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From
Pee-wee
to
Dumbo
,
Danny Elfman (left) and Tim
Burton (right) have formed an
unmistakeable artistic tandem.
Only three Burton-directed
films in the past 30 years
have not featured music by
Elfman. They even recently
collaborated on a concert
program featuring highlights of
their work together, which was
presented at Ravinia in 2015.
Ennio Morricone (left) earned some of his greatest acclaim
composing for Sergio Leone (right) and his spaghetti
western films, and he finally won an Oscar in 2016
(becoming the oldest winner in Academy Award history)
for Quentin Tarantino’s western
The Hateful Eight
.
Fellini, especially his 1 masterwork
½
and 1’s
La Strada
, winner of the
first Academy Award for Best Foreign
Film. Fellini praised Rota for writing
music that gave order and organization
to his “chaotic” imagery.
Danny Elfman/TimBurton, movie
collaborations (including
’s
Dumbo
).
Former Oingo Boingo lead singer/song-
writer Danny Elfman especially admires
the works of Rota and Herrmann, which
might explain why his first score,
Pee-
wee’s Big Adventure
, sounds distinctively
Rota-esque with its energetic sense of
frolicking fun, yet his bombastic
Bat-
man
channels Herrmann’s ostentatiously
epic sensibilities, as displayed in
Myste-
rious Island
. (Many assume Tim Burton,
a former Disney animator, directed
the cult favorite
The Nightmare Before
Christmas
, which featured Elfman’s
music. Burton conceived the story and
characters and produced the film. Henry
Selick directed it.)
John Barry/the James Bond movie
directors, lms.
Although Monty
Norman receives credit for creating the
James Bond Theme (the most significant
single piece of movie music created
so far), Barry arranged it, filtering it
through his big-band sensibilities, then
went on to score “00” spy thrillers for
the next 2 years, with his screaming
crescendos of brass, percussion, and
winds helping to push
Goldfinger
to
become the most influential motion
picture of the 10s.
Carter Burwell/ e Coen Brothers,
lms.
The highly versatile Carter
Burwell handles many different music
styles with aplomb, which makes him
an ideal collaborator for the eclectic
and eccentric Joel and Ethan Coen, for
whom Burwell has scored all of but two
movies,
O Brother Where Art Thou?
and
Inside Llewyn Davis
. Burwell’s distinct-
ly quasi-thematic sound (and Martin
McDonagh’s quirky direction) made the
Oscar-winning
Three Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri
into the greatest Coen
Brothers movie never made by the Coen
Brothers.
Henry Mancini/Blake Edwards,
lms.
The lifelong collaboration
between Henry Mancini and Blake
Edwards began with Mancini supply-
ing the driving, jazz-infused theme
to Edwards’s TV detective series
Peter
Gunn
, a tune that became a staple of
high-school bands everywhere and,
arguably, the greatest TV theme ever
created. (Coincidentally, a young John
Williams was the pianist in its record-
ing.)
Peter Gunn
eventually became a
1 feature film, long after the compos-
er cemented his bond to Edwards with
his slinky, lounge-lizardly theme to
The
Pink Panther
, the comically triumphant
“Baby Elephant Walk” from
Hatari
, and
the mellow, easy-listening strains of
“Days of Wine and Roses.” The duo hit
a high note with 12’s bawdy, ahead-of-
its-time gender-bending musical
Victor/
Victoria
, featuring a cross-dressing Julie
Andrews as a cabaret entertainer. (In a
compound of ironies, Mancini, some-
time criticized for the “lightness” of his
music, had his score to
Frenzy
rejected
for being too darkly symphonic and
Herrmann-esque—by Hitchcock.)
Philip Glass/Godfrey Reggio, lms.
Philip Glass and Godfrey Reggio may
have only three films to their shared
credit, but
what
a three films. Seriously,
could anyone else’s music better match
Reggio’s non-narrative, visual poems of
light and movement—
Koyaanisqatsi
,
Powaqqatsi
, and
Naqoyqatsi
—better
than Glass’s hypnotically repetitive
but subtly variegated compositions?
Granted, Glass has his detractors, but
others assess him as being one of the
most influential composers of the latter
20th century. He has provided haunting
scores to documentaries (Errol Morris’s
splendid
The Thin Blue Line
), historical
epics (Paul Schrader’s
Mishima: A Life in
Four Chapters
), and even Chicago-made
horror films (Bernard Rose’s urban-leg-
end-propelled
Candyman
). But his
directing soulmate so far (Glass is 1)
remains Reggio. And that bears repeat-
ing. And repeating.
Dann Gire is the president and founding director of
the Chicago Film Critics Association. John Barry’s
original soundtrack to
Goldfinger
was the first LP he
ever purchased.
PAUL SANDERS (ELFMAN/BURTON)
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 23 – AUGUST 5, 2018
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