Score! (arriving at the list)

I had been thinking about revisiting my list of All Time Top 10 Films for some time, when it suddenly occurred to me that there was a different way of skinning that particular cat.

How about, I asked myself (while filtering – on the ZX9R – through static traffic on the A46 one day), how about looking at film scores, rather than focussing on the films themselves?

Well yes.

What a good idea.

But the next question I asked myself was what constituted a film score?

Three of my All Time Top Films had terrific soundtracks that many people would think were definitely not ‘scores’.

High Fidelity, Kick Ass, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Brilliant films.

Brilliant soundtracks.

But most definitely… not film scores.

Soundtracks.

After a few dozen miles of mulling (because commuting is when I do a lot of my thinking), I decided that I should ignore soundtracks.

I decided, instead, to concentrate on orchestral work.

Just orchestral work.

No guitar fests.

The realisation that the ‘no guitar fests’ rule would rule out Mark Knopfler’s brilliant Local Hero saddened me.

But I stuck to my guns.

Orchestral work.

No choral films.

Sigh.

In many ways, arriving at a list of my favourite film music was a more difficult task than producing a list of my all time favourite films.

It took a few hundred miles of commuting to put together even the initial long list of my All Time Top Film Scores.

Many questions were asked.

Some questions remain unanswered.

Even now.

But honing the long list down to the short list?

Difficult.

Almost two thousand miles further down the road, I was still struggling.

Where to start?

Films of this century?

Films from the last?

Just look at (listen to) some of the Hitchcockian films of the 50s.

Brilliant soundtracks!

North by Northwest, and Vertigo, to name just two outstanding examples.

And then it occurred to me, as I was mulling over Hitchcock’s back-catalogue of film, that I needed to pay attention to film genres.

The list needed to ensure that softer films weren’t excluded.

I had found myself solely considering action/thriller films, when I needed to ensure that gentler, more studied films were not excluded.

Every Where Eagles Dare needed a softer counterbalance.

But that only made the ‘Where do I start?’ even more difficult.

And would I be able to maintain my lofty equality aspiration throughout this challenge?

Somewhere around Leicester, one morning, I decided that I also needed to drop songs from the criteria.

Mary Poppins needed to come off the list.

I don’t know why, it just needed to.

So too did Help!

And A Hard Day’s Night.

And Tommy.

No songs.

I quickly realised that this new rule would exclude the Jason Bourne trilogy, dammit!

And everyone knows how much I love those films.

And how much I adore *that* Moby track as it kicks in at the end of each action-filled film.

But rules are rules (even when they’re my commuting rules).

No musicals.

No singalongs.

No guitar fests.

And no songs.

Just orchestral films.

Because that would leave me with a really small genre to play with, right?

Right?

Wrong.

It was agonising.

A Zed and Two Noughts, for example, asked the ‘does this list limit the number of entries a composer has, or could I have two (or even three) Michael Nyman films?’ question.

And if I had to have just one Michael Nyman, how on earth could I decide between A Zed and Two Noughts and the brilliantly wonderful (and I think Nyman’s first) soundtrack: The Draughtsman’s Contract?

I am, of course, dismissing The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and his Lover just because it is somewhat derivative of The Draughtsman’s Contract.

You think I’m being obscure by obsessing about Michael Nyman?

Well what about Ennio Morricone, then?

Once Upon A Time In The West?

Once Upon A Time In America?

A Fistful of Dollars?

For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più is, after all, on the list of my All Time Top Tunes, not to mention one of several ringtones on my phone)!

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly?

Or even the hugely underrated film The Mission (because I wasn’t actually looking at the films, just the soundtracks)?

Or the drippingly gorgeous Gabriel’s Oboe?

So.

Choose one of these Ennio Morricone films?

Just one?

Are you joking?

Impossible!

Well.

Maybe not actually impossible.

But very difficult, that’s for sure.

And then there’s the John Williams dilemma.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Saving Private Ryan?

Or the greatest fanfare that the film industry (music division) has ever produced: Star Wars?

Or ET?

Select just one John Williams film score?

Difficult.

And then there’s the films that leave me a bit meh, but the scores are brilliant.

I’ve never been a fan of the Godfather films, but Nino Rota’s score is bang on the money for an evocative musical work.

As is La Strada, also by Nino Rota.

Massively irritating though the film Edward Scissorhands is, I can appreciate the brilliant Danny Elfman score behind the film.

But Elfman also gave us the brooding score to Batman.

What a quandary!

And what about Bedfordshire-born David Arnold?

He gave us Independence Day, a genius piece of film music composition.

And David Arnold also gave us the sweepingly majestic, dischord-interjected, Stargate.

And also Hot Fuzz, and A Life Less Ordinary, and Tomorrow Never Dies, and Die Another Day, and Casino Royale.

What about Bernard Hermann?

Mr Hermann’s film credits include Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo.

And also Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Ghost, Cape Fear, and Taxi Driver.

Does this huge scope of work put Bernard Hermann on the ‘must have’ list of composers?

Heck, do I even have a ‘must have’ list of composers?

And if I do, how could I not include Jerry Goldsmith?

He penned Logan’s Run, Planet of the Apes, The Boys from Brazil, Alien, The Mummy…

And what about the huge volume of work produced by Yorkshire-born, the late John Barry?

Born Free, Out of Africa, the haunting chromatic theme to Midnight Cowboy, the James Bond theme and no fewer than five individual James Bond films including You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service!

Henry Mancini!

The iconic theme to The Pink Panther, not even counting Charade, Love Story, and Breakfast at Tiffany.

Then it occurred to me.

Hang on!

That’s a separate list: that’s a list of Must Have composers!

I swerved around that sidebar, in much the same way that I swerve around some of Leicestershire’s Most Challenging Drivers™, and went back to the task in question:

A list of my All Time Film Scores.

What about Elmer Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven?

Or Jerome Moross’ 1958 stormer: The Big Country?

After about another thousand miles (or so) of commutage I finally arrived at my list of All Time Top Film Scores.

It took another two thousand miles to put the list in to the right order.