The Film
Directed by Jane Campion and starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin, The Piano is a dramatic film set in New Zealand during the nineteenth century.
Ada (Hunter) and her daughter, Flora (Paquin), along with all their belongings, including a piano, are deposited on a New Zealand beach after Ada is sold into a marriage to Alisdair Stewart (Neill). Ada is a mute Scottish woman who expresses herself through her piano playing and through sign language. Alisdair tells Ada that there is no room in his house for the piano and leaves it on the beach. Later he agrees to trade it to his friend Baines (Keitel) for some land. Ada is enraged, but a deal is struck where Ada can earn her piano back at a rate of one piano key per “lesson.” She agrees, but negotiates for a number of lessons equal to only the number of black keys. Baines tries to seduce Ada during the lessons, but she is reluctant and only allows small increases in intimacy in exchange for more black keys. Baines finally gives up and returns the piano to Ada. Ada finds, however, that she misses Baines and ends up entering into an intimate relationship with him. Alisdair discovers this and cuts off Ada’s index finger to stop her playing the piano. But after he hears what he believes to be Ada’s voice in his head, Alisdair decides to end the marriage and send Ada and Flora away with Baines.
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning three for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Best Original Screenplay. It also won one of six Golden Globe nominations and three of ten BAFTA nominations.
The Music
The score to The Piano was composed by Michael Nyman. The director asked Nyman for something different from his usual string scores, which stunned the composer, as they were considered his signature. Campion discussed the difficulties of explaining to a composer what was desired, especially when directors often have little music knowledge. She recalls that “when composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo. When I wrote the screenplay, even though the piano is an integral character, I heard no music in my head at all.” Campion let Nyman work and then asked if he could make a certain cue happier or sadder. After much deliberation, Nyman decided that Scottish folk songs would be a good inspiration, given that Ada was arriving from Scotland.
The mute Ada (Holly Hunter) and her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin). Miramax / Photofest © Miramax
The music was written with lead actress Holly Hunter in mind. She had not played piano since she was sixteen years old and was considered an amateur at the time of filming. The composer jokes that she was “good at playing slow music and she wasn’t good at playing Michael Nyman,” so the composer wrote some very slow music especially for Hunter. Every time the piano plays in the film, it is Hunter, not Nyman, who is performing. Because of this, when Nyman is performing his score in public, he makes a conscious effort to perform it as Hunter, to remain authentic to the film. Nyman found it challenging to write a score that was lacking in real energy and tempo, as was his usual style. The composer explains that because Ada communicated through music, he had to consciously alter his style from a twentieth-century male minimalist composer, to a nineteenth-century female performer of emotions.
At all times during the script, the director would ask, “If Ada could speak, what would she be saying?” Nyman then had to write a piece of music that reflected this. The composer would receive an annotated list of scenes, with the emotion required by Campion. This was the moment where Nyman decided that Ada would express herself through Scottish folk music, having heard it at home before travelling to New Zealand. He spent time in London transcribing songs and arranging them for piano or using them for inspiration. The resulting pieces were a type of nineteenth-century salon music, but inflected with minimalist techniques more common to Nyman’s usual style of composition. This music worked so well for the character of Ada, that Hunter thanked Nyman when receiving her Academy Award, claiming that it helped her get into character.
The main theme to the film, “The Heart Asks Pleasure First,” has become phenomenally popular. It is one of the more minimalist pieces in the film, but it has a flowing, lilting, mesmerizing melody that soars over the top of a relentless ostinato. It is based on the Scottish folk song “Gloomy Winter’s Noo Awa.”
In summarizing how scoring The Piano has affected his career, Nyman claims that it is very much a “pre-Piano” and “post-Piano” split. When receiving commissions, he is sometimes asked for “The Piano sound,” which reinforces the impact of this score on the film world, but also the composer himself. As a self-professed minimalist, Nyman claims that scoring this film opened him up to the world of lyricism and melody.
