The Best Of Filmworks - 20 Years Of Soundtrack Music

This single volume makes it all crystal clear: John Zorn is one of the most inventive, sophisticated, mischievous, and poignant film score composers who works (mostly) outside the Hollywood system. Some of the directors he has worked with are Walter Hill, Jean-Luc Godard, Dina Waxman, Sandi Dubowski, Oren Rudavsky, Henry Hills, and Marc Levin. This single volume contains 28 cues from 22 films and three commercials. For those intimidated by the sheer number of volumes comprising Zorn's Film Works series (18 as of October 2006), this is a great place to start. The full range of Zorn's moods, colors, textures, and, of course, humor comes across in these cues. The four from Cynical Hysterie Hour are choice, as are "Trembling Before G_D" (from Dubowski's film of the same name), "Pueblo" (a work for the silent film Rose Hobart by Joseph Cornell), and the cue from Protocols of Zion by Marc Levin. Zorn's different ensembles and methods of working are detailed in the individual volumes, but his working notes for this set are most revelatory as well. This is a fine addition to the Film Works library, and also provides the very best introduction possible.