Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2

Exhibit number three: “Main Theme” from John Ottman’s The Usual Suspects.

Ah, the main title. It seems most movies these days opt to jump right into the action. I don’t necessarily take issue with that approach, but I do miss the possibility of great main title sequences—as do, I’m sure, today’s aspiring Saul Basses—and primarily because of the musical opportunity they afford. A good main title sequence gives the film’s composer a chance to establish a central theme (or several of them) up front like an overture, establish the mood of the movie, or plant the beginnings of an idea that will be developed or evolved throughout the course of the film. Along with a good old montage, it’s one of the few sequences in a film when the composer is (generally) not held captive by the picture and not restricted to hitting specific beats. They can thus write a complete piece of music, sometimes upwards of three minutes in length, with its own internal logic and form. For the composer (and film music fan), this is glorious. (We’ll talk about the demise of the original end credits music some other time.)

In his wonderfully entertaining and informative commentary on The Usual Suspects DVD, John Ottman extols the value of main title sequences (for basically the same reasons I just listed). In the case of this 1995 film—a great ensemble, neo-noir thriller with one of cinema’s classic twist endings—the tone Ottman wanted to set with his title music was that this was an elegant, romantic take on the genre. It was intentionally not a “hip” ’90s score or tone, because the whole film wanted to reach higher than that.

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During the opening titles (which is nothing more than the nighttime reflection of lights shimmering on black water), Ottman’s main theme for the movie plays in its entirety. Most of the other themes in the score derive from this piece of music, but here it is in its richest, most elegant wardrobe.

A simple, repeated piano figure ferries the theme, also played on piano. Navigating a succession of mysterious, almost magical chords, the melody evokes a sad and beautiful story, embellished with little flourishes. Strings roll in like the tide, a mournful cello line and then oboe glide under and through the openings of the piano’s song. A solo French horn punctuates the phrase.

Celli bow a stately fragment of the arpeggiating melody, the piano remaining present in the periphery. Then strings and flute return to the original statement of the theme, climaxing and splashing into a state of calm—the piano all the while still twirling, still moving. The piece seems to peter out, but morphs into another statement of the theme—performed by strings and a French horn—raising again the urgency and energy of the piece.

Still drifting along, the music then slips into the shadows, strings oscillating like the dark water as a lone oboe slithers on top, joined by a French horn and a slinking bassoon—like the unusual cast of suspects about to be introduced in the film. The title ebbs out with high flute and strings repeating echoes of the theme, with the low line of a contrabassoon adding nuance to the beauty with its dark mystique. A piano flourish appropriately caps the piece over a sustained minor chord.

Mystery, noir, elegance. This piece is proof that a good main title sequence can hook you right into a film, and that such sequences offer an opportunity ripe for a composer to establish a theme or mood. It’s also proof that John Ottman has great talent up his sleeves, and will hopefully have more chances to write this kind of classic film music.

(Examine the intro and first exhibit for this series.)

Exhibit number two: “Birth,” from Howard Shore’s Philadelphia.

I’m not wild about Howard Shore’s entire oeuvre, and compared to some people even my appreciation of The Lord of the Rings scores (undeniably his most impressive achievement to date) is tame. There’s no question he is incredibly gifted, and I do love how he invests a craftsman’s care and perfection into every aspect of his scores, but his voice only resonates with my tastes some of the time.

One such instance, though, is Philadelphia. I blindly picked up his original score (not to be confused with the ubiquitous song soundtrack) a few years ago at a used record store, and I warmed to it immediately. I’ve heard enough of his work now to recognize several Shore-isms in it, but this score stands apart with its own aural identity and holds a special place in my library. It is endowed with a sweet hopefulness—interestingly tinged with a dash of magic—and it shows off Shore’s wonderful ability at capturing a mood that is intimate and precious (pun regretfully intended).

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“Birth” is announced with a surge of optimism, a miniature melody reaching upwards as harp outlines two alternating chords. Then the key changes, and charmingly harmonized flute, keyboard, and cello (an appropriate ensemble for the smallness of the scene’s object) introduce another mini motif built on two chords. Strings fall in to reinforce the bowed line, and then the track settles into its home key and melodic purpose.

The score’s featured instrument, a solo trumpet, celebrates the birth with one of Philadelphia‘s recurring melodies—an extremely simple line that climbs up stepwise and then retraces its steps, and that, sung by the noble brass instrument, embodies the poignancy and hope attending the introduction of a new life. The jingled percussion and keyboard accompaniment give the track a contemporary sound, and strings are brought in to sweeten and fill out the sonic space. “Birth” then returns to the attitude of wonder it began with, to plucked harp and a swelling string line, before concluding on a brief and unresolved adagio.

The Philadelphia score has a strange palette, with its fairy tale wind chimes, solo trumpet, and ’90s keyboard—and its tone fluctuates between mystical, contemporary, melancholy, and hopeful. But somehow it all clicks into place to form a splendid whole, and along with Nobody’s Fool is one of Shore’s beautiful character explorations from the 1990s.

