram
September 26, 2010
mmm SYMPHOONY ORCHESTRA!!
“the background score had to reflect people and characters of the present. “Without too much of synthesizers,” he says quietly. Music director AR Rahman thought in tandem and a symphony orchestra went into play for the climax scene. ”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/3D-animation-adds-zing-to-Enthiran-climax/articleshow/6628137.cms
LikeLike
Rolland Scully
September 27, 2010
Fantastic blog! I actually love how it is easy on my eyes as well as the information are well written. I am wondering how I can be notified whenever a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your rss feed which should do the trick! Have a nice day!
LikeLike
Just Another Film Buff
September 27, 2010
Wow BR, you approved a spam?!
LikeLike
rameshram
September 28, 2010
on the eve of roboda release, they gave skachhu and a salon dot cam fello wrote about the mummy.
Rameshram’s comment on his article( verbatim) was as follows.(also on my facebook page).
“Oh Puleeze! this article was written because of one reason alone. the hollywood insider money(warner bros/dreamworks speilberg etc) are financing this tamil film. the author has been paid money /skatchhu to write this article) if you dont believe me, which animatronics person are they using? the same fellow that did animatronics for speilbergu movies. which animation and green screen studio? once yagain speilberg’s studio industrial light and magic.
Rajinikanth films started attracting attention of hollywood moneybags yever since chandramukhi made 35 crores in one month. now they will make profits from ard earned indian fellows sweat and blood. why? because all rajinikanth films make as mucchu money in india as america(unlike sarukan who only makes money in america. SO speilberg thot why not loot the indians by saying rajinikanth rajinikanth.
that is what all this is about.
robo da, is not. is robo-poda!”
LikeLike
Rags
October 9, 2010
Hi BR,
Yes, ofcourse. I Just wanted to point out that Johnson won 2 national wards for his BGM alone – and then the award for BGM wasnt announced. It was very fitting that IR won it the first time since its introduced.
Hers a link to the 1st parts of Padmarajan’s Season and Moonnam Pakkam. Season, when it was released in 1988 was regarded as the worst film made by Padmarajan. But after 22 years, the movie is regarded as one of the best thrillers in Malayalam, a western in the backdrop of sea and jail. There is a song in the film which has jus 2 words in the pallavi and a commentary instead of musical stanzas (written and voice-over by Padmarajan himself – he was an announcer in AIR).
Season – Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0-MsdT0ZHc
Moonnam Pakkam – Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOUZ8ajKe3k
Theres a 3 minute scene in Moonnam Pakkam with a solo flute playing “Raghu Vamsa Sudha” used to symbolise the new found energy and cheer in an ancestral house following the arrival of the patriarch’s grandson and friends
Both the films have 2 songs each – all 4 gems – and extremely different BGM.. Would be seriously interested in knowing your opinion of the films and its music..
LikeLike
poongaatru
October 20, 2012
i ve heard AR Rahman worked for half of the movie score for DARK NIGHT RISES..as zimmer s his friend ….highly reliable sources…ARR polambal for not recognised,,,ARR works silently for hollywood movies with out recognisation…but Indian movies by ARR arent actually composed by him now a days ..just his Tag name but works done by XXXXX in chennai and bombay …shame on him….only Manirathnam movies wat he works for, not for anyone now a days. other movies sub-contract….
LikeLike
poongaatru
October 20, 2012
gnanadhesigan only..he s a hindhu…i think
LikeLike
Venkatesh
November 3, 2015
Not to demean others, but there would never be a composer like IR, who understood the demands of a director and delivered what they wanted. I can even listen to his worst film and still like it. I can think of Pulan Visaranai and Captain Prabhakaran, where he worked with a newcomer. I must have listened to the scores of these two films for over a hundred times.
I was happy when he was recognised that year. But Naan Kadavul was more deserving than Pazhassi Raja, IMO.
Coming to his ‘best’ films, I can think of Johnny – both soundtrack and BGM wise it was an excellent one. Another film that comes close to it is Thalapathy.
LikeLike