Exploring Great Film Scores…

Get ready to enjoy a ride through some of my favorite film scores…

With well over 3000 film scores in my collection, I’ve been breathing and inhaling the music of the great film composers for the past 20 years.  So for those of you new to this most delicious medium of music (as a listening experience separate from the film), here’s a list of great scores to sink your teeth into and get familiar with some of my favorite composers out there.   By the way, there are some mediocre movies with incredible scores.  Quite often, the composer ends up writing a far superior score in an attempt to compensate for the quality of a film.  Many of the scores I love, I haven’t even seen the films they belong to.  You develop your own interpretation of the music.   Get ready to enjoy some amazing samples of their music at the links below:

John Williams: ET and Superman.  These two scores shaped my childhood before I knew anything about music.  Everybody knows John Williams for his wonderful rich melodic themes, but his genius goes far beyond just writing beautiful melodies.  The real magic is in his rich intricately layered orchestration. He creates new textures beyond the obvious images on the screen.  He is the ultimate dramatist through his music.  ET and Superman go beyond the famous themes, and into darker terrain, atonal in the case of Superman when he goes to the fortress of Solitude in search of his true identity.  More great Williams: Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Schindler’s List, AI, Empire of the Sun, Rosewood, Home Alone 2, Amistad, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Memoirs of a Geisha, Hook, Seven Years in Tibet, The Eiger Sanction, Far & Away, The River, Munich.  Here’s a sampling thanks to Berny Productions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TXoJWFMm3g

Jerry Goldsmith: Medicine Man, LA Confidential, Rudy, The Ghost and the Darkness, Patton, Tora Tora Tora, The Wind & The Lion, Total Recall, Under Fire, Basic Instinct, Mulan, The Russia House, First Knight, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, Alien.  Really, where do you start with Jerry Goldsmith?  He gave so many average or sub-par films amazing scores, that I don’t know where to start.  He scored over 200 films I think and created some of the most innovative sounds and techniques in film music history.  I suggest to start with Medicine Man and Rudy because they are the most accessible.  For me, Total Recall is probably the best action score ever written.  I’ve listened to it nearly a million times and always hear something new.  It was so difficult to perform that they had to scrap the first recording in Munich and move it to the London Philharmonic Orchestra.  Here’s a great sampler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJ-rvGpW84

Michael Kamen: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Don Juan De Marco, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Brazil, Shining Through, What Dreams May Come, The Three Musketeers, Open Range, X-Men.  My personal connection to Michael Kamen’s music is on a deeper level than most.  His guitar and Saxophone concertos are hard to find on CD, so I didn’t list them here.  Robin Hood is famous for Kevin Costner’s bad accent and the now-dated Brian Adams song, but the orchestral score itself is one of the richest most fun epic listening experiences your ears can devour.  It has everything from grand adventure with powerful brass to playful ethnic and folksy instruments backed the by full orchestra and intimate romantic flute and oboe solos.  It’s the full experience.  Blending Spanish flavors with a very playful orchestra, Don Juan De Marco was Kamen’s personal favorite score alongside Brazil.  What Dreams May Come has a heartbreakingly beautiful score and my favorite song of all time, Beside You, written by Kamen as well.  Here’s a tribute of his greatest hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJTVzCf_w8o

Basil Poledouris: The Hunt For Red October, Conan The Barbarian, Free Willy, Lonesome Dove, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Wind, Farewell to the King.  How can one composer possess such vicious manly scores like Conan and Robocop yet also write music full of beauty and sensitivity like Free Willy and Lonesome Dove?  Basil Poledouris was a treasure with his gorgeous lyrical melodies and powerful machismo brass writing mixed with electronics and choir. He mastered both worlds like few others.  He also communicated his love for the sea and animals in many of his scores.  Through his music, he will always be one of my best friends.  Here’s a fantastic compilation of his greatest hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXaPM5Dolz4

James Newton Howard: Wyatt Earp, Waterworld, The Fugitive, Dave, King Kong, The Village, Signs, The Devil’s Advocate, Dinosaur, Intersection, Restoration, Unbreakable, Grand Canyon.  Also one of my very favorite composers, JNH has done just about every kind of score out there since his rise in the early 90’s.  In addition to lush romantic string-heavy themes, he always finds interesting ways to blend elements like choir, electronics, ethnic percussion, or jazz instruments with his orchestra, and his use of melody is always fun.  His action writing in Waterworld and King Kong, while incredibly loud and monstrous, always keeps you engaged with specific dramatic beats that distinguish him from the many imitators who still can’t give loud bombast any character.  He is a true master who seldom settles for anything less than interesting.  Here’s a great sampling of his big scores: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwxHvLEa_OM&feature=related Also a sampling of the more sweeping romantic themes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_g6A9aivq0

