Great Film Composers

Season 1

TV-PG
The relationship between music and film is nearly as old as cinema itself. From its infancy, filmmakers recognised the power music had in creating atmosphere and enhancing an audience response to character's motives and emotions. With the advent of talking pictures, movies changed forever and so did the musical score from being played in the cinema to being married to the screen. Ground-breaking composers such as Max Steiner and Eric Wolfgang Korngold used established orchestral techniques to augment the action on screen. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, cinemas greatest moments were scored by some of the finest film music ever written. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman's emotional goodbye in Casablanca was accompanied by Max Steiner's lush strings. Joseph Cotton's desperate search through a post-war Vienna contrasted with Anton Karas' zither in The Third Man and the shadowy intrigue of Hitchcock's North by Northwest was underlined by Bernard Herrmann's complex modernist arrangements. In the 1960s, the spy thriller The Ipcress File was enhanced by John Barry's iconic score, whilst composer Ennio Morricone's work for director Sergio Leone, helped to create a new Western genre. The 1970's was another golden era in American Cinema. Nino Rota's delicate score on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather influenced a whole generation of mafia films. New composers continued to make their mark, such as Jerry Goldsmith and David Shire. John Williams' many collaborations with director Steven Spielberg have resulted in some of the greatest films ever made. Advancements in recording techniques and the rising popularity of synthesisers perfectly suited the films of the eighties. Composer Brad Fiedel's industrial score for The Terminator echoed the movie's sparse design. Whilst Maurice Jarre brought a delicate beauty to the brutal world of Mad Max. As film's first century came to close, John Williams' haunting score for Schindler's List brought audiences to tears. German composer Hans Zimmer looked to old Hollywood for inspiration, to create his lush, rich score for Gladiator. Today, film scores continue to be as vital to the production as the original screenplay, the artistic interpretation and the visual realisation. Innovative composers around the world continue to take audiences on a magical journey filled with hope and despair, wonder and disbelief, love and sorrow. These are the masterful film composers continuing to shape cinema as we know it.

Where to Watch Season 1

12 Episodes

  • The Birth of the Film Score
    E1
    The Birth of the Film ScoreThe first edition looks at the decades before the first “talking picture”, 1927’s The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson in dubious blackface. Movies were silent — or were they? If you were watching a Chaplin comedy in a “fleapit”, perhaps. In a fancier picture house you might enjoy a live pianist ad-libbing to what he saw on screen, and, by 1915, DW Griffith’s blockbuster The Birth of a Nation was distributed with a full score to be played by a live orchestra.
  • The 1930s & the Father of Film Music
    E2
    The 1930s & the Father of Film MusicA look at soundtracks of the 1930s, an era that saw many artists head to Hollywood and bring life to films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Wizard of Oz and Jezebel.
  • The 1940s: The Golden Age
    E3
    The 1940s: The Golden AgeA look at the 1940s, an era that saw many composers head to Hollywood to escape the Second World War, with Miklos Rozsa working on films with Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock.
  • The 1950s: A New Dawn
    E4
    The 1950s: A New DawnA look at film soundtracks of the 1950s, when the the rise of jazz music influenced the sound of movies inlcuding A Street Car Named Desire, Giant and Dial M for Murder.
  • The 1960s: Part One
    E5
    The 1960s: Part OnePart one of two. A look at the soundtracks of the 1960s, including Henry Mancini's work on Breakfast at Tiffany's and Maurice Jarre's score for Lawrence of Arabia.
  • The 1960s: Part Two
    E6
    The 1960s: Part TwoPart two of two. More of the soundtracks of the 1960s, featuring a look at the works of composers such as Quincy Jones and John Barry.
  • The 1970s: Part One
    E7
    The 1970s: Part OnePart one of two. A look at soundtracks of the 1970s, when independent film-makers were causing a stir and paving the way for composers like Marvin Hamlisch and Nino Rota.
  • The 1970s: Part Two
    E8
    The 1970s: Part TwoPart two of two. The work of Jerry Goldsmith, David Shire and John Williams in the 1970s, when they composed music for films including Alien, All the President's Men and Jaws.
  • The 1980s: Part One
    E9
    The 1980s: Part OnePart one of two. Soundtracks of the 1980s, including John Williams' score for ET, Brad Fiedel's music for The Terminator and Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind's work on The Shining.
  • The 1980s: Part Two
    E10
    The 1980s: Part TwoPart two of two. A look at the 1980s soundtracks by Alan Silvestri, Hans Zimmer, Michael Kamen and Maurice Jarre, including scores for The Abyss, Rain Man, Die Hard and Mad Max.
  • The 1990s
    E11
    The 1990sA look at soundtracks of the 1990s, like Carter Burwell's work with the Coen brothers, James Horner's work on Braveheart and Titanic, and Hans Zimmer's music for Thelma & Louise.
  • The 2000s
    E12
    The 2000sA look at the soundtracks of the 2000s and the composers that wrote the scores for blockbusters including Avatar, The Dark Knight and Gladiator.

 

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