If you turn to the person sitting next to you and ask them what is the most memorable part of whatever movie they just watched, they’ll probably say one of the actors. But after that they might say the music part of it, not necessarily the soundtrack, but the score itself. For me personally, I think there are some all time great movies where I think the score is the most important/memorable part of a movie. I think of Jaws, which is an all timer for sure, and it has some great actors in it, but that score has transcended even that movie. I can’t even go to the beach now, see the ocean and that music not be the thing that immediately pops into my head. While there are some guys like a John Williams, or a Hans Zimmer who are just absolute masters of crafting a score, most of them go rather unrecognized. So I just wanted to take some time and talk about what they do, and how well they do it.
Movies have been a thing since right around the end of the 1800’s/start of the 1900’s. The oldest movie I have ever seen was 1902’s A Trip to the Moon, and it blows my mind how a true silent film like that could entertain people. It’s not bad, but you can also watch it (on YouTube for free) and see how far we have come from a technology standpoint. From that point we went another 25 years until we got our first “Talkie” with 1927’s The Jazz Singer. But in 1915 a movie came along called The Birth of a Nation that featured the first score/music in it. It’s said that the music was not part of the actual film itself, but rather when you went to the theater it was part of that and performed as a live score. So at that point, movies decided they needed some sort of sound to them and that it was more important to have some kind of epic score to it’s scenes as opposed to potentially have a live reading while the movie was going on. And I understand that the potential to have people read off screen the dialogue could be not only confusing but also distracting, and lower the moviegoing experience at that time. Meanwhile a musical score of some kind is something that could back then, and still today fit seamlessly into a movie, and give you the power to feel even that much more.
I’m not a big silent films guy, but even I can respect the likes of the greats from that time like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. I’ve always thought one of the harder jobs an actor could do is to express themselves with just looks and not having to say a single line of dialogue. But it certainly helps when an actor has a powerful score to emphasize everything they are feeling. And while Chaplin and Keaton are two of the greats from that time, in my opinion they wouldn’t have made it, or be remembered as fondly without the great musical piano like scores that accompanied them. The music is everything to those performances and two first ballot hall of famers for my make believe acting hall of fame are in it because of the scores that just made their performances so special.
Fast forward to where we are today and how many truly great scores have just become a part of everyday life. I already brought up I think I, and a lot of other people when they’re in the ocean have the Jaws theme come to mind. I can’t see like a picture of a Cowboy or something that makes me feel like the old west and not have Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly pop up in my head. I’m not a Star Wars fan myself but I think that score and different themes is something that is a huge part of a lot of peoples lives. Even if I see a police officer sometimes, The Beverly Hills Cop theme will play in my head. All of this though is stuff that is very old and it leaves the question if scores in movies are still as important or iconic today as they were back then.
I might be a biased person to answer that question, but I absolutely think they are. I do think it is mostly franchise stuff that has taken over the score game in recent yeas I still think it’s stuff that is super important and a big sticking point in movies. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Mission Impossible and a lot of superhero stuff has become pretty iconic to I think my generation of moviegoers. But that is also just been the way for the past 20 years or so that we’ve received our entertainment, from huge franchises. But there is still a lot of other all time great scores being composed that while not might be not as mainstreamed, are nonetheless iconic to all time movies. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross in a lot of their stuff, highlighted by The Social Network. Johnny Greenwood in his works, highlighted in There Will be Blood. The “new” maestro Michael Giacchino who has done great work in t.v and film, with stuff like Lost and Up. And as recently with Hildur Guðnadóttir wowing us with her score in Joker.
My favorite personal score is from the movie Interstellar with Hans Zimmer incredible score. The whole movie from start to finish is nothing but a masterpiece, and the score is easily my favorite part of that. Not a single theme in that movie from Zimmer is anything less than perfection. It is almost impossible to pick a favorite part of the movie score, but I definitely have one. Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn’t scene Interstellar (and if you haven’t stop reading this and go watch), but the scene when Matt Damon blows up the ship and Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are going to dock. The exact second when the score hits after McConaughey says docking until the point they dock is maybe one of my favorite scenes in film history, and primarily because of the score. One of my goals in life is to try to run a marathon, just because I think it be a cool thing to do, but 26 miles is pretty damn far. I genuinely think if I could just load up that docking scene on loop from Interstellar I could do it no problem. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel like the impossible is possible, and maybe that is because McConaughey has the sick line of “it’s not possible, it’s necessary” but also because of just the epic score. I think I could run the 26 miles with ease listening to that. So maybe I’ll just have to create a YouTube queue that last 4 hours for just that one 4 minute scene.
I know I didn’t touch every part of what makes the score great, but I really just wanted to take a few minutes and give these composers their due. In my opinion they really have one of, sometimes the most important job on a film set, and just don’t always get their respect like others. But THANK YOU as always for reading and let me know what your favorite score or scene with a score is.
James Newton Howard another good one; especially from The Sixth Sense