Gabriel Yared: The Talented Mr. Ripley, The English Patient, Cold Mountain, Autumn In New York, The Lives of Others, Bon Voyage, Camille Claudel, The Lover, Coco Channel & Igo Stravinsky.  Honestly, nobody writes melodies like Gabriel Yared.  He always always takes your ear to unexpected places.  The only person I can say that about now is Elliot Goldenthal (see below), but Yared is known for his romantic themes.  Yet the romantic is always complex under the pen of this master.  There’s always psychological depth and drive underneath the melody, which is where his orchestration comes into play.  I can never get enough of Gabriel Yared’s music.  He is one of my personal heros.  Tragically, his epic masterpiece score for Troy was rejected and replaced by a generic hackjob by James Horner thanks to a focus group of 17 teenagers.  Unforgivable.  Here’s a link to a clip that gives you an idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BxJoWgoyo I especially love how vicious it gets at the end.  Here’s a sampling of his various scores: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2QFPnEhF_o

Danny Elfman: Batman, Beetlejuice, Batman Returns, Alice in Wonderland, Dolores Claiborne, Edward Scissorhands, Mission Impossible, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Proof of Life, Good Will Hunting, Big Fish, Darkman.  Talk about reinventing yourself.  Danny Elfman rose from being typecast as the gothic superhero composer to a dramatic and indy composer with his completely new sounds with his dark restrained writing for Dolores Claiborne then his more cheerful Irish flavored Good Will Hunting.  Lately, he’s taken a new road with his minimalist Philip Glass-influenced scores for films like the documentary, Standard Operating Procedure.  His score for Alice In Wonderland (while I haven’t seen the film), I think is one of his best works ever.  He continues to blow me away with new surprises.  Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSNktasBOTI

Ennio Morricone: Cinema Paradiso, The Good The Bad & The Ugly, The Untouchables, Malena, Novecento (1900), The Legend of 1900, Spaghetti Western compilation.  Morricone created the sound of the Spaghetti Western and then some.  With over 400 scores under his belt, how do you justice to such a massive portfolio?  Luckily there are some great compilation albums that capture a glimpse of the great Italian maestro’s career.

Hans Zimmer: Gladiator, Backdraft, Crimson Tide, As Good As It Gets, Dark Knight, The Lion King, The Da Vinci Code, Madagascar 2, Matchstick Men, The Peacemaker. Hans Zimmer has been criticized for completely changing the sound of movies into the oversimplified rock chords everyone knows from movies like The Rock and Crimson Tide.  I still love him nonetheless, and he continues to search for new ways to innovate the use of electronics and technology to create new textures in film.

More greats to discover but I’ll let the music speak for itself, lest I be here for hours writing…

John Powell: The Bourne Identity, Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears a Who, How to Train Your Dragon, Endurance, Face Off, Bolt

Elliot Goldenthal: Michael Collins, Alien 3, Demolition Man, A Time To Kill, Interview With the Vampire, Cobb, Final Fantasy

Thomas Newman: Scent of a Woman, Shawshank Redemption, Angels in America, Oscar & Lucinda, Finding Nemo, American Beauty, The Player.

Bruce Broughton: Tombstone, Homeward Bound 2, Young Sherlock Holmes

Bernard Herrmann: Vertigo, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver, 7th Voyage of Sinbad, North By Northwest.

George Delerue: Jules and Jim, An Almost Perfect Affair, Two English Girls, Shoot the Piano Player, Day For Night

Franz Wazman: A Place In The Sun, Rear Window, Rebecca, Night and the City, Elephant Walk.

Alex North: A Streetcar Named Desire, 2001 (rejected score), Viva Zapata, The Agonoy and the Ecstacy.

Elmer Bernstein: To Kill a Mockingbird, Airplane, The Magnificent Seven, The Age of Innocence.

Maurice Jarre: Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Sunshine, Mosquito Coast

James Horner: Willow, Field of Dreams, Sneakers, The Rocketeer, The Mask of Zorro, Star Treck 2, Searching for Bobby Fisher

Alan Silvestri: The Abyss, Back To The Future, Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Young Guns 2, Forrest Gump, Predator, Judge Dredd.

John Barry: Dances with Wolves, Cry The Beloved Country, Out of Africa, Somewhere in Time, all the early James Bond films.

Alexandre Desplat: The Painted Veil, Lust Caution, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Birth, Syriana.

Dario Mrianelli: I Capture The Castle, Pride and Prejudice, Atonement.

Howard Shore: The Lord of the Rings Trillogy, Seven, Philadelphia

Ed Shearmur: The Count of Monte Cristo

Miklos Rozsa: El Cid, Ben Hur.

Michael Giaccino: Up, Ratatouille, The Incredibles

Randy Newman: Awakenings, Toy Story, Maverick.

Patrick Doyle: Carlito’s Way, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V

There are more to list, but this should keep you busy.