Listen up.

This is the first of a series I’d like to do, where I preach the good news of film music to you—one track at a time. My hope is that those who already like this stuff will either nod in agreement or be blessedly exposed to new scores or composers, and that those unconverted to the religion of the music of cinema will be transfixed and forever changed. These will be tracks that prove the genre very accessible, that give me extreme pleasure, and that demonstrate why I’m so hopelessly bewitched by this corner of music.

–

Exhibit number one: “The Caravan,” from Jerry Goldsmith’s The Mummy.

I never would have thought it possible, but Goldsmith has essentially caught up to the front winner in my heart (John Williams, who remains number one if only due to his seniority there). His melodies were masterful, his orchestration skills sublime, and his talents limitless. I love Goldsmith scores from the beginning of his long career to the end, and this action/adventure score from 1999 is no exception. The ’90s found Goldsmith “streamlining” his writing style, and even though some longtime fans lost interest in him as he shook off a few compositional complexities, I find the bulk of his ’90s output thoroughly engaging and chock full of gold.

The Mummy is a great amalgam of Jerry’s gifts writing for action, suspense, exotic locale, and romance, but my favorite track is “The Caravan,” a fantastic little set piece that quickens the ol’ heart rate.

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A solo flute begins the track, singing the score’s love theme—a hopeful, Egyptian-flavored melody—over a gentle breeze of strings. Then, percussion. Goldsmith had such a knack for finding the perfect rhythm for action set pieces, a meter that both hurtles the onscreen activity forward and engages the listener like an infectious pop hook. Here he layers complementary rhythms on different drums, ramping up the momentum, then fades in a simple, anticipatory motif in the indigenous “ethnic” mode.

Like an approaching caravan seen from a distance, a string chord slowly advances across this desert of rumbling percussion—then arrives in style with full-throated French horns and chorus heralding a glorious, serpentine motif. As only Goldsmith could do it, this procession seamlessly transitions into a more rapid, syncopated rhythm, strings gliding above the new pulse on wings. Retaining all the same elements, Goldsmith has the horns beating a quick and steady flow of notes and the chorus providing a grand counterpoint to the string melody. Then it’s over, and you just want more.

“The Caravan” is a two-minute blood rush of melody, rhythm, and immersion in an exotic culture. It’s a snapshot of Goldsmith’s compositional power, and a proof text for the gospel of film music.

I don’t consider myself a composer. There was a time when I thought I could make a pass at it—even applying to the composition program at the University of Pittsburgh. But after two years of college music theory and scoring several of my best friend’s student projects, I’m honest enough with myself to know I’m just not a composer. I can conjure up material in my head, and have the rudimentary know-how to translate that material into very simple music on paper—and I admit that as a film music fanatic I get a huge kick out of writing music to picture—but it shall ever remain nothing more than a cute little hobby.

At the height (or depth, depending on perspective) of my composing ambitions, I wrote the score for my friend’s 30-minute thesis film. This was the largest and longest assignment I’d ever tackled, and we had enough of a budget to recruit 25 players from a local university orchestra. This was my chance to write an epic orchestral film score, to unleash the powerful melodies in my soul, to subdue audiences into heavy sobbing, and to taste the rarified air reserved for my film composer heroes.

I jumped into the project with abandon. The film was about a modern-day prophet, receiving spiritual visions to expose the corruption in his church. There were angels, fiery sermons, dramatic yelling scenes, a villainous preacher, and even an aerial helicopter shot! The cinematic pickings were abundant for my old-fashioned melodies and harmonies, and I was determined to write something that would give John Williams goosebumps.

We had a budget, as I said, but it was only enough to pay the conductor and each student musician a grand total of $50 (maybe this, it seems to me now, is where my troubles began). Their contract was to include several rehearsals and a recording session, and the conductor wanted me to get him the music months in advance so they’d have plenty of time to work on it. I met his deadline, and all was well.

Then, for some unstated reason, my score collected dust in his office for those months, and he let me know they would only be rehearsing the material one time—mere days before recording. I let this news slide off my back, assuring myself that he and they were still professional enough to polish a performance worthy of Hollywood. I attended the one rehearsal, which he ran like a devil-may-care read-through, but I was still optimistic that the recording session would showcase their professionalism.

The morning of the session, my volunteer audio engineer and I set up all the mics, cables, chairs, and stands in a room the conductor told us we could use. After everything was meticulously arranged, we were told the room was reserved for use by another group, and had to break everything down and transfer to another room (with less space and much worse acoustics). We were also told that we only had the use of this room for an hour, because it too was reserved for another group. So we hastily set up in this subpar space, knowing we had to crank through 20+ minutes of music in a very short amount of time.

