Getting the Score

A new article in Variety online hits the nail on the head about the modern state of film scoring. One of the best, most succinct pieces I have read on the subject.

Read it.

The I ask you, what kind of director are you? One that realizes the power that music and melody can have on the emotional response to your film, or one that thinks no one cares anyway.

Would Psycho have been Psycho, Jaws been Jaws, Indiana Jones been so exciting and The Magnificent Seven been as magnificent without the music?

No. I am sure of it. No.

Oh, they would still have been good films, but music is that magic ingredient that makes everything come alive. Steven Spielberg was right, music is the soul of a movie, and to capture that soul you need a special kind of composer, not someone who, as Richard Bellis says in the Variety Article “selects music.”

You need a composer.