Film Comment and Cineaste are my two favourite movie mags, and this month (Nov/Dec 03) FC features a chronological guide to 101 essential film scores - PTC take note - noting that 2003 marks the 70th anniversary of the film score. The article is by John Caps. (Or should that be JOHN CAPS?...)

They've stuck to American and English-language films: they'll consider foreign-language movie scores "same time next year." Apparently they'll also be dealing in a future issue with film musicals and song scores.

Gavin Smith writes in the Editor's Letter;

In recent years I've been struck by the glut of mediocre-to-bad movie scores, and the degree to which movie music has weighed down contemporary filmmaking, marring good films and sinking middling ones. I've lost count of how many films - particularly the American ones - from the past five years would have been immeasurably improved by either better scores or no score at all. (It seems to me that much of the best contemporary cinema from around the world either does without music altogether or uses it only sparingly.) I don't mean to imply that there isn't still great work being done - Neil Young's score for DEAD MAN and Elmer Bernstein's for FAR FROM HEAVEN, to name two examples only, offer dramatic evidence to the contrary. In the right hands, music remains a vital part of the cinematic experience.

Nonetheless, to put it bluntly , too many contemporary movie composers turn in banal, reductive, and heavy-handed work, diminishing what's onscreen by indicating what the characters are feeling, dictating the audience's emotional response to what they're watching, or simply overwhelming viewers and beating them senseless. Movie music too often seems the enemy of ambiguity, nance, complexity and, ultimately, emotion.

I should probably call it quits right now and hit the hay, but I can't resist a list, so here are their selections (sans erudite commentary)...

King Kong, Max Steiner
The Bride of Frankenstein, Franz Waxman
The Informer, Max Steiner
Things To Come, Arthur Bliss
The Prince and The Pauper, Erich Korngold
The Adventures of Robin Hood, Erich Korngold
Gone With The Wind, Max Steiner
Son of Frankenstein, Frank Skinner
Of Mice and Men, Aaron Copland
The Sea Hawk, Erich Korngold
Rebecca, Franz Waxman
How Green Was My Valley, Alfred Newman
First of the Few, William Walton
The Jungle Book, Miklos Rozsa
All That Money Can Buy, Bernard Herrmann
The Song of Bernadette, Alfred Newman
The Adventures of Mark Twain, Max Steiner
Laura, David Raksin
Double Indemnity, Miklos Rozsa
Henry V, William Walton
The Best Years of Our Lives, Hugo Friedhofer
Captain from Castile, Alfred Newman
Forever Amber, David Raksin
Green Dolphin Street, Bronislau Kaper
Odd Man OUt, William Alwyn
Johnny Belinda, Max Steiner
Louisiana Story, Virgil Thomson
Oliver Twist, Arnold Bax
Scott of the Antartctic, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Madame Bovary, Miklos Rozsa
The Red Pony, Aaron Copland
Sunset Boulevard, Franz Waxman
Night and the City, Franz Waxman
A Streetcar Named Desire, Alex North
Death of a Salesman, Alex North
The Day the Earth Stood Still, Bernard Herrmann
High Noon, Dimitri Tiomkin
Viva Zapata, Alex North
On Dangerous Ground, Bernard Herrmann
On the Waterfront, Leonard Bernstein
The Cobweb, Leonard Rosenman
The Man with the Golden Arm, Elmer Bernstein
Rebel Without a Cause, Leonard Rosenman
Around the World in 80 Days, Victor Young
Auntie Mame, Bronislau Kaper
Bell, Book and Candle, George Duning
The Big Country, Jerome Moross
Vertigo, Bernard Herrmann
Ben-Hur, Miklos Rozsa
The Magnificent Seven, Elmer Bernstein
Psycho, Bernard Herrmann
Lawrence of Arabia, Maruice Jarre
To Kill a Mockingbird, Elmer Bernstein
The Miracle Worker, Laurence Rosenthal
Taras Bulba, Franz Waxman
The Cardinal, Jerome Moross
Tom Jones, John Addison
A Shot in the Dark, Henry Mancini
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Ernest Gold
Goldfinger, John Barry
A Patch of Blue, JErry Goldsmith
Cool Hand Luke, Lalo Schifrin
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, Ennio Morricone
In Cold Blood, Quincy Jones
Far from the Madding Crowd, Richard Rodney Bennett
Two for the Road, Henry Mancini
Wait Until Dark, Henry Mancini
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Dave Grusin
Planet of the Apes, Jerry Goldsmith
The Thomas Crown Affair, Michel Legrand
The Reivers, John Williams
The Wild Bunch, Jerry Fielding
The Last Valley, John Barry
Lady Caroline Lamb, Richard Rodney Bennett
The Three Musketeers, Michel Legrand
Chinatown, Jerry Goldsmith
The Conversation, David Shire
Jaws, John Williams
The Return of a Man Called Horse, Laurence Rosenthal
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, John Addison
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, John Williams
Islands in the Stream, Jerry Goldsmith
The Stunt Man, Dominic Frontiere
Tess, Phillippe Sarde
Altered States, John Corigliano
Gloria, Bill Conti
My Bodyguard, Dave Grusin
Wolfen, James Horner
Conan the Barbarian, Basil Poledouris
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, John WIlliams
Return To Oz, David Shire
The Mission, Ennio Morricone
Batman, Danny Elfman
Queen of Hearts, Michael Convertino
The Grifters, Elmer Bernstein
Basic Instinct, Jerry Goldsmith
Bed and Breakfast, David Shire
Much Ado About Nothing, Patrick Doyle
Angela's Ashes, John Williams
The Horse Whisperer, Thomas Newman
Waking Life, Glover Gill

