So this week I watched AFI’s 44th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award, which this year went to composer John Williams. Even if you don’t know his name, you know his music. From Harry Potter to Indiana Jones to Star Wars, he is the modern master of the lietmotif, and has written some of the most iconic film scores ever. At 50 Academy Award nominations, he is the most nominated person alive (only edged out by Walt Disney at 59). Many things were said at the event, but one stood out to me the most. Harrison Ford came on stage and spoke about a moment in Raiders where Marion’s Theme was prominent and how it wasn’t where it was expected. He expected it to be when Indiana and Marion reunited in Nepal, but noted that that scene had no music. The scene he eventually pointed out was the cut from the truck that Indiana thinks Marion is on exploding to Indiana later drinking with the Nazi Monkey. He was getting very close to an idea I’ve had about film for a long time, the “John Williams Moment”.
A “John Williams Moment” is a moment in a movie where the scene is carried by the music. Many people don’t think about how music effects our engagement in a film– and I’m not talking about characters outright singing, but what others might call “incidental music” or the orchestral soundtrack. So many classic movie moments are classic because of the powerful music that underscores them, a lot of that music being composed by John Williams. It’s when the power behind the scene comes from its score, and there’s so many for so many movie composers. You don’t have to be John Williams to have a John Williams moment.
But he’s had some pretty good ones.
01/23/2018
My Favorite Film Scores
valeriemclean1919 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alan Menken, Beauty and the Beast, Elmer Bernstein, Elton John, Film, FIlm music, Hans Zimmer, Howard Ashman, Indiana Jones, Inside Out, John Williams, Junkie XL, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Mancina, Michael Giacchino, Moana, Music, Opetaia Foa’i, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Stanley Kubrick, Star Wars, The Lion King, Tim Rice, To Kill a Mockingbird, Wonder Woman About Film, About Music 0 Comments
So this post came about because a) I have to push back the other post I was planning for today because I haven’t finished the research for it and b) the film I am focusing on for what is now next week’s post has a particularly iconic and important score in terms of film history. I also really don’t care for it. Not to give too much away, it’s a very bass heavy and monotonous score and not very motivic. Well, it has one motif. Still, I started thinking about what I do like in film scores and that naturally lead me to some movies that I really enjoy the music of.
I’ve talked about music in film before. This list is going to cover films with mainly non-diegetic music, meaning that the music is present in the film, but isn’t happening within the world of the characters. All of these films also have wholly original score, save one notable exception– mostly because saying that Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 have great scores is fairly redundant. I also managed to only repeat one composer (no surprise as to who that was though). The films are listed in chronological order as well, because the films I picked really aren’t a fair comparison to rank.
Let’s get started.
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