Despite perhaps being one of the simpler scores in this book, The Piano has a deserved place among the other ninety-nine scores simply because it is not only musically beautiful but also uniquely functions as a character’s voice. The piano, as an instrument, is Ada, and through this, so is Nyman’s music, performed by Holly. The music replaces Ada’s voice, and so Nyman and Hunter are effectively actors in the film, providing dialogue, albeit in the form of music.
Recognition
Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score.
Nominated for a BAFTA for Best Score.
Recording
Michael Nyman, The Piano, Venture, 1993, 2012. This twenty-track recording has a duration of just over one hour. Recommended as the only official soundtrack release. ****
Bibliography
Tims, A. “How We Made: Michael Nyman and Jane Campion on The Piano.” Guardian, July 30, 2012. Accessed November 24, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jul/30/how-we-made-the-piano.
—ML
The Film
Directed by Blake Edwards and starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, and Claudia Cardinale, The Pink Panther is an American comedy film that was a hit.
The Pink Panther, the largest diamond on the planet, is given to child princess Dala (portrayed as an adult by Claudia Cardinale) by her father. The film flashes forward twenty years, where British thief Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven) aims to take the diamond from the vacationing Dala. In a comedic twist, Lytton’s nephew, George (Robert Wagner), is also within reach of Dala, eyeing up the diamond for himself. After stealing it, he intends to place the blame on the mysterious thief, the “Phantom,” unbeknownst to him that the Phantom is in fact his uncle, Lytton. Adding yet more humor to the film is the hopeless French police offer Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers), who, in yet another twist, does not realize that his wife Simone (Capucine) is the lover of Lytton. Clouseau tries and fails spectacularly to stop the attempted thefts, and the film evolves into a cat-and-mouse, cloak-and-dagger story line whereby each character is avoiding the next, not realizing the amount of double crossing and betrayal that is occurring. After Lytton and George are eventually caught, a final twist reveals that Dala stole the Pink Panther from her own safe, leaving Lytton, George, and Simone to escape unreprimanded.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, and Peter Sellers was nominated for a Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Actor.
The Music
The score to The Pink Panther was composed by Henry Mancini, a highly successful film composer who earned four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammys in his lifetime. The main theme to the film (and the subsequent sequels and spin-offs) is known worldwide and has been described as “the ultimate in big screen crime jazz.” The theme “oozes danger and intrigue” as it kicks in on piano, bass, and vibraphone. The saxophone is smoky, the music is bluesy, and it has a charming, comedic sleaze factor that contributes toward the silky-smoothness of the film’s characters. It is sly and witty to the extreme.
Peter Sellers in his iconic role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. United Artists / Photofest © United Artists
That Mancini chose to write in such a way is intriguing. Rather than score the film as a pure thriller, a glamour show, or a comedy, he saw it “as a series of separate scenes to be charmed by isolated jazz-pop melodies.” The way David Niven’s character sneaked in and out of hotel rooms, safecracking, and seducing women (in a proto-James Bond role, it could be said) inspired the jazzy theme in E minor so familiar to audiences today. His saxophone-playing colleague Plas Johnson provided the “throaty” sounds for the main theme, a result of Mancini “seeing scores in sounds” and writing the score with particular performers in mind. Mancini was adamant that he did not want a “funny” score for a funny film. On the surface, this might seem illogical, but the composer saw funny scores as redundant and even destructive to the visual comedy. Instead, Mancini wrote a witty theme, but not one that is a joke; a unique theme, but not purely a novelty number. It is a “seriously swinging piece of jazz-pop with an invigorating sense of fun and sophistication.” For this reason, the comedy is not doubled up. The music is there to add a smooth commentary to the already funny narrative. The actors are doing the funny business, and the music is buttering the proverbial bread.
The opening sequence introduces us to the theme, which is the subject of variations and adaptations as the film goes on. The now famous ascending bass line underscores an animated opening sequence, where the actor’s names are accompanied by the guttural sounds of Plas Johnson’s saxophone. As well as the main theme being adapted throughout the film, the other half of Mancini’s score uses “generic cocktail Muzak” to move along the narrative. This almost inconsequential music is nonetheless essential to the mood of the film, and it offers restraint when opposed to the ubiquitous and unavoidable main jazz theme. The two combine to create a truly memorable score and one that deserves its twentieth position in the American Film Institute’s top twenty-five film scores of all time list.
