Film Music: You Favorite Theme/Overture/Score....

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...and I don't mean shit like "Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters from "Beverly Hills Cop," I mean stuff like Jerry Goldsmith's haunting, suitably other-worldly music for the original "Planet of the Apes" or Herbie Hancock's sophisto-hepcat jazz pieces for Antonioni's "Blow Up." Dig?

My all time favorites -- in terms of simply the music, not necessarily because of the film -- are probably

- Angelo Badalamenti's mournful score to "The City of Lost Children"
- Zamfir's deceptively creepy, pan-flute crazed score to "Picnic at Hanging Rock"
- John Lurie's lonely accompaniment to Jarmusch's "Mystery Train"
- Roy Budd's "Get Carter" theme
- Wendy Carlos' sinister electronics for "A Clockwork Orange"
- Mark Knopfler's (don't laugh) simple guitars for "Local Hero"
- Mark Mothersbaugh's score for "Rushmore"
..but my favorite is still Jerry Goldsmith's stirring, robust score to the mid-70's Sean Connery vehicle, "The Wind and the Lion"

yerz?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 12:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll second Get Carter. I'm more into Stranger Than Paradise than Mystery Train but no biggie. Also, Jack Nietszche's score for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

John Berry's for Midnight Cowboy.
Danny Elfman's for Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
Ennio Morricone's for The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

(Mark Mothersbaugh also scored The Royal Tennenbaums like he was born for that shit. I love that man.)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah, another one for Midnight Cowboy. I was just listening to that the other day. Barry's score for Goldfinger roxxx too.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Not scored for the movie - but the use of King Crimson in Buffalo 66 was perfect... probably my favorite, it could have been a silent movie with just The Talking Drum playing along.. The mood of the music seemed to tell the story.

+
Obligatory mention of Dead Man.

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Gotta say -- Danny Elfman's stuff for "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" is fuckin' awe-inspiring, as is his stuff for "Batman" (despite the crapness of the film franchise).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh and BERNARD HERRMAN TO THREAD!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Michael Nyman for anything by Peter Greenaway.
Mychael Danna for Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter.
Philip Glass for the Qatsi films, obviously.
Hal Hartley for anything of his own.

― ara, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:08 (twenty-two years ago)

The only Phil Glass score I really like is Mishima.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing about the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure score that gets me is how all-over-the-moods-map it is; you've got the creeped-out paranoid clowns-&-dinosaurs nightmare/carnival shit, the totally pleasant cheery opening-scene-with-the-bicycle-race shit...Elfman is like one of the most versatile mood-conjurers around.

And the first song I learned to play on accordion (actually, one of the only proper 'songs' i can play on accordion) is the Midnight Cowboy theme...it damn near makes me weep to play it.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

c'mon guys - everybody knows Wendy Carlos' Purcell remix for 'Clockwork Orange' is the shit..

I always found the 'Mishima' score pretty cheesy and a bit too pretty. Is it very representative of Glass's film scores?

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:18 (twenty-two years ago)

c'mon guys - everybody knows Wendy Carlos' Purcell remix for 'Clockwork Orange' is the shit..

I always found the 'Mishima' score kinda cheesy and a bit too pretty. Is it very representative of Glass's film scores?

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:19 (twenty-two years ago)

oi, the obligatory mention of
The Hot Spot!!

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Herrman owns this thread, at least for me: Vertigo, Psycho, Cape Fear, Taxi Driver--all stone classics, all of which I can call to mind with no trouble at all. I love all kinds of film scores, but no one else comes close.

― Lee G (Lee G), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

"We Have All the Time In the World"- John Barry
"On Earth As It Is In Heaven"- Ennio Morricone
"Powaqqatsi"- Philip Glass
"Take My Skirt Off"- Cliff Martinez
"Lauren's Walking"- Angelo Badalamenti

― Chris Breitenbach, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Not one mention of John Williams' Star Wars fanfare yet? What the HELL is wrong with you people?

That complaining aside, some sharp selections already...I will think of other options!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Is Mancini not cool or something? You can't front on Pink Panther, Peter Gunn, love them from Romeo & Juliet, etc.
The zither score from 'The Third Man' is a favorite of mine, too.

― buttch (Oops), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The soundtrack to _A Man and a Woman_ by Francis Lai.

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll second the Mishima score as hot shit. It's the only Glass music that's really stuck with me. I love how during the second story adaption sequence, I forget the name but the young boy sells himself as a slave to the female gangster, the way rock elments were slipped into the overall operatic grandeur. There seemed to be an ironic relationship between the music and visuals in that fil,. Wheras in the Erol Morris docs and the Truman show the music seems to reinforce the images.

― thedore fogelsanger, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Second formerlyoops on Anton Karas' zither playing in The Third Man.

Eduard Artemyev's soundtracks for Tarkovsky's films.

