American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990

Music written for films does not get the credit it deserves. The best film composers, like the ones discussed in this book, have produced some of the most stirring and enjoyable music of recent times. After an interesting introductory chapter on the transition from silents to sound, Darby and Du Bois discuss fourteen composers in detail, including the main themes they wrote for particular movies. All the scores each composer worked on are listed at the end of the chapter. Other chapters review film music developments by period, briefly discussing other composers. An appendix lists the scores nominated for Academy Awards from the first in 1934 to 1988. Readers with a serious interest in film music will find this book a valuable resource, though it needs to be updated to include the 1990's. Readers with only a casual interest may find that the detailed discussions of themes tell them more than they want to know.

This is an excellent reference, especially for the filmographies of the major Hollywood composers. I know of no other resource where one can get such extensive lists of films scored by given composers. Nor do I know of a resource that has this much information about the careers of so many of the classic film composers.The book does restrict itself to composers of the classical style, with the exception of their occasional forays into jazz or pop, rather than look at the film work of actual jazz-based composers such as Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, Mark Isham, to name a few. A single reference to Duke Ellington is to his influence on Alex North. The only reference to "Young Man with a Horn" is to Max Steiner, no mention or credit goes to Harry James.Nor will you find any mention of the huge influence of MTV on film scoring and film scoring technique, nor any of the rock-based composers. I'd love to see a discussion of, for example, Tangerine Dream's score to "Risky Business," particularly the ride on the elevated train, and follow that trend right on through to the beautiful and perfectly expressive score for "American Beauty" by Thomas Newman, which includes a subtle and masterful rhythmic control that owes next to nothing to any formal classical pedagogy I've ever come across. But the authors can not be faulted for the fact that film music has become much too big a subject for a single book.I confess I was disappointed with what seems to me to be a lack of depth in the analyses of individual films. Some of this is perhaps due to philosophical disagreements I have with authors. In the introduction, they write of there being two broad stylistic categories of scoring techniques: the "motivic" versus "atmospheric," and then come down strongly in favor of the former. But how useful is this distinction? A great film score combines both--these are not mutually exclusive techniques!Perhaps following the faulty logic of this duality, the musical analyses in the book seem to consist mostly of the listing and description of musical motives and themes when they appear as 'leit motifs.' This can be a helpful starting point, but it seems to me one gains little additional insight into either the film itself or the score from such an enumeration. Likewise, there are solid descriptions of various techniques used by the composers. I learned, for example, that Miklos Rozsa often uses the device of carrying a melodic line forward in the strings, followed at a short distance by French horns in imitative counterpoint, and have found myself noticing this in his films. But it would be nice to see more about when and why this or that technique is used, or how the motives are developed and transformed, contributing to the dramatic course of a film.Elsewhere in the introduction the author's write: "The initial and very demanding questions are 'how much music' and 'how prominent should it be.'" To me, the first questions in deciding how to score a film concern understand

The appreciation of film music as art is a relatively new development. A few pioneer books opened the door, and there has been an increasing number of analytic works since then that have given us insight into this fascinating medium. But, the field grows so quickly that books are quickly out of date. One of the newest works in this field is American Film Music by Darby and Du Bois. It certainly joins the ranks of the very best that has been produced. It would be helpful to have a background in music and film, but there is much valuable information for novices and experts alike. The book can be divided into chapters describing general trends of the periods of film music (from silent film to the 1980s) and chapters devoted to individual composers (from Max Steiner to John Williams). In both cases, general background material is summarized in a succinct, yet thorough manner. But the most impressive contributions are the analyses (with musical quotations) of a remarkable number of individual films. Among the most detailed and valuable discussions are those for Breil's music to D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, Max Steiner's Gone with the Wind, Korngold's Anthony Adverse, Herrmann's Citizen Kane, and Morricone's The Mission. This material is supported by an excellent bibliography, extensive backnotes, and a useful list of Academy Awards in music. The only "weakness" to be seen is that it does end in 1990, and the observations of the 1980s are relatively brief. James Horner, for example, is seen as a rising star rather than the giant that he has become. As with its predecessors, this book already needs to be updated, a situation which the authors will hopefully remedy in a 2nd edition.