6 of the Best Film Composers in Movie History
Master Movie Soundtracks Define Our Viewing Habits
Memorable themes from ‘Jaws’, ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’, ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The Omen’ have defined the films in which they appear, taking them beyond the sum of their parts. So, who are these often overlooked masters of movie success?
Born in 1929, Jerry Goldsmith’s first job, working in the music department at the American CBS channel, led to his scoring some of the best known television themes of the time such as ‘Dr. Kildare’, ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E’ and ‘The Waltons’. During the mid-1960s, Goldsmith became a contract composer for 20th Century Fox and went on to score films such as ‘Planet Of The Apes’, ‘Chinatown’, ‘Alien’, ‘Basic Instinct’, ‘The Omen’, ‘The Swarm’ and many others. He died in 2008.
John Williams
Probably the most famous film composer in the world, John William’s work might not be to everyone’s taste; highly commercial and prolific, he has scored dozens of the big budget blockbusters, including ‘E.T.’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Jaws’, ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ and several of the ‘Harry Potter’ series.
Elmer Bernstein
Respected for choosing projects in a wide variety of genres, Bernstein worked on films as diverse as ‘My Left Foot’ about disabled writer Christy Brown and juvenile comedy ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ He won many Academy Award’s, including one for the controversial ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, about a middleclass white lawyer defending a poor black man for the rape of a white woman in America’s deep south. His score for the Frank Sinatra picture, ‘The Man With The Golden Arm’ created much demand for his work as a composer of jazz scores, leading to work on ‘The Carpetbaggers’, The Sweet Smell of Success’ and ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ among many others.
Best known for his work on the many films of Alfred Hitchcock, such as ‘Psycho’, ‘Vertigo’ and ‘North By Northwest’, Herrman was probably most admired for his ability to write high tension cues, that communicated both subtle and dramatic changes in atmosphere. Born in 1911 in New York, Herrman’s first score was for ‘Citizen Caine’ (1941), followed by ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Hangover Square’, ‘The Ghost and Mrs Muir’ and many more. He died in 1975, having just completed work on Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’.
Ennio Morricone
Though Ennio Morricone has worked widely as a film composer, he is best known for his work for director Sergio Leone on westerns ‘A Fistful Of Dollars’ (1964), ‘A Few Dollars More’ (1965), ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ (1966). ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ (1968) and ‘A Fistful Of Dynamite’ (1971). With over 400 films under his belt, Morricone also scored ‘The Untouchables’, ‘Cinema Paradiso’, ‘Battle Of Algiers’ and ‘Once Upon A Time In America’.
Alex North
With 15 Oscar Nominations and a Lifetime Achievement Oscar for his work in film (the first ever given to a composer), Alex North became best known for his score to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (1951), which was the first movie to integrate jazz into the drama onscreen. His later work on big budget ‘events’, ‘Spartacus’ (1960) and ‘Cleopatra’ (1963) cemented his reputation as one of the leading composers for film.
Whether working with a small quartet or a one hundred piece orchestra, the film composer moulds his sound to make the movie; if the score also stands-up on its own, then its impact can be far greater and far more memorable; the men above have managed to achieve both.
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