Who Is Your Favorite Film Composer? Here are 6 of My Favorites
John Williams is a gimmie, so let's dig deep.
Honestly. John Williams, dude. I have most of his discography on CD (shaddup, younguns). Superman. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Jaws. Jurassic Park. 1941. Lost in Space (the TV show). I can go on and on about his contribution to film music. He’s the Mozart of Movies. The Master of the Leitmotif. Iconic, in a word.
Let’s talk about some others. Starting with…
James Horner
Oh, I’m posting a bunch of links to YouTube instead of the actual vids to keep the post more… digestible. Bear with me. I’m a film score nerd.
Titanic. Avatar. Braveheart. Star Treks II and III. Honestly, “The Battle of the Mutara Nebula” and “Stealing the Enterprise” are amazing musical tracks in and of themselves. Stuff like this reminds me of classical music. Bach, Beethoven, the aforementioned Mozart, Gustav Holst, Tchaikovsky. The wife and I actually attended a symphony at San Diego Bay where they did the 1812 Overture with the cannon accompaniment. Actually, funny bit? I’ve been to more symphonic concerts with my wife than I performed in when I was in band as a kid.
Let’s delve deep. Bill Conti. You know his music. Rocky. The Karate Kid. The Thomas Crown Affair (Pierce Brosnan remake, also featuring my favorite Nina Simone song). Holy Hell, The Right Stuff. Saw him conduct his own music downtown one night.
On to the next one.
Danny Elfman
Former lead singer for Oingo Boingo. Synonymous with Tim Burton. Let’s take a stroll through his discography for a moment…
I can go on and on….
Alan Silvestri. Back to the Future Trilogy. The Avengers anthem. Forrest Gump. Lilo & Stitch. Contact (I love this movie, BTW. Carl Sagan, space nerd, yadda).
Ennio Morricone. “The Ecstasy of Gold” is a singular track.
Hans Zimmer
Like John Williams and Danny Elfman, I can point to movie scores that he’s done that have actually shaped my musical tastes over the course of my life.
I’m going to wrap up for now, but I’m genuinely curious as to your movie music tastes, dear readers.
Until tomorrow, good morning from Western Wishes.
Kilgore
Mike, great job! I would just add Ennio Morricone, the Spaghetti Western composer for Sergio Leone.
I see Morricone and John Barry are mentioned below. Reaching into the Vault of Time, I'd add Nino Rota, the great Italian composer who scored The Godfather and several Fellini movies including La Strada; Bernard Herrmann who scored Hitchcock's movies as Citizen Kane and several Harryhausen adventure movies; and Elmer Bernstein who contributed rousing scores for The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven. Honorable mention: Bob Dylan, for scoring Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.