Film Scores

[beamish14]

Not primarily a film composer, but Toru Takemitsu has to rank as one of the greats. His scores for the Teshigahara/Abe collaborations are weird, brilliant stuff.

His classical work Mandala Symphony is excellent, too. Regarding Japanese film composers, I’m also fond of Toshiro Mayuzumi, who produced excellent scores for Imamura, Naruse, and John Huston. Joe Hisaishi is brilliant.

Elliot Goldenthal is a favorite of mine as well. Extremely consistent work across his classical works and film score commissions. He always adds so much texture and sophistication to films

[Roscoe]

I'll put in a word for good old Jerry Goldsmith -- his scores for Dante's EXPLORERS and Crichton's GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and Schaffner's BOYS FROM BRAZIL find their way onto assorted playlists of mine a good deal. And that radiant orchestral blowout score he did for Scott's LEGEND too.

[beamish14]

I'll put in a word for good old Jerry Goldsmith -- his scores for Dante's EXPLORERS and Crichton's GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and Schaffner's BOYS FROM BRAZIL find their way onto assorted playlists of mine a good deal. And that radiant orchestral blowout score he did for Scott's LEGEND too.

Freud is really incredible, too

[ntnon]

So what's the criteria for not being a hack? Ten great scores? Five? Three?

Nevermind 'what makes a "great score"?' Unremittingly memorable themes? Variations and callbacks? Putting the 'right music' in the 'right places'? Some, all, none of the above?

Certainly there are pieces of film music that transcend and become known far and wide; does that necessarily make 'the score' good, or just that specific theme?

Can a score remain great if only half of it is truly memorable - and who gets to be the judge...

[Beloved Aunt]

There are a lot of scores it would seem that aren't at all memorable or really worth listening to on their own, but serve their films very well and also genuinely seem better when seen with the film accompanying it. Philippe Sarde's work on Polanski's Pirates is a very good example of this (wonderful film, by the way--I think the #1 reason its so despised is just because its full of filth and chaotic scenes, but if you can hack through that its an amazing adventure.) Actually, I've found that Sarde, so far anyway, has exactly one score that stands up on its own, that for The Clockmaker of St. Paul--and even that is not particularily original-sounding.

[ntnon]

There are a lot of scores it would seem that aren't at all memorable or really worth listening to on their own, but serve their films very well and also genuinely seem better when seen with the film accompanying it. Philippe Sarde's work on Polanski's Pirates is a very good example of this (wonderful film, by the way--I think the #1 reason its so despised is just because its full of filth and chaotic scenes, but if you can hack through that its an amazing adventure.) Actually, I've found that Sarde, so far anyway, has exactly one score that stands up on its own, that for The Clockmaker of St. Paul--and even that is not particularily original-sounding.

Music is certainly one of those things that can be done so well it's barely noticeable OR done so well that it can be a (distracting?) focus. And also something that can stand alone and be appreciated entirely apart from the actual film..

[MichaelB]

Jan Švankmajer said that the extraordinary thing about Zdeněk Liška was that he was able to discern internal rhythms in his films of which he had previously been unaware. And a fair number of Švankmajer’s short films (most of which Liška scored) are dialogue-free and sometimes entirely silent aside from the music, so it was a vital contribution.

Here’s The Flat by way of example - it’s quite instructive watching it with the sound off!

[Monterey Jack]

(although Bad John Williams is truly dreadful, so pompous and fluttery and annoying)

There's also Jerry Goldsmith, who's written maybe 12 listenable scores and at his very intermittent best is more of an artist than your standard prominent film scoring hack (Howard Shore, John Barry, Miklos Rozsa etc.) who have at best 6 or 7 quality scores to their name. Chinatown and The Russia House are pretty goddamn wonderful, and I also really love Goldsmith's work on Six Degrees of Separation, though it seems i'm pretty much alone on that front. Although he is usually just a hack.

[EWMMTFAN]

My favorite film composers.

1. Jerry Goldsmith
2. Ennio Morricone
3. Howard Shore
4. James Horner
5. Tangerine Dream
6. Michael Kamen
7. John Carpenter
8. Carter Burwell
9. Oneohtrix Point Never
10. Éric Serra

[therewillbeblus]

Are you sure? Howard Shore and James Horner have mostly worked on three hour epics

[FrauBlucher]

OMG, where is Max Steiner or Bernard Herrman or Miklos Rozsa or all three?

[EWMMTFAN]

Those were my favorite composers, not the best composers. Not really familiar with Steiner or Rozsa but Herrman made some dazzling scores.

[FrauBlucher]

Steiner-
Gone With the Wind, King Kong, Casablanca, The Searchers, Now, Voyager and A Summer Place to name a few

Rozsa-
Double Indemnity, The Four Feathers, The Thief of Bagdad, Spellbound and Ben Hur and many more


...some pretty memorable scores

[Mr Sausage]

Has Sergei Prokofiev been mentioned? It's rare to get a genius classical composer to write film scores.

[bottlesofsmoke]

Aaron Copland too, his score for The Red Pony was turned into an orchestral suite and is performed by orchestras.

The mention of Kings Row in the TCM thread reminded me of how great Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score is for that film, really one of my favorites, and a pretty good movie, too! Korngold's best know scores are probably the ones he did for Errol Flynn swashbucklers, and while they are great for that type of film, Kings Row is something much deeper and more moving, closer to his non-film music and very different from the usual film scores around this time. And also apparently a big influence on John Williams' Star Wars score (you can here it right off the bat).

