Music is the universal language. It heightens all senses and emotions. Filmmakers have used the power of music to enhance the storytelling and emotional impact of movies throughout cinema’s history. Even before the advent of talking pictures, musical accompaniment was used for the presentation of silent films. With the advancement of movies, movie music has advanced, and just as there have been great filmmakers throughout history, so have there been great film composers.
Every Monday, all day throughout June, TCM will shine a spotlight on Great Film Composers.
The film composer perhaps most synonymous with Golden Age Classic Hollywood is the great Max Steiner. This is likely because Steiner was the most prolific of all film composers. Over the course of his five-decade-long career, Steiner composed (and conducted) the musical scores for over two hundred feature films. Steiner’s music was some of the first to be composed directly for the screen, advancing the concept that music itself is cinematic and adds tremendously to what is shown on screen. His dramatic melodies were sometimes considered overpowering to some. In Dark Victory (1939) for example, star Bette Davis thought that Steiner’s music had sent her to heaven before the movie was over. However, in movies like Johnny Belinda (1948), where Jane Wyman had to give an entire performance without uttering a word, it was Steiner’s music that helped convey drama and emotion. His work remains a familiar favorite of both film and music lovers and an influence on modern film composers. Steiner is the subject of Diana and Lionel Friedberg’s documentary Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music (2019), which delves deep into the composer’s early life and career and discusses in detail his musical techniques.
Another prolific composer was Ennio Morricone. Beginning as a child prodigy in Rome who was creating original compositions on the piano, Morricone was an accomplished trumpet player who wrote music for theatre and radio in the 1940s before transitioning to film and television in the 1950s. Though always distinctly Italian, Morricone’s 500-plus film scores cover an enormous array of musical eras and genres from classical to jazz to rock. He earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Score for Days of Heaven (1978) followed by another for his work on Roland Joffé’s The Mission (1986). Though he worked for decades, with such A-list filmmakers as Terrence Malick and Warren Beatty, it was not until the near end of Morricone’s career that he finally won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Hateful Eight (2015). Perhaps Morricone’s closest film collaboration was with Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore. The beloved Cinema Paradiso (1988) is one of the director and composer’s most famous works. Following Morricone’s death in 2020, Tornatore paid tribute to his late collaborator with his documentary Ennio (2021).
Perhaps the most iconic of all great director and composer partnerships is between Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Williams was a well-established composer who had already been creating music for movies and television throughout the 1960s when he was first introduced to Spielberg in 1973. Immediately impressed with the young director’s early short films and television work, Williams agreed to compose the musical score for Spielberg’s first theatrical feature film, The Sugarland Express (1974). It was the beginning of a professional partnership and personal friendship that continues today. The musical themes for such phenomenal successes as Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980), E.T. (1982), Jurassic Park (1993) and others are now as identifiable as the images within the movies themselves. Spielberg and Williams (now 92!) recently celebrated 50 years of successful collaboration and have mutually declared they are not yet finished. Williams’ career isn’t just limited to his partnership with Spielberg, however. The composer worked with Richard Donner on Superman (1978), where Williams led the conduction of the London Symphony Orchestra for the film’s soundtrack. “Theme from Superman (Main Title)” landed on the Billboard Top 100 and has since become one of the most iconic superhero theme songs.
Like Spielberg and Williams, director Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman have shared a hugely successful partnership. This is likely because they share a great fondness for telling very unconventional stories. Their highly imaginative styles have resulted in such creative fantasy classics as Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Elfman and director Sam Raimi also embarked on a fruitful collaboration together. The composer and director worked on 10 feature-length films together, including A Simple Plan (1998) and Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. Elfman is unique among film composers for starting his career in music as the lead singer and songwriter for the pop rock band Oingo Boingo in the ‘80s.
Perhaps among the most famous of all director-composer partnerships is Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. The Juilliard-trained Herrmann had originally sought to be a symphony composer before finding early work in radio. It was here that he met another soon-to-be legendary filmmaker, Orson Welles. Welles took Herrmann with him to compose his first Hollywood film Citizen Kane (1941). Just as the film was a historic debut for Welles as a director and actor, so it was for Herrmann as a film composer. Herrmann’s first collaboration with Hitchcock was The Trouble with Harry (1955). This light comedy was a change of pace for both the director and the composer who had both established themselves with menacing and dramatic films. One thing that sets Herrmann’s music apart from the other movie scores of his time was his decision to incorporate more distinct and experimental styles into the music. His score for Psycho (1960), for example, was entirely made of string instruments. Despite always being a free-thinking composer, Herrmann parted ways with Hitchcock when the director let Universal executives replace his score for the film Torn Curtain (1966) with contemporary 1960s jazz music. Herrmann continued to write film music up until his death, passing hours after he recorded his score for another masterpiece film, Taxi Driver (1976).
Modern film music continues to enhance movies and ultimately enter the public consciousness. However, there are also composers who continue to draw inspiration from the great composers and film scores of the past. John Barry, for example, specialized in sweeping and romantic melodies for films like The Lion in Winter (1968) and Out of Africa (1985), both of which earned him Academy Award wins for Best Original Score. Howard Shore has openly said that he draws from the music and musicians of the past. This made him the perfect composer for the ultimate cinephile filmmaker, Martin Scorsese. Their mutual knowledge and admiration for film history have proven useful for their collaborations on films like The Aviator (2004), which is set in Golden Age Hollywood. Shore received his highest accolades for scoring the Lord of the Rings films. Like Elfman, Shore was also a member of a pop rock band, the Blues Brothers.
The work of all these and other great artists continues to inspire audiences, filmmakers and composers alike. Their contribution to both movies and music earns them a special place in the history and the future of both.
