28 / 124
From
Pee-wee
to
Dumbo
,
'DQQ\ EOIPDQ OHIW DQG TLP
%XUWRQ ULJKW KDYH IRUPHG DQ
XQPLVWDNHDEOH DUWLVWLF WDQGHP
2QO\ WKUHH %XUWRQ GLUHFWHG
ɽOPV LQ WKH SDVW 30 \HDUV
KDYH QRW IHDWXUHG PXVLF E\
EOIPDQ TKH\ HYHQ UHFHQWO\
FROODERUDWHG RQ D FRQFHUW
SURJUDP IHDWXULQJ KLJKOLJKWV RI
WKHLU ZRUN WRJHWKHU, ZKLFK ZDV
SUHVHQWHG DW RDYLQLD LQ 2015
EQQLR MRUULFRQH OHIW HDUQHG VRPH RI KLV JUHDWHVW DFFODLP
FRPSRVLQJ IRU SHUJLR LHRQH ULJKW DQG KLV VSDJKHWWL
ZHVWHUQ ɽOPV, DQG KH ɽQDOO\ ZRQ DQ 2VFDU LQ 201
EHFRPLQJ WKH ROGHVW ZLQQHU LQ AFDGHP\ AZDUG KLVWRU\
IRU 4XHQWLQ TDUDQWLQRȅV ZHVWHUQ
The Hateful Eight
Fellini, especially his
masterwork
½
and
’s
La Strada
, winner of the
rst 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 rst 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
e Nightmare Before
Christmas
, which featured Elfman’s
music. Burton conceived the story and
characters and produced the lm. Henry
Selick directed it.)
John Barry/the James Bond movie
directors, lms.
Although Monty
Norman receives credit for creating the
James Bond eme (the most signi cant
single piece of movie music created
so far), Barry arranged it, ltering it
through his big-band sensibilities, then
went on to score “ ” spy thrillers for
the next years, with his screaming
crescendos of brass, percussion, and
winds helping to push
Gold nger
to
become the most in uential motion
picture of the
s.
Carter Burwell/ e Coen Brothers,
lms.
e highly versatile Carter
Burwell handles many di erent 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 ou?
and
Inside Llewyn Davis
. Burwell’s distinct-
ly quasi-thematic sound (and Martin
McDonagh’s quirky direction) made the
Oscar-winning
ree Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri
into the greatest Coen
Brothers movie never made by the Coen
Brothers.
Henry Mancini/Blake Edwards,
lms.
e 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
feature lm, long a er the compos-
er cemented his bond to Edwards with
his slinky, lounge-lizardly theme to
e
Pink Panther
, the comically triumphant
“Baby Elephant Walk” from
Hatari
, and
the mellow, easy-listening strains of
“Days of Wine and Roses.” e duo hit
a high note with
’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 lms to their shared
credit, but
what
a three lms. 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 in uential composers of the latter
th century. He has provided haunting
scores to documentaries (Errol Morris’s
splendid
e in Blue Line
), historical
epics (Paul Schrader’s
Mishima: A Life in
Four Chapters
), and even Chicago-made
horror lms (Bernard Rose’s urban-leg-
end-propelled
Candyman
). But his
directing soulmate so far (Glass is )
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
ZDV WKH ɶUVW L3 KH
ever purchased.
PAUL SANDERS (ELFMAN/BURTON)
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 23 – AUGUST 5, 2018
26