Score: A Film Music Documentary

“The composer is a storyteller,” says film composer Marco Beltrami (Logan) in filmmaker Matt Schrader's engaging and illuminating documentary Score, which takes viewers behind-the-scenes to explore both the art and craft of composing film scores. Originally, film music served a quite different purpose: in the early days of silents, the playing by the pianist or organist was used to cover up the sound of the projector. Max Steiner changed the course of film music with his sweeping orchestral score for King Kong (1933), which made lush multi-instrumental music a mainstay in film, finding its contemporary apex in the music of John Williams (Star Wars, E.T., Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark), who is the most famous and influential film composer alive today. Schrader pays tribute to the greats of yore—including Bernard Herrmann (Psycho), Alfred Newman (How the West Was Won), Alex North (A Streetcar Named Desire), Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), and Jerry Goldsmith (Planet of the Apes)—while also interviewing contemporary masters such as Danny Elfman (Edward Scissorhands), Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight), Rachel Portman (Chocolat), Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings), Trent Reznor (The Social Network), and Randy Newman (Toy Story), backed by numerous illustrative film clips. The Newmans actually form something of a film-composing dynasty that includes besides Alfred's nephew Randy his own sons Thomas (American Beauty) and David (Ice Age). Also featuring a remembrance of the late James Horner (Titanic), this entertaining and insightful history will make viewers listen more closely as they watch movies. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)