Herrmann is probably the best though, at his best he really changes scenes with his music, to the point that he is almost a co-auteur in certain films. The snowy chase scenes in On Dangerous Ground is one of my favorite non-famous examples of how much of an impact his music has. Also, one of the most recognizable composers, multiple times I've had films on in the background, heard a strain of the score and thought "that sounds like Herrmann" and been right, The Snows of Kilimanjaro is one I remember that happening with. John Williams' is that way too, even if I don't love all his scores as much as some do. The Rare Breed is an early one that makes you say "hey that sounds like..." Probably the best thing about that movie, though, which isn't saying much.

[Michael Kerpan]

My top 2? Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

[Beloved Aunt]

Don't people like Maurice Jarre? He HAS written some dreadful ones, but he's definitely a major talent. I think his best Hollywood score is for The Collector. To think that he won an Oscar that same year for his Doctor Zhivago pathetic dribble, and The Collector wasn't even nominated... Another favorite of mine by Jarre is his music for Therese Desqueyroux.

[Walter Kurtz]

Top 2 Film Composers

1. Johnnie Bach (Undine)
2. Dick Strauss (2001, partial)

[brundlefly]

Are you sure? Howard Shore and James Horner have mostly worked on three hour epics

Everything else Shore does pays the bills between Cronenberg projects; I think of those two as linked as Burwell and the Coens, and the scores for The Fly, Crash, Naked Lunch (w/Ornette Coleman, of course), and Videodrome are integral parts of those experiences.

[MichaelB]

My top 2? Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

I love the way that Shostakovich came out of a pretty lengthy film-scoring retirement just to write for his old friend Grigori Kozintsev. And the 1964 Hamlet score is absolutely staggering, so I'm very glad that he did. (I imagine Kozintsev wasn't too unhappy about it either.)

Ralph Vaughan Williams is also a very distinguished example of a well-established "serious" composer writing film scores, although Krzysztof Penderecki's original film music is considerably more obscure than his repurposed concert scores (The Exorcist, The Shining, INLAND EMPIRE, Katyń). And György Ligeti never wrote directly for film, although he unquestionably owes a whopping chunk of his international fame to his music being featured in multiple films (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Heat and Eyes Wide Shut).

[Mr Sausage]

Speaking of Kubrick, surely Wendy Carlos ought to be in the discussion? Would The Shining and A Clockwork Orange work half as well without her synthwork?

[flyonthewall2983]

Are you sure? Howard Shore and James Horner have mostly worked on three hour epics

Everything else Shore does pays the bills between Cronenberg projects; I think of those two as linked as Burwell and the Coens, and the scores for The Fly, Crash, Naked Lunch (w/Ornette Coleman, of course), and Videodrome are integral parts of those experiences.

He also worked on a lot of Scorsese’s films starting with After Hours up to Hugo. His score for The Departed I like a lot. I think it’s kind of a shame he didn’t work more with Fincher but the three films of his that he scored were better in some ways for that contribution. Especially Se7en.

But getting back to After Hours, several of the films he scored ended up getting releases at Criterion. Definitely more then the other bigger names in film scoring or the last 40-50 years anyway.

[beamish14]

Are you sure? Howard Shore and James Horner have mostly worked on three hour epics

Everything else Shore does pays the bills between Cronenberg projects; I think of those two as linked as Burwell and the Coens, and the scores for The Fly, Crash, Naked Lunch (w/Ornette Coleman, of course), and Videodrome are integral parts of those experiences.

He also worked on a lot of Scorsese’s films starting with After Hours up to Hugo. His score for The Departed I like a lot. I think it’s kind of a shame he didn’t work more with Fincher but the three films of his that he scored were better in some ways for that contribution. Especially Se7en.

But getting back to After Hours, several of the films he scored ended up getting releases at Criterion. Definitely more then the other bigger names in film scoring or the last 40-50 years anyway.

I’ve always wished that Howard Shore would would work with Tim Burton again, as his work on Ed Wood is marvelous. Burton seems to be a fan of Cronenberg’s, as he’s also worked with his preferred DP Peter Suschitzky

[Michael Kerpan]

MichaelB -- I think Shostakovich's score for Kozintsev's last film, King Lear is even more amazing than the (incredible) one for Hamlet. Supposedly Shostakovich had misunderstood Kozintsev's instructions for the music needed for one segment of the film -- but Kozintsev liked what Shostakovich wrote so much that he re-edited the sequence rather than asking Shostakovich to change things (unfortunately I don't recall what section that was off the top of my head).

I guess William Walton did a fair amount of film music as well. Benjamin Britten did some, but not a lot, I guess. (But a big attraction of WA's Moonrise Kingdom was its largely borrowed--from-Britten score).

[colinr0380]

Ralph Vaughan Williams is also a very distinguished example of a well-established "serious" composer writing film scores, although Krzysztof Penderecki's original film music is considerably more obscure than his repurposed concert scores (The Exorcist, The Shining, INLAND EMPIRE, Katyń). And György Ligeti never wrote directly for film, although he unquestionably owes a whopping chunk of his international fame to his music being featured in multiple films (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Heat and Eyes Wide Shut).

Arvo Pärt seems in much the same position, especially Spiegel im Spiegel, which after being wonderfully used in Godard's Eloge d'amour and especially in Gus Van Sant's Gerry became dangerously close to becoming a cliche after that. These kind of compositions strike me as being interestingly dangerous to add to a soundtrack, as they are too overwhelming to just use as a background piece of filler but have to be consciously accommodated, honoured and actually bring their own meaning to a scene, or else they do not work at all, to an utterly undermining extent.