The early silent films were accompanied by a cinema pianist improvising before the screen, playing a mix of popular and classical music. With the coming of sound, professional film composers wrote music for Hollywood in the ‘30s and ‘40s – Erich Korngold, Max Steiner (Gone with the Wind, Casablanca) and Franz Waxman. “Broadway-cum-Rachmaninov” describes the general style. Some classical composers also turned their hand to film – most notably Prokofiev who worked with Eisenstein on “Alexander Nevsky” and “Ivan the Terrible”. Bernard Herrmann wrote for Hitchcock (“Vertigo”, “Psycho” – and his “Psycho Suite” has been performed in the concert hall), and also wrote the music for “Citizen Kane” and “Taxi Driver”. Since then, it has become more eclectic. Directors will either commission film music, or borrow from the classical repertoire (think of “Platoon” and “Death in Venice”) as well as from popular music. Pop music has even been commissioned in some cases – think of the James Bond theme songs of “Goldfinger” (Shirley Bassey), “Live and Let Die” (Paul McCartney), “Skyfall” (Adele) and “No time to die” (Billie Eilish).
Major film composers in more recent years include:
- John Williams – “Jaws”, “Star Wars”, “Indiana Jones”, “ET”, “Jurassic Park”, “Superman”, “Schindler’s List”
- Nino Rota – scores for the big Italian directors Fellini, Visconti, Zeffirelli as well as the first two Godfather films
- Hans Zimmer – “Lion King”, “Rain Man”, “Thelma & Louise”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Interstellar”
- Ennio Morricone – “Cinema Paradiso”, “The Mission”, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” (including the melody used now in all spoof Western scenes)
But there are of course so many more, even if they are not household names. It’s instructive to look up the composers behind the films you love, and study their discographies to see what else they’ve done. Some of these composers have worked on literally hundreds of films. Some examples:
- “The Game” – Howard Shore (also did “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “Mrs Doubtfire”, “Hugo”)
- “Fatal Attraction” – Maurice Jarre (also did “Doctor Zhivago”, “A Passage to India”, “Jesus of Nazareth”)
- “Good Will Hunting” – Danny Elfman (also did “50 Shades of Grey”, “Men in Black” and the Tim Burton films like “Batman”, “Edward Scissorhands”, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Dumbo”)
- “A Perfect Murder” – James Newton Howard (also did “Pretty Woman”, “One Fine Day”, “Blood Diamond”, “The Bourne Legacy”, “Hunger Games” series)
- “The Russia House” – Jerry Goldsmith (also did “Star Trek”, “The Omen”, “Rambo”, “Total Recall”, “LA Confidential”, “Basic Instinct”)
- “Bitter Moon” (since I particularly like the opening music) – Vangelis (also did “Chariots of Fire”, “Blade Runner”)
- “Maurice” – Richard Robbins (made the music for all the Merchant Ivory films)
- “Spirited Away” – Joe Hisaishi, who also supplied the music for the majority of the other Miyazaki films.
Music is often so unobtrusive or accompanies the action so perfectly that we don’t pay attention. I have watched “Fatal Attraction” a dozen of times, I’m sure I would recognize the soundtrack but I cannot recall it to mind. The film composer also has the luxury of time in which to familiarise the spectator with the musical themes almost subconsciously. By the end of “Cinema Paradiso”, the simple melody which has been playing on and off throughout the film reaches unbearably poignancy.