Recognition
Nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Nominated for Grammy for Best Original Score.
Recordings
Henry Mancini, The Pink Panther, Diamond Records, 2016. This recording contains twelve tracks with just over a half hour of music. Some reviewers claim the quality is not as high as some older recordings, but as the most up-to-date official soundtrack album, it is still recommended. ***
Henry Mancini, Ultimate Pink Panther, SBME, 2004. This compilation album of several Pink Panther movie scores is one to recommend for the collector who wishes to hear more than just the 1963 score. Twenty-four tracks spread over seventy-one minutes. ***
Bibliography
Caps, J. Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Spencer, K. Film and Television Scores, 1950–1979: A Critical Survey by Genre. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
—ML
The Film
The first in a long-running, successful series of films, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is unique in cinema history for being the only film to be inspired by a theme park ride, rather than vice versa. Directed by Gore Verbinski, it introduced the world to the swashbuckling, permanently drunk, slightly perverse character of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).
Set in the early 1700s, Sparrow meets Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), who is destined to be married to Commodore James Norrington. Sparrow encounters Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) for the first time, and they duel. Jack is captured and imprisoned. The same night the Black Pearl, a pirate ship, attacks the town, and its captain (Geoffrey Rush) takes Elizabeth prisoner.
Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and Orlando Bloom as Will Turner. Walt Disney Pictures / Photofest © Walt Disney Pictures
Elizabeth learns that after the Black Pearl’s crew stole cursed treasure, they were forced to bear the curse of undeath, appearing as decomposed corpses in the moonlight. To lift the curse, they need to return all the treasure, with a medallion owned by Elizabeth being the final piece. Meanwhile, Jack and Will form a tenuous alliance to rescue Elizabeth. The remainder of the film sees a love triangle developing between Jack, Will, and Elizabeth and the eventual lifting of the curse from the crew of the Black Pearl. Jack escapes execution by sailing off on the Black Pearl, with Norrington pledging to pursue him as the film draws to a close.
The film was expected to be a flop, but after a relatively slow start at the box office, it eventually grossed well over $600 million worldwide, placing it just outside the list of the 100 highest-grossing films of all time. Importantly, it prompted a host of sequels, which performed even better, three being among the top forty highest-grossing films and the other comfortably in the top seventy-five. The film was also responsible for propelling Johnny Depp into the mainstream, as he had been a mainstay of cult films before his role as Jack Sparrow.
The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and five BAFTAs, of which it won one for Best Makeup and Hair.
The Music
The score to the first in the Pirates of the Caribbean series was composed by Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt. Alan Silvestri was originally commissioned to write the score, but left the project due to creative differences with producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Hans Zimmer declined composing the majority of the score, as he was contracted to do another film at the time. He recommended Klaus Badelt to the film’s producers. For one reason or another, Zimmer actually did write most of the primary themes, and did so in one night. He recalls, “Well, it is a pirate movie, so [. . .] I spent a day and a half writing tunes, Klaus Badelt wrote a lot of stuff, and we rolled up our sleeves, got drunk, behaved in a debauched way, and produced a score!” Due to time constraints, a team of composers (including Ramin Djawadi, later of Game of Thrones fame) was brought in to orchestrate Zimmer’s melodies. Zimmer described the process as “very collaborative and a great panic, because it was a last-minute rescore.”
Unusually for a score in this book, it was heavily criticized. Described as a “schizophrenic pastiche of Hollywood excess” by one review, the chaotic, swashbuckling, relentless smorgasbord of sound is, it could be argued, one of the reasons the score is so highly regarded. Another review claims it is “brainless film music” of “brute masculinity,” and accuses Zimmer of “imbecilic regurgitation” of his other music. While these reviews have to be acknowledged, it is perhaps an overly critical assessment of music for a film based on an amusement park ride that parodies a genre of films produced in the previous century. The music is sometimes Korngoldian in style (see The Sea Hawk) when depicting the pirate narrative, but in fact,where Badelt and Zimmer’s score excels is in its variety. It is undoubtedly a fun romp through the life of a drunken pirate, but the lighter, more tender moments reveal a much different musical palette. The bombastically excessive “He’s a Pirate” theme gives way to cues such as “The Underwater March,” which has achingly beautiful harmonic progressions and a feeling of real poignancy.