The article also lists websites for further research;

The Film Music Society www.filmmusicsociety.org
Film Score Monthly www.filmscoremonthly.com
Soundtrack Collector www.sound-trackcollector.com

QUOTE

I've lost count of how many films - particularly the American ones - from the past five years would have been immeasurably improved by either better scores or no score at all. (It seems to me that much of the best contemporary cinema from around the world either does without music altogether or uses it only sparingly.)

I've been listening to the Return of the King score all day, and I've come to the opposite conclusion; that many of the films that I love would be significantly "marred" or flat out ruined without the accompanying score.

QUOTE

In recent years I've been struck by the glut of mediocre-to-bad movie scores

It seems to me though that what he's saying is focused on "score" not "soundtrack", and that I can agree with for the most part. Many film scores are very weak.

However, in several of my favorite films of recent years the accompanying music (note that I'm not using the term "score") is INTEGRAL to the film. Examples include; Moulin Rouge, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and Almost Famous (personally, I think Cameron Crowe is a master of effectively using pop music in his films, see the "Good Vibrations" scene in Vanilla Sky). Also I think there are still some good scores. I agree with his assessment of both Dead Man and Far From Heaven as exemplary, though Dead Man may be cheating because Neil Young is just brilliant no matter what he does.

The absence of any Star Wars music is striking here.

Good call Andrew.

Ron wrote:
: Film Comment and Cineaste are my two favourite movie mags, and this
: month (Nov/Dec 03) FC features a chronological guide to 101 essential
: film scores - PTC take note . . .

Film scores AND it's chronological? Coolness!

: . . . noting that 2003 marks the 70th anniversary of the film score.

Say what? Are they saying that there were no film scores prior to 1933? What about the fact that talkies had already been around for a few years before then? What about the fact that some silent films came with music tracks even BEFORE there were talkies (which is how a transitional film like The Jazz Singer (1927) was able to sneak in a few lines of dialogue)?

Anyway, here are the ones I have:

: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Erich Korngold

A two-disc set of the original recordings has recently been re-issued, I believe, but at the moment, I just have the re-recording that Varese Sarabande issued over a decade ago; for a while, I believe it was the only version of this soundtrack available.