Morricone of course, but Once Upon a Time in the West is the best.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Mancini is tops, I dunnae how I forgotted his ass. The theme from Pink Panther was stuck in my head for like 4 years between the ages of 8 and 12.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Angelo Badalamenti is one of my all-time favs, between Alex's-already-mentioned City of Lost Children, the immortal creepy-yet-soothing Twin Peaks theme, and his gorgeously fucked score for Secretary, the guy shows more range and expression than many composers do in their whole career.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:44 (twenty-two years ago)

will second Mancini & Third Man and concur on any Morricone

what, no love for the Godfather?

― H (Heruy), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

i go all swoony over the theme to love is a many-splendored thing.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

'mishima' yup for the surf tune and the ending string quartet is glass' best 80's work to my ears.

favorite stuff:
alan splet's soundscapes for 'eraserhead' & artemyev's 'solaris' and 'stalker' -- there wasn't too much music that sounded like this before these works for film, but a lot of music that followed these directions afterwards...

nino rota's 'juliet of the spirits'

total braindead question; what is the precise name of the beethoven piece used as the love theme from, uh, 'rollerball' (1975 version of course)

― milton, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

'shit' like neutron dance ?
i beg your pardon ?

― piscesboy, Wednesday, 23 April 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

pino donnagio - 'blow out'
john williams - 'the accidental tourist'
morricone - 'once upon a time in america'
yann tiersen - 'amelie'
richard robbins - 'the remains of the day'

it's an endless mystery why soundtracks
are deleted so quickly and so rarely available
after they are, while the entire back catalogue
of say, an emotional fish, sits unloved on
hmv shelves.

― piscesboy, Wednesday, 23 April 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Ennio Morricone - Giu la Testa (aka Fistful of Dynamite)

― Dadaismus, Wednesday, 23 April 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

-the entire Wings of Desire score by Jurgn Knieper (esp. the library 'theme')

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

...weird that no-one'smentioned Kronos Quartet's naggingly haunting score for the sublime Requiem for a Dream.

Never remember the name.... but the guy who did Betty Blue, too - beautiful soundtrack.

And cheesy as they are, John Carpenter's Hallowe'en score, the original, is fairly hard to beat.

― russ t, Wednesday, 23 April 2003 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

― chap, Sunday, 28 September 2008 23:07 (seventeen years ago)

Gives me the serious shivers.

― chap, Sunday, 28 September 2008 23:07 (seventeen years ago)

No mention of Suspiria?

― Alex in SF, Sunday, 28 September 2008 23:09 (seventeen years ago)

Fargo has wonderful music as well:

― chap, Sunday, 28 September 2008 23:22 (seventeen years ago)

All Herrmann, Morricone, Rota, Lai and Artemyev-for-Tarkovsky nominations OTM.

Also:

Krzysztof Komeda - "Cul De Sac", "Rosemary's Baby", etc
Alain Goraguer - "La Planète sauvage"
Georges Delerue - Godard's "Le Mépris", "Hiroshima mon amour" and countless others.
Piero Piccioni - "Camille 2000"
Masaru Satō - "Yojimbo", and a stack of other Kurosawa films.
Don Ellis - "The French Connection"
Michel Legrand - "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg", "Cléo de 5 à 7", etc
Piero Umiliani - "Svezia, inferno e paradiso" ("Mah-ná-mah-ná" etc!), and countless others.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Monday, 29 September 2008 00:04 (seventeen years ago)

My band The Kiwis did a sloppy 4-track cover of the Edward Scissorhands theme, though it was from memory so it's probably even more sloppy than you'd think:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=98a7171ee99cde3ed2db6fb9a8902bda

― Adam Bruneau, Monday, 29 September 2008 00:22 (seventeen years ago)

the gf really likes Zulu (john barry)...something about the epic horns.

― forksclovetofu, Monday, 29 September 2008 00:33 (seventeen years ago)

Speaking of John Barry, here's a great piece from You Only Live Twice:

― chap, Monday, 29 September 2008 00:57 (seventeen years ago)

the opening credits to "the third man":

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 29 September 2008 02:26 (seventeen years ago)

I'll second The Third Man and Vertigo, both favourites of mine for years.

Morrione's got a few mentions, and Williams was inevitable, but no love for Goldsmith? His 60s and 70s sci-fi scores for Planet of the Apes, Star Trek (overplayed as it is now) and Alien are great.

― Millsner, Monday, 29 September 2008 03:25 (seventeen years ago)

The Big Blue Overture
who agrees with me after hearing it?

― CaptainLorax, Monday, 29 September 2008 04:01 (seventeen years ago)

― CaptainLorax, Monday, 29 September 2008 04:02 (seventeen years ago)

I really miss Saul Bass.

― Millsner, Monday, 29 September 2008 04:11 (seventeen years ago)

All the early disaster movies are pretty fantastic with their opening overtures. Airport's is kinda the most ridiculous. The Towering Inferno is the nicest piece of orchestration. Earthquake is the most of-the-moment.

― Eric H., Monday, 29 September 2008 05:04 (seventeen years ago)

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