CALLING ALL MOVIE MUSIC COMPOSERS!
April 6, 2009
Do you want to brush up on your conducting? Check out the instructional DVD on this website, produced by long time British broadcaster and old friend James Montgomery.
The Craft of Conducting is comprehensive, technical, detailed, and engagingly outlined by a charming lady Denise Ham, who is Tutor in Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She’ll have you holding that baton properly in no time!
Film composers provide an invaluable function, propelling the narrative, sculpting the mood. We all have favorite movie scores, where we felt the music took the picture to another level. The first time a music score took me by storm was John Barry’s ZULU.
What an amazingly diverse oeuvre that man gave us. First, here’s a link to the powerful opening title music - illustrated here instead of titles by frozen frames from the film - which then segues into Richard Burton’s mellifluous tones setting the historical scene. If ever there was a voice to follow such an epic opening theme, it’s his.
I still enjoy listening to that score. ZULU is one of the greatest war movies ever made, the first depiction of a colonial battle that treated “the natives” - who were just defending their land from invaders - with respect. The movie still holds up after 45 years. Here’s a nine minute segment.
When the score kicks in after 6 minutes, see how effective it is in stirring the emotions, placing heroism in the context of the tragedy of war. I’ve seen ZULU many times, and it profoundly influenced the two battle pictures I made: THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA (1989), which treated the Viet Cong with respect, and SAHARA (1995) which perhaps was less respectful to the Afrika Corps. Every now and again I screen the MGM widescreen DVD of ZULU to a young (generally male) audience followed by discussion. They get it.
Check out IMDB’s 46 strong poster gallery, which shows how a timeless film has produced a time capsule of poster art.
What was the score that first dazzled you? And why?
Great post, Brian.
Barry was a genius. ZULU is a stunning piece.
Another amazing Barry score is BOOM, the awful Taylor/Burton film.
Also: BODY HEAT, MONTE WALSH, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (wow!), WALKABOUT and MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA… Brian, it’s one of the blackest, funniest fun I’ve ever seen. Hauser and Ermey in one film. Ballistic!
Excellent choices, Mark. Glad you like FIREBASE. Why MGM does not release it on DVD is a mystery to me.
Other scores: THE ALAMO - Dimitri Tiompkin. THE ROCK - Hans Zimmer. He has repeated himself a bit since.
And Howard Shore’s masterwork - THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy.
Oi! Yugoslavian TMfHK poster on eBay; if you’re into that sort of thing > http://cgi.ebay.com/MAN-FROM-HONG-KONG-LAZENBY-1SH-RARE-EXYU-MOVIE-POSTER_W0QQitemZ390043024986QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090409?IMSfp=TL090409159009r25413
Can anyone translate the MFHK Yugoslav title?
I believe the Chinese title was a famous saying: straight to the heart of the dragon or something similar, meaning a frontal assault.
It says on the Auction page you can notify the seller with any questions. They should know, as it says they’re in Yugo. Just tell them you directed it, and you DEMAND an answer!!!LOL
Scores that dazzled! Wow, what an great question!
For me it has to be John Carpenter & Alan Howarth’s haunting score to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and Lalo Shiffrin’s ENTER THE DRAGON score that got me noticing the importance of a really good score. Then there’s Riz Ortolani’s score to Fulci’s Un Sull’altra which stuck with me for years after watching it on rental video back in the glorious early eighties! (Still is a magnificent piece of music!)
Not to forget GOBLIN and all those amazing scores they composed.
Great Blogg!
Keep up the good work!