The score to Pirates of the Caribbean will not, and did not, please everybody, but it is difficult to deny that the music played an essential role in the film’s extraordinary success and deserves a place in the top 100 film scores. Korngold may hold the crown for a more consciously Romantic approach to underscoring piracy on the high seas, but Badelt and Zimmer certainly conjure up the joviality and grandiloquence that a resurrection of the genre inspires and that is more in tune with the sensibilities of twenty-first-century audiences. It does the score a disservice to claim the main theme is a “tepid little thirty-second jig,” as posited by one reviewer.
Recognition
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards: Top Box Office Films (Klaus Badelt).
Nominated for Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Score.
Nominated for a Saturday Award for Best Music.
Nominated for World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Soundtrack of the Year.
Recording
Hans Zimmer, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl / Dead Man’s Chest, EMI, 2011. This combines the first two films in the series into one recording. Slightly cheap casing, but the recording is recommended. ***
Bibliography
Filmtracks. “Editorial Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” July 22, 2003. http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/pirates_caribbean.html.
Goldwasser, Dan. “Breaking the Rules with Hans Zimmer.” Soundtrack.net, September 6, 2006. https://www.soundtrack.net/content/article/?id=205.
Goldwasser, Dan. “The Honor of Composing.” Soundtrack.net, December 17, 2003. https://www.soundtrack.net/content/article/?id=112.
—ML
The Film
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall, Planet of the Apes is the first in the series of nine films (at the time of writing), consisting of either sequels or remakes. The screenplay was loosely based on the 1963 novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle.
Almost two millennia in the future, a spaceship originating from Earth crashes on an alien planet. The crew members remark on its similarities to their own planet, seemingly lightyears away. The inhabitants, an ape-like species, kill one of the crew, and the others are taken captive and sent to the ape city for trial. One of the surviving crew befriends a female ape, and they escape the city together, only to find a destroyed Statue of Liberty on a beach, leading to the famous plot twist that they have actually returned to a future Earth, with humans ostensibly extinct.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Costume Design and Best Original Score. It also won an honorary award for John Chambers for his work on the film’s extraordinary makeup.
Human George Taylor (Charlton Heston, center) is on trial, while in the foreground Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) plead his case. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation / Photofest © 20th Century Fox Film Corporation
The Music
The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith chose the bold and brave course of creating an avant-garde score for the film, which later turned out to be a monumentally successful decision. As Fitzgerald and Hayward explain, “Goldsmith opted for a score that incorporated numerous challenges to what film audiences might typically have considered musically ‘normal.’ In place of tonal harmony is dissonance and atonality; instead of traditionally countered melodies, there are unpredictable, angular melodic ideas. The score avoids regular beats and rhythms (apart from times when a rhythm pattern provides emphasis to a dramatic orchestration), and the orchestration is characterized by unusual textures and timbres.” This unusual approach to scoring added to the otherworldliness and uneasiness experienced not only by the on-screen characters, but also by the audiences. Indeed, Goldsmith remains one of the very few film composers to risk adopting serialism (a twentieth-century avant-garde compositional technique) to film music. Even today it would be seen as completely out of the ordinary to hear such a score.
