I guess I'll just paste from my own thread:
Jerry Goldsmith
One of the real greats. He was one of the first composers to look at a film and try to compose a theme, treating the entire score like a long piece of music. As such, he's easily my favorite. And despite his age, he was always experimenting. His synth stuff for Total Recall was catchy, mystic, and altogether great. On the other hand, he can really bring emotion out of what would only have a small spark of it. His score for The Sum of all Fears really hit those dramatic points, and that's a rare achievement for any spy score. And the tension was fantastic in the more thrilling parts of the film and score. His film noir take for L.A. Confidential was pure fifties, and certainly helped the film create its trademark stars & cons atmosphere. Sadly, from the eighties to the end of his career, he did a lot of poor films, giving tremendously deep music to projects that really didn't deserve it. RIP.
For composers that are Goldsmith fans (or at least want to see how one guy did it), here's the trademark Goldsmith rhythm. Note that each emdash (-) represents a sixteenth note, with four in a beat, sixteen in a bar. An "O" is a beat.
4 |
/ |O - - - O - - - O - - O - O - -
4 |
That would read, with the beat being the bolded words: "One-ee-and-uh Two-ee-and-uh Three-ee-and-uh Four-ee-and-uh.
John Williams
I actually find his scores pretty overbearing and oppressive to the film's goings-on very often, and there is rarely if ever a central theme. However, some of his work is undeniably brilliant, like the cold tones of his Minority Report score, or his fantastic and immortal Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman, and Jaws themes. His few cases of experimental work, like the deliciously paranoid and unsettling JFK, or the brooding and sinister Nixon prove very worthwhile listens, as well.
Harry Gregson-Williams
Ah, at last a composer that uses techno with some rhyme (and reason). I recently got turned onto his work when I watched Spy Game. His score was worthy of a significantly better film, and I already enjoyed Spy Game, so that says quite a bit. He uses the synthesizer in a fashion few can, creating real music and depth.
He also uses it as a tool, and not as a devouring beast -- there is considerable traditional composition in the pieces as well, with a well-stocked strings section (my favorite section of a band, even above my own percussion) conveying frequent messages of betrayal, greed, desperation and sadness. The timpani work has a life of its own.
I've seen little else of his work, but his Phone Booth synth work amped up the tension and played off the dramatic monologues -- which is all you have time for in a film that rockets along and is shot in under two weeks -- and gamers will appreciate his great work on the Metal Gear Solid themes.
Danny Elfman
Arguably the most diverse composer ever, he has an ability to create delicious pieces ala Williams, moving and powerful tones ala Goldsmith, and is possibly even more experimental than Gregson-Williams. He admitted himself that his style is a hybrid of the Goldsmith and Williams methods (though I'm not sure if he knows that's whom it's coming from), finding themes for key characters and events and then finding ways to expand them otherwise, scoring the rest of the film piece by piece.
I haven't seen The Dead Zone, but I have seen a television show that derived it's theme from it (Dilbert). Suffice it to say that it quite literally defies explanation, but the opening credits for the show follow the Big Bang, a trip through the Universe, a view of evolution straight from the primordial soup, and an overbearing office in ravages -- and it mirrors it perfectly.
In his Spider-Man scores, Elfman created themes that splooge patriotism without making you think of cheese or the Patriot Act, and there's something to be said for that if nothing else. His Batman and Mission: Impossible themes are as rightfully beloved as the franchises themselves.
Clint Mansell
He wrote the theme you hear in every movie trailer ever, including Lord of the Rings, but it was for Requiem for a Dream, a film about drug-users affected in various ways by narcotics. His no-budget score for Pi followed a man aptly into insanity from mere paranoia. He has done few movies that were great, but his scores always have been.
Recently, in Sahara, he composed a theme for one of my favorite pulp heroes (Dirk Pitt) that was absolutely flawless. With muted trombones and a hefty strings section, you insantly knew that Pitt was all-American without being Texan or arrogant, and that he loved the open sea. He hits frequent Goldsmithian mystic tones later. Though the movie wasn't great, I can often watch it just for the great music. It also includes ethnic African music that he wrote, complete with Africa's famous, lively percussion section. All in all, a fantastic score to a movie that didn't quite match up -- looks like he's headed in Goldsmith's direction, indeed.
Alexandre Desplat
Almost all of his films are French, so I've only seen two, but I am very impressed. Hostage was a Bruce Willis thriller out two years ago, and very much a foreign film -- Spanish director, French composer, European producers... As such, it's no surprise they tried to make a different kind of thriller, one that was dark, edgy, and with a hero who isn't perfect. Sure, that's exactly what all thrillers try to be, making this different only in that it succeeds. With the swooping camera and the director's film noir sensibilities, Desplat plays off of this and delivers thick, oppressive scores, matching the atmosphere of the cliffside mansion that has become a prison to criminals and hostages alike. There's a constant sense of uneasiness, a feeling that leaves you unsettled, rather than just sitting back and waiting for Bruce Willis to beat somebody up.
