The Music of Films

I’m a big fan of the music behind some of my favourite films. My iPod is always primed to play the original orchestral score of master composer Hans Zimmer, or the emotive, big-stage dramatic strings of John Williams. There’s just something about the music that powers film that is at once emotive, gripping, and immersive.

When studying, I enjoy listening to the calming, mind-engaging (quite literally) sounds from Inception. It just somehow forces me into a contemplative mood. Off this soundtrack, Time, Old Souls, Paradox, Waiting for a Train and Radical Notion stand out. However, every single track is brilliant. Hans Zimmer truly is a genius at eliciting the soul in his compositions.

Then there is the new sounds of composers like Daft Punk, for Tron:Legacy which are really cool to listen to, and on a deeper level, engage you with instruments unconventional for film (in this case, electronic music with computers and synthesizers).

A piece that really showcases how transcending music from film can be, and how iconic it can be of a film, is definitely the Imperial March by John Williams, first heard in Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. It’s haunting, foreboding and just plain intrepid. Definitely a track with some serious street cred.

There’s so much I could say about the music of film, and perhaps I will write more about it soon, but for now: I’m going to retreat once again into my sonic world of film scores.

Responses

  1. […] I’ve written before about how much I admire the music of films. Not just the soundtracks, but the actual orchestral scores of certain good movies. A film like Star Wars has iconic music that has made the franchise instantly recognisable directly through its sonic vision. On the other hand, Quentin Tarentino’s Pulp Fiction has perhaps one of the best soundtracks to a film ever done – Dick Dale & His Del-Tones’ famous surf-rock guitars straining over the title sequence to the tune of Misirlou contributed significantly to crafting one of the most memorable openings for a film ever. […]

  2. […] I’ve written before about how much I admire the music of films. Not just the soundtracks, but the actual orchestral scores of certain good movies. A film like Star Wars has iconic music that has made the franchise instantly recognisable directly through its sonic vision. On the other hand, Quentin Tarentino’s Pulp Fiction has perhaps one of the best soundtracks to a film ever done – Dick Dale & His Del-Tones’ famous surf-rock guitars straining over the title sequence to the tune of Misirlou contributed significantly to crafting one of the most memorable openings for a film ever. […]

  3. #AmWriting: 10 Soundtracks to Write To | Pixelated Thinking Avatar

    […] I’ve written on the subject of film soundtracks before, and in this post I’ll highlight my favourite pieces to listen to while writing such monstrous things like a first draft manuscript. […]

Leave a reply to 5 Great Film Soundtracks and Scores | Pixelated Thinking Cancel reply