: Ben-Hur, Miklos Rozsa

I have this one on a CD that I picked up in Europe in 1990 -- the "ramming speed!" sequence is one of my favorites. There are probably better versions of this out by now, though.

: Lawrence of Arabia, Maurice Jarre

I have both the Varese Sarabande re-issue of the original 1962 album as well as the 1989 Silva Screen re-recording of the soundtrack, which is roughly twice as long.

: Goldfinger, John Barry

My copy of this one is pretty shabby, but I also have four or five cues from this film on the James Bond: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition two-disc set that came out in 1992.

: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, John Williams

I got the original album years ago, and neglected to get the expanded CD ... until I got the DVD of this film, which included that CD.

: The Mission, Ennio Morricone

As far as I know, there is only the one version of this album.

I also don't have any of the Batman soundtrack albums (except for the third film's songtrack, the one with the U2 song), but I do have a Danny Elfman compilation album, Music for a Darkened Theatre, that includes three or four cues from the first film in that series.

Andrew wrote:
: The absence of any Star Wars music is striking here.

True. And of those, I would say The Empire Strikes Back is probably the best. (And come to think of it, there IS a snippet of the Yoda theme in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. )

As long as Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo is in there, I am happy.

A very good list. I'd have included Morricone's Cinema Paradiso, saccharine sweet though it is in places.

Let it be officially noted that PTC replied to a topic discussed in another thread ("Soundtracks We're Listening To" in the "Albums" area) without beating down the originator of the repeat post. 8)

Peter, you get no Christmas bonus for your thread-policing efforts. Maybe next year.

Excellent list! I appreciate the lack of Star Wars scores in this list. BUT, one of the things that makes The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes so enriching an experience is Miklos Rosza's reworking of his "failed" violin concerto for the soundrack. Jerry Goldsmith's Patton soundtrack is effective and hints at being an orchestral suite with its use of recurring motiefs to announce various plot movements. More later.

Thought I'd bump this thread. In the nearly four years since the thread was launched, what soundtracks would you add to the list?

Eek. Looking back nearly four years at some of the comments I've made is funny. Not only in how my appreciation of film has matured (thanks to a brother who is a budding Cinephile and a zip.ca accout), but also in how I was so defensive of the films I loved, and now I'm more content to appreciate differences of opinion and counter arguments (maybe that's the effect of a graduate degree in literature ... and a fiancé whom I don't always agree with on books and movies). And can I just go on record as saying that I no longer think everything Neil Young does is brilliant?

That also explains to me why I've not felt the need to post as much over the past few years.

I digress; to the topic at hand: soundtracks that I've listened to a lot over the past few years. I mostly listen to soundtracks that are very pop music driven (the latest as been the Death Proof soundtrack).

I just wanted to throw out David Arnold's score to Changing Lanes which I got off a friend. It's very different, but very effective. I also want to throw out David Holmes (Soderbergh's go-to-guy) as someone who I think does effective scoring that is not necessarily in the classical mode.

THE SON.

Modern film scores are terrible, say composers - an article from TIMESONLINE - about the lack of memorable movie music in the past decade or so. Kind of echoes the article from Film Comment 5 years ago.



Unfortunately for Hans, I think I would lump quite a bit of his scores into the "cow grazing" category.

Looking back at the original list from Film Comment, I would have added the Philip Glass score to Koyaanisqatsi. Of course, this is a non-narrative film, and may not have been under their consideration.

The article above mentions a British poll of "favorite film themes" - I think they may mean this article from Telegraph.co.uk.

Ron,

Do you know if the foreign language film list referred to in the first post ever came about?

I just saw this thread for the first time, and hey, I do not see North by Northwest. That film score sticks in your head. Also, I did not see Black Orpheus. The score of both films are like the movies' heart beat.

What about Badalamenti, Brion, or Mansell just to name a few? I know more around here are bigger fans of film scores than I, but I am not quite sure what this article is on about.

(Sorry for the delayed reaction, Ron. Didn't see your post until now.)