Going to the other side of the movie spectrum, his work for the film Syriana was both experimental and beautiful, even in the saddest moments. The graceful traditional melodies as one of the Islamic teenagers tends to a bee sting gave it almost a dreamlike quality as he worries about his own faith and a friend fails to comfort him. The more emotionless (deliberately so) theme following CIA officer Bob Barnes as he stalks his prey creates a void in the soul and makes you want to fill it. And as always, strings are my favorite. They fulfill everything they are supposed to in music with just a few simple strokes, but ones that evoke real, raw emotion.
John Barry
James Bond. There, I got it out of the way. His Bond theme was fantastic; even now, it's unheard of to start the theme for a hero with the vibraphone. He did a lot of James Bond movies, and his work on them was excellent, much of it being used to derive themes for the modern films to this date.
But Barry had a career outside of Bond. Sadly, I can't remember the majority of these films, but speaking of Bruce Willis (well, a while ago), he did do Mercury Rising, which was not a particularly good film, but Barry, like Willis and his child costar, was deemed far and above too good for the material. He combines a militaristic percussion section with frantic but measured strings, slipping between broad and brief strokes that evokes a thousand times more tension and emotion than the film ever did.
James Newton Howard
Another great, very experimental composer. He does a lot of things akin to Mark Snow, like when he did the shocking first scene from The Sixth Sense and took a line from the character being introduced, played it backwards, and added it as a low whisper whenever he was on screen.
His Collateral score was both apathetic and hard -- though the night club scene is completely made by Ready Steady Go -- and held its emotional moments in high regard, as few composers would have.
His real opus, however, is Unbreakable. This is his superhero theme. Brooding, mysterious, forlorn yet hopeful. It gives a constant feeling of rising to a higher emotional plane and understanding of oneself -- a central theme of the film itself. The powerful train station scene, as the protagonist swoops about learning of the peoples' various, horrifying scenes, the score follows the events, but never winces. Not once. It is far more brazen and steeled than our hero, emphasizing his humanity, his disgust at these repugnant acts. A brilliant score, and quite possibly my favorite.
Hans Zimmer
I'm a bit burned out from my Mark Snow section, but Zimmer has a very deep insight and creates scores that dig at the soul of films' characters and expose them. His work with a strings section is formidable, and he uses sixteenth notes -- which composers often overuse in favor of quantity to take the slot of quality -- as few can, always with grave importance to every note.
Mark Snow
Yes. The X-Files guy. While I think the theme of the show itself is brilliant -- I guarantee no one else could have used the synth to create that bizarre, alien whistling noise, much less thought to do it -- I found his day-to-day work on the show quite lackluster, but for a few great cues. This is to be expected from a television composer, as they have a to-do list longer than bin Laden's rap sheet. However, one should look at his actual theme work.
His theme for MillenniuM (which can be found on youtube) was despondent and sorrowful, with a beautiful and evocative Celtic string taking lead of the piece and a frequent hard double-hit from a bass drum marking the transition to new verses, and the coda just before the very slight hopeful uplift.
His Nowhere Man theme (also on youtube) is as experimental as you can get with mainstream instrumentation; a constant, rapidfire plunking of the piano, kongas keeping the beat, something that sounds like an old seventies cash register being dinged in constant time, and occasional drops in tempo which give way to what sounds like a Native American chant, South American or Middle Eastern drums, the subtlest, more depressed and withheld piano tone, and a hard cymbal crash to mark it all. It then leaps back into its old pace. The only sign of an electronic device is the bizarre, waving noise that caps off the piece. It has no name, but it makes one wonder if they were hit by some kind of sonic boom, there one moment and gone the next, like the Nowhere Man himself.
I have to touch briefly on his theme for Harsh Realm. Though you've never seen the show, its opening credits begin with a quaint, peculiar piano set-up complimenting a revelation monologue by the protagonist in the background as he reveals that the world we live in is not real (before you say it, this show was written and in production before The Matrix). The tone of the piece creeps into the disturbing and creepy hard knocking synth work, with occasionally fading in strings that are nearly shredding their isntruments. And get this -- all the while, in the background, are the mumblings of Benito Mussolini speeches, used in an almost rhythmic fashion, but meant to create angst and fear in the listener. It works. The score transitions again, with the strings taking the synth's part and the full orchestra, with muted brass, comes in for quavering blasts, as Mussolini's mumbling turns into actual yelling and raving.
His best work yet was, interestingly, in a video game -- Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain. As a self-confessed SF nut, I know what makes Syphon Filter, and he had it. In fact, Mark Snow remade the old synth theme that fans had loved for five years, with an orchestral version that shows off his talent in writing for strings and choruses. The militaristic snare and bass drums compliment the sweeping, almost epic strings and chorus work. This game proved to me that Snow is a beyond-capable composer given the necessary time and funds, and also suggests to me that he has the best understanding of foreign cultures, at least from a North American point of view. His themes for Belarus (a former Soviet State, if you didn't know) are deep and lead by the baritone sax, cello, and an authentic Russian chorus creating something absolutely haunting. If that wasn't enough, his Yemen (Middle Eastern country) themes use almost primarily Middle Eastern drumming and ethnic vocal work, with occasional use of a tweaked strings section to match the mood and nation and elevate tension.
-I
