Thread: Ten favorite film scores

Originally Posted by Dave Whitmore

But here's my list.

Lord of the Rings
2001 A Space Odyssey

Hi, Dave W.

Leonard Rosenman wrote the score for LORD OF THE RINGS in 1978; Howard Shore did the trilogy in the early 2000s (and these are, presumably, residents within your Top 10).

Also, Kubrick's 2001 had an unused score by Alex North (but I don't think you are referring to North's music).

English Patient - Gabriel Yared
Betty Blue - Gabriel Yared
Jurassic Park - John Williams
Schindler's List - John Williams
The Unforgettable Year - Dmitri Shostakovich
Three Colours Blue - Preisner

There's a lot of good Preisner scores out there actually.
Add my love to Gone with the Wind, Back to the Future, James Bond and of course LOTR.

I'm not a specialist when it comes to cinema. Let me pick some random music scores I like (many Hitchcock here, too):

Vertigo
Psycho
North by Northwest
Le Professionnel
Le Pacha
The Godfather
Atlantis
Chariots of Fire (have a look at this particular version!)
And some James Bond themes, too

Originally Posted by Dave Whitmore

When I think 2001 I think this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szdziw4tI9o

The difference being it wasn't written specifically for the film, making it a soundtrack. A score is an original piece of music written for a film, not simply any music that is used in that film. I'm sure for most people it's a minor technicality, but I stick to it.

1. Jules & Jim - Georges Delerue
2. Amarcord - Nino Rota
3. The Double Life of Veronique - Zbigniew Preisner
4. Dracula - Philip Glass
5. Once Upon a Time in the West - Ennio Morricone
6. Breathless - Martial Sodal
7. Elevator to the Gallows - Miles Davis
8. Vertigo - Bernard Hermann
9. Blade Runner - Vangelis
10. Ran - Toru Takemitsu

Not really in order (except for the top spot), and in a few cases I may be remembering liking the film more than the score, which in some cases I haven't heard separately. I went for variety rather than listing a bunch of Nino Rota, who I adore. Anyways, there's 10 for now!

*p.s.* The Glass score (one of my favorite albums by the composer) is an interesting case in that it's for an old film. I'm curious to know of more instances of this kind of project.

I'm interested in seeing the film with the soundtrack--yet another thing to do!

Originally Posted by Pip

I think that Stanley Kubrick's genius in picking the right music for his movies is second to none.
Barry Lyndon.

Agreed. I think a lot of it had to with him picking the music first then filming the scene to the music. Sergio Leone did the same to some extent. He would give Morricone some rough notes about what was happening. The music was scored and Leone would play it through speakers while the scene was being filmed.

It works so well because the film supports the music and not the other way around.

Originally Posted by Blancrocher

I understand that this wasn't quite the case for 2001. In a documentary I watched I recall him being reported as saying that he'd always intended to have other music than what ended up in the film; the Strauss and so forth was just what they had on hand and used as filler while they were editing, but gradually Kubrick realized that the film music he was getting wasn't as good as the classical pieces so he just went with those.

Mind you, this has a whiff of urban legend about it: few soundtracks sound so inevitable.

I don't know how true these things are either but I'd heard that a score had been commissioned but Strauss etc had been used as a template prior to filming.

Originally Posted by Blancrocher

6. Breathless - Martial Sodal

*p.s.* The Glass score (one of my favorite albums by the composer) is an interesting case in that it's for an old film. I'm curious to know of more instances of this kind of project.

Oops - this would be Martial Solal, whose music for "A bout de souffle" along with other scores are on this French digi-pak CD:




... and French composers Antoine Duhamel and Pierre Jansen in collaboration wrote a music score to D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance".

Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair

Cheers to your dad. . .

I certainly like the look and the sound of the '68 Mustang Fastback (especially the Shelby GT)-- but it doesn't have positraction or a 440.

People on the set of Bullitt said that every time that '68 440 Charger R/T hit the straight-away-- it just pulled away from the Mustang. . . in force.

McQueen originally asked if he could drive the Charger and not the Mustang for the role-- but the request was denied. The black Charger was to be the "bad guy's" car; and so it was. . .

Admittedly, I have a thing for '68-'70 Chargers and Roadrunners; '70 and '71 Cudas too; 440 six-pack set ups and Hemi's only please. . . ;D

This is what a race engine should sound like:



I might have to buy this guy's '70 440 Cuda-- and paint it proper Panther Pink. . . and then roll up alongside some guy with a new Z-06 2015 Corvette. . . flip my hair. . . say, "Hi Good Lookin'". . . and then leave him about four car lengths behind me. ;D Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Originally Posted by Blancrocher

4. Dracula - Philip Glass
*p.s.* The Glass score (one of my favorite albums by the composer) is an interesting case in that it's for an old film. I'm curious to know of more instances of this kind of project.

Glass also wrote an "opera" to coordinate frame for frame with Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, and it is an odd sort of tour de force of lip-sync, using the film script's original French dialogue. :-)

The performance is done with the film running, conductor and singers watching through their performing it in order to keep in sync, just as old film scores were recorded.

This youtube poster has done a bang-up job of mostly keeping the score and film in sync....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee2NukKPqxE

Of course, when Glass' introductory music is running under the credits, when "musique de Georges Auric" flashes by, that is no longer true.

The film is a very famous and beloved masterpiece, with terrific acting as well as a very appropriate score by Auric. It is hard for me to take his reworking because of that, apart from the fact I'm not in any way a huge fan of near any of Glass' works.

Disregarding for a moment Glass' musical vocabulary, the reason I think it more a fail than anything is the timing it frame to frame with the film, the singing is it all in speaking tempo, i.e. there is no room for the more expanded breathing time or longer timed breath of effective sung speech to have its day or be much expressive if at all; the 'talk tempo' of the sung speech in the piece for me reduces it to a kind of constant parody of singspiel recitative throughout.

Best regards.

Gone with the Wind - Max Steiner
El Cid - Miklós Rózsa
Laurence of Arabia - Maurice Jarre
The Mission - Ennio Morricone
Conan the Barbarian - Basil Poledouris
Big Country - Jerome Moross
Vertigo - Bernard Herman
Zulu - John Barry
Where Eagles Dare - Ron Godwin
Le Mepris - Georges Delerue