When an audience sees a movie in the theater, much of their attention is focused on the characters playing the roles, the plot, and the setting of the movie. Many times the music that accompanies the actions on the screen is heard but does not draw attention as the visual elements of the film do. However, film music composers make valuable contributions to the general cathartic feeling that films generate. The music of a movie is one of the things that a viewer will remember long after the movie is over. If you don’t believe it, try humming the theme from “The Pink Panther” or “Star Wars.”
One of the first film music composers of the Golden Age of Hollywood was Victor Young. The great film director Cecil B. DeMille used Young’s scores in many of his films, including “The Greatest Show on Earth.” It was Young’s soundtrack for the 1956 film “Around the World in Eighty Days” which earned him a posthumous Oscar.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, film theme music gained popularity and the names of film music composers became widely known. Ernest Gold wrote the music for the 1961 film “Exodus,” and the song rose up the music charts that year. Henry Mancini wrote the theme for “The Pink Panther,” a 1964 Academy Award-nominated score. He also wrote the Academy Award-winning score for 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” from which the song comes.” Moon River”.
Other notable film music composers from that era include Maurice Jarre, Elmer Bernstein, Miklos Rozsa, Ennio Marricone, and Dimitri Tiomkin. The movies they contributed to, were nominated for and won awards for are impressive. Titles such as “Doctor Zhivago”, “Lawrence of Arabia” (Jarre), “The Man with the Golden Arm”, “The Magnificent Seven” (Bernstein), “Ben Hur”, “El Cid” (Rozsa), “The Good , the ugly and the bad”, “The untouchables” (Marricone), “Midday” and “The guns of Navarone” (Tiomkin).
If the names of modern film music composers are well known, their music is even more so. One of the best known of these composers is John Williams. His incredible career in music includes five Oscars, twenty Grammy Awards, and four Golden Globes, among other awards. You may have heard some of his music. His soundtracks include “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Jaws”, the “Star Wars” movies, “Third Encounters”, the “Indiana Jones” series, “Jurassic Park”, “Superman” , “Home alone”. “, “Schindler’s List”, “Saving Private Ryan”, the “Harry Potter” series, “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Munich”, among many others.
James Newton Howard may not be a household name like John Williams, but his film music credits are notable. He wrote the scores for “Prince of the Tides”, “The Fugitive”, “King Kong”, “The Village”, “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”. The two Batman scores were co-written with Hans Zimmer, another film music composer with many credits, including the scores for “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Prince of Egypt,” and “The Lion King.”
The next time you watch a movie and find yourself remembering the music long afterward, take note of the composer.
