As a 'La Folia' junkie lacking a perfect musical memory, I have fallen
prey to a duplicious Hollywood habit. During a preview of Luc Besson's
'The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc', I recognized the La Folia theme
in the music. I purchased the CD only to discover there was no La Folia.
It finally dawned on me after hearing the previews again on TV that I had
been listening to John Newton Howard's music for the movie Restoration.
Recently I heard Howard's La Folia again for a preview of another movie
(which slips my mind). I guess this is backhanded praise for the power of
the theme and the way Howard and/or his orchestrators portrayed it for
Restoration.
Jim Stevenson, January 10, 2001.
In the section of your website devoted to the use of 'La folia' in movie
music, you mention that one of your correspondents complained about movie
companies substituting music in their advertisements and 'coming attraction'
trailers. Just last week I heard a radio commercial promoting the
soundtrack of 'The Pianist', and the commercial featured the main title
music from 'Reformation' with its beautiful treatment of 'La folia'. The
actual soundtrack is just another Chopin compilation, which I certainly
don't need! This annoying practice has been around for awhile-- 'Carmina
Burana' and 'Red October' get recycled regularly in movie previews, too.
January 2003
In 2006 Hiroaki Sai detected another use of John Newton Howard's music for the film Restoration in a Japanese trailer of the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha"