The foregrounding of the score at times resulted in the audience being challenged by the unique sound. For many, it would have been their first time hearing such dissonant and ostensibly nonsensical music. In fact, it is fairly well-known that Goldsmith used kitchen crockery as instruments as well as unusual techniques on traditional instruments, such as blowing through the mouthpiece of a French horn without the horn attached. Goldsmith also raided the sound effects instrument collection of an old friend who worked at Disney on cartoons. He used them to create unusual percussive sounds. The opening scenes of the film, showing the landscape of the strange planet for the first time, have almost no dialogue and rely on music and sound effects to provide the audial element of the film. The music is consciously placed at the forefront of the sound world to encourage the audience to feel a certain way about the uncertainty of the exploration. To avoid the music being too alien to the audiences, Goldsmith decided against the use of electronics, which were at this time becoming more popular in film composition and the popular music world. Instead, he worked to “ingeniously mix futurism and primitivism,” to create a score that, according to Jeff Bond, “seems to emerge quite naturally out of the alien but strangely recognizable simian world.” The only electronics used were to provide some slight echo on string lines to add an ominous feel to a few musical cues. Otherwise, it was a traditionally recorded score on acoustic instruments.
In a film fairly saturated with music, it is particularly interesting to note the decision not to score the final scene or the end credits, at the shocking revelation that the planet is actually Earth. The composer explains: “It was such a dramatic moment, and one had to have faith in the drama that was on the screen. The audience didn’t need to be pushed any more—it worked, and it worked beautifully. Heston was very dramatic there, a little bit over-the-top maybe, maybe not; I don’t know . . . but anything more would have been adding too much to it, so we just decided to play with just the sound effects, and let sound effects play over the credits, and it worked very well.”
On a commentary accompanying the DVD of the film, Goldsmith says, “People ask me why I haven’t written something like that again, and it’s because they haven’t made that kind of picture. I haven’t been presented with this kind of a film.” The unique aesthetic of Planet of the Apes resulted in one of the most unusual scores in this book, but there are few scores more deserving of a place in the top 100 than this. It threw out the rulebook of film scoring and was overwhelmingly successful in doing so.
Recognition
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Recording
Jerry Goldsmith, Planet of the Apes, Varese Sarabande, 1997. This rerelease of the original official album is worth the purchase, simply to revel in the eighteen tracks of Goldsmith’s quite unique score. ****
Bibliography
Bond, J. “Comment of the Apes: Jerry Speaks, We Listen.” Film Score Monthly 9, no. 4 (2004): 10–13.
Fitzgerald, Jon, and Philip Hayward. “The Sound of an Upside-Down World: Jerry Goldsmith’s Landmark Score for Planet of the Apes (1968).” Music and the Moving Image 6, no. 2 (2013): 32–43.
—ML
The Film
The most acclaimed adaptation of Anthony Hope’s novel The Prisoner of Zenda is David O. Selznick’s 1937 film in which Ronald Colman appears as both Rudolf V of Ruritania and his British look-alike cousin, Rudolf Rassendyll. By sheer coincidence the British cousin is vacationing in Ruritania on the eve of the royal coronation. When the monarch hosts a party in his royal hunting lodge at Zenda and suddenly becomes indisposed, his two loyal companions persuade their English guest to impersonate the prince at the impending coronation.
Rassendyll manages to fool everyone except the prince’s half-brother, Michael, who has hired the roguish Rupert of Hentzau to drug the prince and thus help Michael to become king. Meanwhile, Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll) wonders why the newly crowned monarch seems so unlike the royal cousin to whom she is betrothed. When Rassendyll learns that the rightful heir has been kidnapped, he is persuaded to continue the pretense indefinitely.
The Music
Selznick expected Max Steiner to score Zenda, but since Steiner had just signed a contract with Warner Bros., he was unavailable. Through Steiner’s recommendation, Alfred Newman inherited the project and also composed a logo motif for Selznick’s newly formed company that consists of a dramatic series of chime tones and orchestral chords.
Following this motif the film’s title appears onscreen along with a military formation of over thirty uniformed trumpeters sounding a rousing fanfare accompanied by dramatic snare-drum rolls. This fanfare, which recurs throughout the film, leads into the remaining credits, accompanied by the Zenda theme, a lively idea for strings (plus a hint of the trumpet fanfare). The film’s lilting love theme is played by strings, French horns, and harp, with a seven-note motif comprised of mostly descending tones, then continues softly during the explanatory crawl.
