Taxi Driver is on the current offerings in our area On Demand and I watched it again the other night for maybe the fifth time – maybe more. A fine movie that holds up so well in every aspect.
But it did get me wondering. I mostly decided to start watching it (listening to it is more like it) just for the fantastic Bernard Herrmann score. The music is so essential to the feel of that movie and works to flesh out all the unspoken things the movie seems to be about. However, I was wondering if Taxi Driver would be held in as high regard as it is and has been without that music. I believe it would hold up, but with way less emotional impact.
Can you think of other decent movies that would drop at least a star’s worth (in the 4-star or 5-star ranking systems) if it weren’t for the music? Please don’t include musicals.
Being as big a fan as I was of Henry Mancini, I believe I could make the statement that I can’t name a single movie he provided the music for that would be anywhere near as watchable without his music.
Here are a few candidates for way-better-than-average movies that would drop a peg or two without such fine music:
Body Heat Rebel Without A Cause The Magnificent Seven Psycho and Vertigo (to name a couple of other Herrmann scores) Midnight Cowboy
any of the James Bond movies
I’m pretty sure I can’t think of a single John Williams score that could be removed without reducing the overall impact of the movie. He’s runner-up to Mancini for me in that respect.
Other movie composers I can think of with that much power:
Lalo Schifrin
Jerry Goldsmith
Elmer Bernstein
Goldsmith reminds me that I left off Chinatown from my OP list!
I’ve seen the first transformation clip form An American Werewolf in London with “scary music” dubbed in. The original version with Sam Cooke’s version of Blue Moon is much more chilling.
Speaking of Jerry Goldsmith, his score for Patton is nothing short of brilliant. It would still be an amazing movie, but next time you watch it, imagine it without the score. It would lose a lot.
Putting aside the obvious ones, like Singin’ in the Rain, Taxi Driver is what I would have thought of at first too.
Probably Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns fall under this too. I’ve only seen the Clint Eastwood ones, but Ennio Morricone’s scores are part of what make them great.
For no obvious reason beyond the name, I’m reminded of one of Goldsmith’s works that enhanced a movie that might drop to a star or less (if it has that many to start with). Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet with his squeeze of the day Sondra Locke was fun for the amount of ammo expended to gun down a house! The ending scenes with the fortified bus as he “runs the gauntlet” getting to police headquarters could have been a fun thing but Goldsmith inserted some Spanish-flavored march that sounded like it was ripped off from Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain and which had the bravado of a bullfight and a cavalry charge. It got your blood boiling. For that one scene it gets at least a star.
Indeed! I can’t go quite as far with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but I do believe the music adds a level of flippancy that would not be there without it. I especially love the jazzy chorus work and, of course, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. Anachronistic but effective.
Any James Horner score, though they’re all pretty much the same anyway. Ditto for John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore.
When you really stop to think about it, no scored movie would really be the same without the music. I’ve always loved film score music and if I had any real talent, I’d love to be a film composer.
Don’t you just love it that when some commercial or sports show needs a lift into the epic level of significance, when the mood is to be heroic, that as often as not you’ll hear The Natural theme music? Chill bump city, even when used to pump up some trivial product or barely-worth-it sports story.
Weird - thinking about this, a movie that comes to mind is Blade Runner. On one hand, the Vangelis score is very effective in the way the OP describes. On the other hand, his heavy hand with the synths completely time-slots this movie in its era, which is really too bad - with the visual look and feel, if the music had been more timeless it would be very tough to tell when the movie was actually made…
