This is an ambitious attempt to tell the story of music in film. There are a few documentaries on individual composers, but this series charts the influences that shaped movie music through the decades from the beginnings of cinema up until the new millennium
It's a big call and it uses the same experts from "Stars of the Silver Screen", and "The Directors".
Their easy hyperbole is also evident here. A number of scores are called the greatest in cinema history. Maybe there's just a little too much Ennio and Elmer.
At times, their lists of the music of the 60s and the 70s reminded me of those vinyl records such as "Fantastic Movie Themes" you'd find in the bargain bins for $1.50 along with piles of "Saturday Night Fever".
But with that said we should be happy we have even this, and the series is full of very clean clips from the films.
Some things should have been covered and important scores missed the cut. One that would have opened up an area of discussion is "The Best Years of Our Lives". It's not only a heart-rending score, but also the composer was Hugo Friedhofer who had been an orchestrator for Korngold among others. Understanding the role of orchestrators in Hollywood (Bernard Herrmann was one of the few that didn't use them) was an important part of the process.
Another is the controversial role of temp tracking where filmmakers use a temporary score of existing music, classical, pop or other scores as a guide to the composers. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was the place for that discussion. Kubrick loved his temp score so much he dumped Alex North's original score. He didn't tell Alex and the poor guy only found out when he attended the premiere. He staggered from the theatre no doubt agreeing with Mark Twain that the more he learned about people, the more he loved his dog.
Silly mistakes intrude like Ian Nathan claiming Hitchcock only used Miklos Rozsa on "Spellbound" because his normal composer, Bernard Herrmann, was trapped working somewhere else. Herrmann's first score for Hitchcock wasn't until a decade later. He probably meant Waxman, but it should have been checked. Same with claiming in "Vertigo" that Kim Novak's character was the apparition of the long dead wife of James Stewart's character. She was his obsession but they weren't married.
But the series fills a void and, at the very least, provides hours of magnificent music.
It's a big call and it uses the same experts from "Stars of the Silver Screen", and "The Directors".
Their easy hyperbole is also evident here. A number of scores are called the greatest in cinema history. Maybe there's just a little too much Ennio and Elmer.
At times, their lists of the music of the 60s and the 70s reminded me of those vinyl records such as "Fantastic Movie Themes" you'd find in the bargain bins for $1.50 along with piles of "Saturday Night Fever".
But with that said we should be happy we have even this, and the series is full of very clean clips from the films.
Some things should have been covered and important scores missed the cut. One that would have opened up an area of discussion is "The Best Years of Our Lives". It's not only a heart-rending score, but also the composer was Hugo Friedhofer who had been an orchestrator for Korngold among others. Understanding the role of orchestrators in Hollywood (Bernard Herrmann was one of the few that didn't use them) was an important part of the process.
Another is the controversial role of temp tracking where filmmakers use a temporary score of existing music, classical, pop or other scores as a guide to the composers. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was the place for that discussion. Kubrick loved his temp score so much he dumped Alex North's original score. He didn't tell Alex and the poor guy only found out when he attended the premiere. He staggered from the theatre no doubt agreeing with Mark Twain that the more he learned about people, the more he loved his dog.
Silly mistakes intrude like Ian Nathan claiming Hitchcock only used Miklos Rozsa on "Spellbound" because his normal composer, Bernard Herrmann, was trapped working somewhere else. Herrmann's first score for Hitchcock wasn't until a decade later. He probably meant Waxman, but it should have been checked. Same with claiming in "Vertigo" that Kim Novak's character was the apparition of the long dead wife of James Stewart's character. She was his obsession but they weren't married.
But the series fills a void and, at the very least, provides hours of magnificent music.
