Despite the surprisingly short runtime of Jason and the Argonauts, it’s filled with everything a Hollywood epic needs – grand scope, love, betrayal, and triumph. Composer Bernard Herrmann follows suit, as his score matches every pivotal moment and tonal shift. […]
Despite the ever-present strife and squalor in The King, Nicholas Britell’s score brings a sense of majesty to Hal’s transition from prince into King Henry V. The clearest example of this is during Prince Hal’s coronation. As grandiose images of […]
Karel Zeman’s 1961 surrealist masterpiece The Fabulous Baron Munchausen is one of the more bizarre entries in film, with its fanciful story, kaleidoscopic colors, and animation/live action mix. The logical musical accompaniment would be something as equally odd and avantgarde. […]
The Proposition is a neo-western about the struggle for civilization. But, unlike most westerns, the conflict surrounding civilization is not between colonizer and colonized. Instead, it is between Australia’s criminal, lawless roots and encroaching British imperialism wishing to bring law […]
While Macbeth has undergone many iterations, Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film is the rare version that emphasizes the daunting nature of the Scottish landscape. Jed Kurzel’s score tries to bring this landscape to life and, in doing so, creates a particularly […]
300,000 soldiers trapped on the shores of Dunkirk. A rescue fleet comes from the north; Nazis from everywhere else. The soldiers know this. They also know that they have no say in whether they live or die. They can only […]
Bone Tomahawk quickly rose to notoriety due to the overwhelmingly graphic, brutal nature of one particular scene. But, despite the fame of this scene, it’s not representative of the movie. Violence is rare and ends quickly. Instead, the majority of […]
Enter the New World. The conquistadors believed it was God-given, filled with cites of gold and fountains of youth, where every man was free and rich and a king of his own. But in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, this […]
In the 17th century, a group of soldiers and their academic hostage eat psychedelic mushrooms in A Field in England. In so doing, they’re convinced that they’ve uncovered the powers of divination, becoming enspelled in the process. Jim Williams uses […]
A common complaint about film and TV scores is their use of tone over melody (a complaint perhaps most famously made by Jason Segel’s composer character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Mark Korven completely ignored this complaint for his score of […]
Most westerns contain many grandiose shots of great untamed landscapes – wide rivers, soaring mountains, sprawling valleys. These shots tend to be sweeping and slow-to-develop, allowing for an equally grandiose score to fill the void. This relationship puts the focus […]
In 2018, director Armando Iannucci discovered long lost recordings of a great Soviet-era composer. He then used them to score his film, The Death of Stalin. At least, composer Christopher Willis (Interview) believably convinces the audience of this discovery. To […]