The greatest art form of the Twentieth Century was the motion picture. Today, in the dawn of the 21st Century, the movies still hold rank as our greatest expression.
Until the late 1920s movies were silent. You could watch one for a nickel in a small theatre called a Nickelodeon. To make it more interesting, a piano player or an organ player would play music to accompany the film.
The public became fanatic about the first sound movies. When the first sound movie The Jazz Singer emerged in 1927, the face of the industry changed overnight. The public demand for sound from that point forward was so great that many “big budget” silent movies were released to empty houses. It was not long before the studios figured out there was no longer any profit in producing a silent movie. Even movies that had already been made were remade with sound or they were trashed.
But the quality of early sound was low, and it was another decade before good musical sound tracks began to emerge. Music for sound tracks were done by early greats like Erich Korngold, who wrote swashbuckling symphonic scores for movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and The Sea Hawk (1940). A competitive contemporaryof Korngold was Max Steiner;
Arguably the most important musician of that period was Alfred Newman, who scored more than 200 films during his 40 year career. His nine academy awards may be a record for a composer.
Other great musicians from the era known primarily for their “legit” classical work also scored films – The Gershwins, Cole Porter and Aaron Copeland are examples. Another example was Leonard Bernstein’s
Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther made him all the rage as a film composer.
In 1977’s Star Wars the world became acutely aware of the man who will be remembered as the greatest film composer of the 20th Century, and would easily be one of the most popular composers of any kind in the 20th Century – the great John Williams. By the time the Star Wars theme exploded in what may have been the most popular and influential movie ever, Williams had already been composing film scores since 1957.
He is also the most successful composer financially in American history. He has received no less than 41 Oscar nominations, although in this age when the Academy has fallen out of touch with the public, this translated into only 5 Academy Awards – despite the fact that in many cases the “winners” have faded from sight, while Williams’ music is performed and played again and again.
As much admiration as I have for John Williams and his music, I don’t personally play and replay the soundtracks of Star Wars and its sequels, or Indiana Jones, Saving Private Ryan, Harry Potter and sequels, War of the Worlds, or his other work. There is no music I would rather hear at a concert in the Hollywood Bowl, but his music demands full attention. His music is thrilling and inspiring, but in the age of iPod and “ambient” music playing in the background while you work on your computer or drive a car, it’s not the right fare. But there is a contemporary composer that I listen to over and over – and I have yet to tire of his tunes: Thomas Newman.
Newman is the son of the great aforementioned Alfred Newman, a cousin of the rock musician and composer of the “I Love L.A.” theme song, Randy Newman, and is connected to a minor dynasty of Newmans that are involved in music. He isn’t new on the scene. He has scored dozens of films since the late 1970s. Like John Williams, he has the talent to enhance a film with his music to such a degree that it can make a good film great. You’ve heard his music if you’ve seen Finding Nemo, Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, The Horse Whisperer, Cinderella Man, Erin Brockovich, The Green Mile, The Scent of a Woman, Fried Green Tomatoes, and other popular films.
Although he writes well for a full orchestra, Newman prefers to work with a smaller and more esoteric group of instruments. “I think I like smaller [scores] better, because I find more interesting places that the music can go. When you're working with a 90-piece symphony, your interaction with the players is much different. You're standing on a podium and talking to a large number of musicians. So the notion of nuance becomes a group effort and that's a difficult thing to get. I keep thinking of ways to communicate better, to scale down the orchestra's size so it will fit into my ambient palette instead of lying on top of it,” he says.
What about electronic synthesizers? “I hate the notion that electronics are a cheesy way of doing things and that orchestra is the only 'true' approach to scoring. But you can understand those critics, because electronics allow you to make easy choices. Anyone can do it. But while synthesizers are things you hide behind sounds, they can also be put in places you'd never expect. I've always wanted these boundaries to be amorphous.”
He is famous for winding unusual sounds and rhythms into a lush framework. He isn’t afraid to use multiple percussion instruments or synthesizers, in companion with conventional instrumentation. He plays the piano part himself most of the time.
Two of his sound tracks in particular are eminently listenable: Road to Perdition and Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events. Drop these CDs to your iPod, remove the two or three sound track tunes that you don’t like, and you’ll have music you can always fall back on when you want something nice going on in your head.