Composing the score, I had chosen to give several solos to the bassoon, inspired primarily by John Powell’s use of the mournful instrument in the Bourne films. It was the most featured instrument in the score, the musical voice of the main character—the very heart and soul of my work. This same morning of the recording session, the conductor informed me that the bassoonist couldn’t make it. He managed to wrangle up a clarinetist (or some other such wind player) with the promise that this guy could do the job. I heard this kid warming up on the bassoon, and it was like he’d never put his lips to any instrument in his life, so abysmal were the voice-cracking and farting noises emitting from the wooden canister.

And so it went. Rushing through the material this paltry group of student musicians had only run through once before, there was many a sour note from the strings, rhythmic inconsistencies aplenty, and the most violent aural assaults from the mouth of the bassoon—passages I had designed to coddle the listener’s heart like a newborn babe. In the moment of recording, I’ll admit, I was pleased with the performance. I think just hearing music I’d written played by a respectably sized orchestra was thrilling enough, and the basic gist of my intention was present enough, that I wasn’t hearing the musical bones cracking under this butcher’s axe.

It was when I got the audio files from my engineer and listened the first time that my own soul did, in fact, begin to heavily sob. But not because it was so beautiful, not because my passion and labor had been magically transmuted into sweet music. My music had been run through a sawmill of unprepared, amateur hands and lips, and the ability to recognize glimpses of the soul of what it could have been was made all the more excruciating by the sick, psychopathic killer’s body that it had inherited. My score, which (let’s be honest) probably wasn’t all that special to begin with, was now a mockery, a form of torture. A wild animal had ingested my heart, and this was it in chewed-up fragments in a pile of excrement.

Listen for yourself.

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I’m embarrassed to admit that, before I interviewed him in 2009, I had no idea who Marvin Hamlisch was. I did my homework, of course, and learned all about his Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Golden Globe, and Pulitzer in anticipation of our phone conversation about the score he wrote for Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!. The 65-year-old composer treated me like a pro, and gave me one of my earliest—and one of my best—interviews for Film Score Monthly Online.

When I heard his music for The Informant! the first time, I laughed out loud. Even without having seen the film, there was a joyous ridiculousness that bubbled over the brim of the score. “I’m a person who grew up really in love with the idea of a good melody,” he told me. “And everything I write, even when I’m doing these ditties like in this film, they all basically have a melody you can hook onto. Sometimes I miss that in movies. I miss the element of a real, honest-to-god melody.”

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We talked about the variety in his career, which he said was just the perfect way of staving off boredom. “There is something very joyous when I’m proud of my career,” he said, “that I could go from Chorus Line, to conducting for Barbara Streisand, to doing this Steven Soderbergh film, to conducting the Seattle Symphony tonight…It’s like having a four-lane highway which is all going into a tunnel of one lane. The lane you are always going into will be music—but you can come at it from four different ways. That’s what gives me, I think, the most joy.”

Marvin was the principal pops conductor for six different symphony orchestras around the country. “I have enough mileage to go back and forth to anywhere a million times,” he said. “I could go to Pluto tomorrow. It would be nice. I’d take economy.”

Twice during the interview he told me to call him after I’d seen the movie. So I did. Alison and I saw The Informant! the following night, and I called him and chatted about it on the drive home. That was definitely a first.

I discovered he was coming to Tampa (where I was living at the time) for a pops concert, and decided to call and ask if we could possibly get together. He told me just to call him on the morning of the show. So I did, and we arranged to meet for lunch in St. Petersburg.

Alison and I met Marvin at the Westin Hotel where he was staying, and ate in the seafood restaurant there. He let us fire away with questions, and I asked about his songwriting process. He asked if, when I drove a car, I went the same familiar route to every place. I said yes. He said with music, especially playing the piano, there’s a natural route to take, a familiar chord to always go to next. He said lately he’d been trying to avoid going to whatever that chord is. “If I’m on a G7,” he said, “I’m trying to avoid going to C now.”

Alison provided the feminine, non-geeky touch, and prompted Marvin to ramble wistfully about food and travel. He told us his favorite cities and countries in the world (he’d been just about everywhere)—the south of France, Sydney, Vancouver. If he was young, he said, he’d move to Australia—and he encouraged us to travel often and not worry about staying in inexpensive hotels.

I ordered a coffee after lunch, and he had a cappuccino. We lazily sat and talked for about an hour, and when the waiter brought the check Marvin took it and staunchly rested his arm on it while talking. As he opened the check holder I got out my wallet. He firmly told me, “Put your money away.” As we walked out of the restaurant, I quickly asked if we could get a picture with him. The girl at the concierge desk took a (blurry) photo of the three of us on Alison’s camera.

It wasn’t much, my interaction with Marvin Hamlisch. But this talented, medaled legend took an interest in my opinion, treated me with respect, took me out to lunch, and even tried to help me find work. When he died yesterday I certainly didn’t lose a friend—but it was also something not altogether different.