"The Big Three" of film music?

I would say the three most influential (in terms of shaping and changing the industry) are:

King Kong (Max Steiner, 1933)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Alex North, 1951)
Star Wars (John Williams, 1977)

If I were to add a fourth then it would probably be some seminal Hans Zimmer/Media Ventures score, perhaps The Rock (1996) or Crimson Tide (1995).

Yes, if the topic was 'most influential' or 'biggest gamechangers', those are certainly good suggestions. But I'm not sure that's what Stephano was after.

Metropolis was scored by Gottfried Huppertz. I am not aware, that Max Steiner ever worked in Germany. He lived in England after leaving his native Austria and before going to the US.

Well, the gamechangers are the most influential scores, aren't they. So I think I side with Edmund.

The most essential "film scores" probably are the operas by Richard Wagner.

Volker

Scores that changed everything?

How about THE JAZZ SINGER?

Everyone always says Star Wars but I don't think it really influenced things all that much, did it? It was an influence I'm sure in the sense that it inspired people to want to be film composers, or just inspired them to be fans of film music, but it didn't have the impact on other film music that some other things did - or did it? Apart from the obvious ripoffs in D-rate films. It's not like say Gladiator or American Beauty, which hugely influenced a large number of things (or going further back, the obvious early Steiner or Bernstein/North of the 50s).

I don't know...I think without Star Wars (or, better said, the great Williams period of the late 70s, early 80s in general), we wouldn't have seen the rise of composers like James Horner or Alan Silvestri. Both of them got their careers started on the backs of sci-fi projects that called for similar large-scale, fanfare-heavy orchestral scores. It's not in the sense of direct temp-track rips or anything like the ones you mentioned, but I don't think they, or people like Joel McNeely, John Debney, Bruce Broughton, David Arnold even, would have had careers if Williams didn't repopularize the orchestral leitmotif score the way he did.

American Beauty is certainly in the running for the top ten most influential scores, though, if not the top three.

I think with the rise of composers like Horner and Silvestri, they weren't necessarily influenced by the sound of Star Wars, but more the traditional, thematic 'up front' approach to scoring that Star Wars set in motion. And composers like those you mentioned were/are influenced by Williams' sound in general rather than Star Wars specifically.

But with the Bourne scores' ostinati, the Batman scores' 'anti-themes', and the God-awful HORN OF DOOM, these are styles and specific techniques which seem to be continually getting repeated, and it's in that sense that these scores have probably been more influential than Star Wars.

I hope that's true! Gives new meaning to the first Star Wars' full title. (Although I still prefer to call it just 'Star Wars'. Fuck Lucas.)

I'd have problems with adding Silvestri and Horner to the mould, because while, OK, Horner did start with some orchestral music at the beginning of his career, but he also did some of the electronica of the era (anyone complaining how electronic Horner's scores are today, should take a look at his 1980s output where he could pull out something like Krull and Red Heat in the course of 1-2 years). Silvestri started writing real orchestral music also relatively late, starting out with the electronica early on.

I wonder what Jerry Goldsmith score proved very influential in the era. Barry has played with electronics since the 1960s and probably was the first one to introduce pronounced synthesizers in both period pieces (The Lion in Winter!) and action films (On Her Majesty's Secret Service was a very brave move at the time, wasn't it?). So the idea of a synth/orchestral hybrid was quite there since the 1960s. We can't also ignore the appearance of theremin in major scores, courtesy of Rozsa and Herrmann.

There are things I really wonder about when it comes to impact in film scoring. We have, obviously, Barry, but - a composer I know far too weakly - Lalo Schifrin also experimented quite a bit with orchestration and synthesis, or just with orchestral instruments. Jerry Goldsmith single-handedly (I think!) introduced MIDI, having played with old Apple computers back in the 1980s, so I don't know if the demo revolution wasn't at least influenced by him.

Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Well, of course, the Robert Wise film wouldn't have been made without Star Wars and everyone admits that the film was greenlit because of Lucas' film. Goldsmith himself admitted that the John Williams score showed him that space can be scored in a more romantic idiom and the composer David Newman (not everyone here may know - a violinist in the score's orchestra) said that this was a game changer for Goldsmith, who started writing in a more romantic idiom ever since, rather than being the modernist he was though the sequels.

Let's also point out that not just SF was influenced by George Lucas. A certain throwback to Golden Age appeared, not just in music. Had there been no Star Wars, we wouldn't have Indiana Jones. And not just because Lucas invented and produced the trilogy.

Of course, today we have the Hans Zimmer revolution, that actually happened way earlier than today (Steven talked so much about the ostinato/horn of doom stuff, but let's also look at how Journey to the Line influenced dramatic writing, not just his own!). American Beauty was a huge influence, but as Thomas Newman recently stated it was temped with... True Romance (which would explain the marimba galore in that score). I can't wait for Alexandre Desplat to make a temp influence.

No, the MIDI technology was first used extensively by electronica artists or pop producers like Moroder and Faltermeyer. It is true that Goldsmith -- who always enjoyed fooling around with technology -- jumped on the bandwagon relatively early, but he did so quite unsuccessfully, in my opinion; he never quite grasped its idiosyncracies (I know this is a view that provokes a lot of people, but I stand firm in it).



Really? Was that the THR roundtable discussion where he said that?

Of course, the main TRUE ROMANCE theme was itself an adaptation of Orff's "Gassenhauer" used so wonderfully in Malick's BADLANDS. And the Orff piece was, in turn, inspired by some piece from the 1500s whose name escapes me (and I'm too lazy to google right now).

double post.

Re: Jerry Goldsmith's use of MIDI



It's possible!? The first score I thought of when reading your comment was RUNAWAY*, a 100% synth score where you can hear where Jerry would put strings, brass etc if he'd intended it for orchestra.

*I have to say it's a score I loathe.

Thor, that's almost as difficult as asking what the most influential scores were/are.

I'd say that I was well read in film music history but I wouldn't say I was qualified as a film music historian - I think that a broader musical experience/education would be needed so that what's happened in film music can be assessed in a wider context.

My own feel is that it's difficult to put forward most of the current composers here because their influence on current trends clouds any assessment of their influence in the history of film music. There does need to be an element of hindsight to really assess the subject.

If I had to give a couple of examples of influential soundtracks I'd maybe suggest Forbidden Planet and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I don't think that score's ability to start off a slew of imitations is a good indication of a meaningful influence in film music. It's more a comment on the director/producer.

But then that knocks my 2001 listing for six!

I was hoping that the initial question was related to a score's influence within other composers.