Film Music (Pocket Essentials•Music) by Paul Tonks

Author:Paul Tonks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: music
Published: 2024-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

5. Romance Ain’t Dead

The 70s began without any clear sense of identity or belonging. Studio music departments had been dissolved for some time, so composers were roving freelancers. Young blood was welcome. There would be careers to make a stand in the middle of the free-for-all, and we’ll look at John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Homer shortly. As we enter the decade however, and determine what were the noteworthy soundtracks, you’ll see that there’s never been a more wretched time for humdrum and miscellany.

Let’s look at some of the standout cult highlights. In 1971, Stanley Kubrick adapted the classics again for A Clockwork Orange. The works of Beethoven, Rossini, and Elgar found nowhere near the level of favour that 2001 had on record though, and the film famously died a death of moral outrage. Another expression of social dissatisfaction came in Michael Caine’s grittiest character role in Get Carter. The jazzy, harpsichord-laced music from British composer Roy Budd made the vengeful thug seem even tougher. It was a score that found renewed appeal in the late 90s when a series of Budd’s work appeared on CD. Shaft was another cool cat patrolling the streets that year, backed by a tune that was finger-clicking good. Isaac Hayes won a Best Song Oscar for the single and album that topped US charts.

John Carpenter made his sit-up-and-take-notice debut as director and composer in 1973 with Dark Star. His simplistic synthesiser scores would have tremendous impact on a film music scene rapidly falling in love with electronic overlays. The following year David Shire applied the 12-tone method of composition (see The Cobweb in Chapter 3) to the noisy subway heist thriller The Taking Of Pelham 123. Then in 1975 came a surreal and kinky reminder that the Musical could still work on big screen, with the outrageous Rocky Horror Picture Show. Visually (and often musically) it followed in the footsteps of the monster flicks of the 50s, but its real legacy was in encouraging audience participation to an unprecedented level. The decade’s other Rocky came a year later, and introduced beefcake Sylvester Stallone as a boxing champ from the Philadelphia slums. Bill Conti’s training montage fanfare is one more instantly recognisable motif to perfectly capture an activity (ring fighting) and an emotion (the loser triumphs). 1976 was also the year of Bernard Herrmann’s final score. He’d been one of the composers hit hardest by the move away from earlier musical styles. Sadly he died just as he’d found a comfortable go-between of jazz-fused pop and orchestra for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The tortured saxophone that portrays Robert DeNiro’s inner pain is a poignant tribute. Not only did he die before hearing his music to film and miss the universal acclaim it received, but if he’d lived on a few years he’d have seen a return of those musical styles and values he deplored the loss of.

Beyond these, the few about to follow, and what’s already been covered in scattered fashion in Chapter 4, there really isn’t much more to talk about for the first half of the 70s.

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