I was wondering what film music might have entered into the main stream of the average listener.  So thought this might be a good time to ponder this question. 

The themes or pieces should be something likely to be heard either in concert regularly or recorded.. 

Some to get started:

Gone With the Wind: Tara's Theme
Spellbound:  Spellbound Concerto
Laura: Theme
Vertigo: Scene d'amour
The Pink Panther: Theme
The Magnificent Seven: Main Title
Star Wars: Main Title
Superman: March

The months from late February into April are usually a real drought for film music fans.  Most of the films early on were released late in a wider audience, or there are the typical diversionary genre films: romantic comedy, teen comedy, thriller-of-the-week, kid flick,etc.  So far things are right on schedule for us to be enticed by the earlier blockbuster schedules picking up into May and heading into the summer. 

What spawned my thoughts for today related to having recently reviewed the new Mark Mancina score for Shooter.  Mancina has written great action scores for the films Twister and Speed most notably so I was somewhat surprised to see a new score-only release of his music.  It's rare enough to warrant attention on its own really.  But then as I listened to this score I realized that it is the perfect example of what is wrong with film music.  There is absolutely nothing to make this score stand out in anyway.  There is so little of Mancina's own style and sound in this music as to make it virtually unrecognizable to any one.  It is the same complaint one could level at Blanchard's score for last year's Inside Man or Desplat's score for Firewall. 

Truthfully, you could almost level it at Shire's music for Zodiac.  But I do not think that Shire's score does what most composers with less experience can do.  Shire's score relies much more on acoustical instrumentation than most standard Hollywood fare, and it is in the orchestration where one gets to at least hear a master at work.  Mancina's score has moments of this on disc, especially in the last half of the release itself.  But, like Shire's score, it too must play to the producer and director wishes.  Nondescript, themeless music is not bad on its own, but it makes it more difficult to enhance a film by creating connections on larger scales that can draw attention to other subtleties. 

In the Inside Film Music book posted earlier on this blog, one reads composer after composer commenting on how hard it is to be able to create a score that allows there own professional talent to be employed.  Brian Tyler, whose music I admire, is introduced with the comment that his music can sound like anyone elses...not sure that that was praise necessarily. 

So I do not believe that using just electronic sounds and ambient music is a bad thing--just listen to most any Isham score.  The problem lies in technique and if our directors just want background noise to fill poorly playing scenes they have missed the point of what music can provide to a film.  And let's face it, 95% of the movies that are made are by today's directors simply do not have the skill or ability of those who were developing film as a new media form in the 1930s-1970s. 

Not really a lament as such.  I think we are in a transitional time in film.  I do believe though that if we do not allow creativity at all levels of the film making process we will lose something.  Heck, even in the 1970s-1990s a bad movie still often had at least one redeeming factor, its soundtrack.  I'm not sure the same could be said these days and this at a time when more scores are being released than ever before.  It's all rather odd don't you think?