Major Rudolph Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) poses as royalty with Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll). MGM / Photofest © MGM
Following the crawl, the Zenda theme returns as a map of Europe appears to reveal the location of the fictional country of Ruritania somewhere east of Austria.
In the film’s opening scene, when Rassendyll arrives by train at Strelsau, the country’s capital, people are stunned by his appearance (since he looks so like the monarch). The trumpet fanfare returns briefly as he leaves the station, and the camera zooms in on a wall poster of Rudolf V that clearly reveals Rassendyll’s physical resemblance to the monarch.
When Colonel Zapt and Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim, the monarch’s trusty companions, find Rassendyll napping under a tree while fishing, strings softly introduce another theme, a march idea that figures prominently in later scenes.
One of the film’s musical highlights occurs in the coronation scene, which includes a veritable smorgasbord of musical ideas, starting with the trumpet fanfare that is heard when the “prince” arrives at the cathedral. The ceremony itself begins with soft organ music followed by a piece borrowed from Handel, the chorus “See, the Conquering Hero Comes,” from the oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. As the crowning takes place the march theme is sounded by an organ, followed by a repetition of the trumpet fanfare. When Flavia steps forward to pledge her loyalty, there is a lovely unaccompanied piece for a wordless choir of female voices. The scene concludes with a joyous short choral piece and another triumphant sounding of the fanfare.
A musically noteworthy scene occurs soon after the ceremony, when the Zenda theme underscores Flavia’s reminiscence to the “king” about their previous meetings. As they talk behind closed doors, the love theme returns in a lovely arrangement for strings with a solo violin that adds a lilting countermelody. This theme especially enhances the moment when the “king” and Flavia begin to show signs of mutual affection.
The march returns in ceremonial style at the beginning of the grand ball when the royal couple walk down a long staircase. As they proceed, the camera backs away until the massive ballroom comes into full view, with the march adding a regal musical accompaniment.
The ballroom scene prominently features “Artist’s Life,” a waltz by Johann Strauss Jr., which is begun four times but is never concluded, because each time the music starts the “king” stops dancing in order to talk with Flavia, who explains to him that when the monarch stops dancing the music halts.
One of the film’s most romantic moments occurs in the next scene as the royal couple walk onto the terrace. When they kiss, the love theme provides a lyrical background that includes the sweet melodic tones of a solo violin.
The score is somewhat motivic, with a playful woodwind idea associated with Rupert and a sweet motif for violins connected with Antoinette de Mauban, Michael’s devoted lover, who begs him to stop trying to seize the throne. Michael is musically represented by an ominous variation of the fanfare played by low brass.
Newman’s score, with its many grandiose and romantic themes, makes a huge contribution to Prisoner of Zenda. As one of the composer’s most melodiously inspired works, his music clearly deserves a place of distinction in this book.
Recognition
Two Oscar nominations, including one for Newman’s score.
Admiration for the film resulted in MGM’s 1952 remake, a virtual scene-for-scene makeover using basically the same script along with the recycled Alfred Newman score.
Recordings
Richard Kaufman, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Wuthering Heights: A Tribute to Alfred Newman, Koch International Classics, 1997. This CD includes a rerecorded seven-minute suite from Zenda. Good sound. ***½
Alfred Newman, The Prisoner of Zenda, Film Score Monthly, 2005. This CD is the soundtrack of the 1952 remake, with Newman’s music updated by Conrad Salinger. No soundtrack exists from the 1937 film. Good sound, but no match for the original interpretations by Newman himself. ***
Bibliography
Thomas, Tony. The Great Adventure Films. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1976.
—LEM
The Film
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, Psycho is regarded as one of the finest horror films ever produced and one of prolific director Hitchcock’s more effective films. Indeed, Hitchcock is often referred to as a director of horror films, despite most of his creative output not falling in this genre.
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin) are having a passionate affair but are unable to marry for financial reasons. When Marion is handed $40,000 in cash to take to the bank for her employer, she runs away with the intention of marrying Loomis in California. As the weather on her long journey becomes treacherous, she decides to stay in a motel for the night. The Bates Motel, run by namesake Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), is the scene of the memorably disturbing shower murder scene—one of cinema’s most iconic moments. It is revealed, after many suspects are interrogated, that Norman murdered Marion while suffering from an alternate personality disorder. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, and Janet Leigh won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Adjusted for inflation, it is approximately the 150th highest-grossing film in American film history.
The Music
The score to Psycho was written by Hitchcock’s longtime collaborator, Bernard Herrmann. The composer and director had a close, trusting, sometimes tempestuous relationship, and the composition process for this film was no different. The score is considered “perhaps Herrmann’s most spectacular Hitchcock achievement.” The film had a low budget, but Herrmann refused to lower his fee. Instead, he opted for fewer musicians. Rather than write a jazz score, which Hitchcock had requested, Herrmann decided on a string-only ensemble. The composer wanted to complement the black-and-white photography with a “black-and-white score.” The fact that the more brutal aspects of the score were produced only by strings, without the usual backup of the forceful brass or percussion, makes Herrmann’s score even more astounding. Composer Fred Steiner understood Herrmann’s “black-and-white score” analogy, stating, “When the expressive range of the strings orchestration is compared to that of black-and-white photography, Herrmann’s analogy becomes perfectly clear. Both have the capability within the limits of one basic colour of delivering an enormous range of expression and of producing a great variety of dramatic and emotional effects.”
Just taking a shower: Janet Leigh as Marion Crane. Paramount Pictures / Photofest © Paramount Pictures
The score to Psycho almost did not exist. Hitchcock was adamant that he did not want music in the film, but Herrmann’s persuasiveness eventually altered the director’s viewpoint. The most famous scene in the film was also originally intended to be musically silent. Such was the impact of Herrmann persuading Hitchcock to use music that it saved the film. The director was on the verge of giving up on the film and dividing it up into television episodes, but Herrmann’s music for the shower scene made him change his mind. “Do what you like,” said Hitchcock to Herrmann before the Christmas vacation, “but only one thing I ask of you: please write nothing for the murder in the shower. That must be without music.” Herrmann was astonished and promptly ignored Hitchcock’s request. When the two returned in the new year, Herrmann played the scene to Hitchcock without any music and then said, “I really do have something composed for it, and now that you’ve seen it your way, let’s try mine.” After hearing it Hitchcock replied, “Of course, that’s the one we’ll use.” When the composer reminded him that he had absolutely requested no music, the director dryly replied, “improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion.”
The stabbing, percussive sound of the strings in the shower scene has been described as representing “terror” and “primordial dread,” and is now undoubtedly one of the most famous musical cues in the history of cinema. The music is the film, and the film is the music. One cannot exist without the other. It reiterates the point that Herrmann’s stubbornness and Hitchcock’s rare willingness to back down and admit he was wrong saved the film. The cue has been described as having undertones of Bartok or Stravinsky and representing for audiences in 1960 bleak terror, “icy modernity,” and nightmarish apprehension.
The score takes the audience on a “stomach-churning roller-coaster ride” of emotions, as it slashes its way through dissonance and upsets musical conventions by foregrounding string music not as lush, romantic melodies, but as grim violence. It is anti-Romantic. It is a constant bad mood represented in musical form.
The success of Herrmann’s score has produced numerous pastiches and parodies, from The Simpsons to a disco remix. While these homages are undoubtedly compliments to Herrmann’s music, perhaps the biggest compliment the composer could receive was from Hitchcock himself, who claimed that a third of the film’s power came from music. From a traditionally stubborn director with very concrete views on how his films should look and sound, this admission of the effect of music in film is praise indeed.
Recognition
Remarkably, Herrmann’s score was not nominated for any major or minor awards.
Recording
Bernard Herrmann, Psycho, Varese Sarabande, 1997/2013. This forty-track, one-hour album is a comprehensive collection of the musical cues from the film. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform wonderfully. Well recommended. ****
Bibliography
Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood. London: Marion Boyars, 1990.
Sullivan, Jack. Hitchcock’s Music. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
—ML