The Day(s) the (Film) Music Died

On July 21st, Jerry Goldsmith, who composed a number of film scores including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien and the Rambo movies died at age 75. Last Tuesday, Elmer Bernstein, who did scores for alot of films from The Magnificent Seven to Ghostbusters died at age 82. Aside from John Williams and Danny Elfman, these 2 were my all time favorite film composers.

What made me write about these two legendary men was the fact going through my brain that as much as they have done in Hollywood, there are not very well known outside of that. When people think of a film composer, the first person they think of is John Williams thanks to such famous scores for Jaws, Star Wars and even the Harry Potter films. But as much as a treasure he is, to me Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Bernstein should be just as famous.

Jerry Goldsmith, in my opinion, was John Williams before John Williams was JOHN WILLIAMS. Before the shark went in the water, we was THE "A" list composer for genre films scores from Planet of the Apes to The Omen, for which he won an Oscar. This is not even counting the impact he has made on the Star Trek universe. His themes resonate through fandom and was not above taking a mocking shot at his own scores (Using a silly version of his Rambo theme in his score for Gremlins 2).

Listening to an Elmer Bernstein score was the first time I realized that film music was an important part of the film watching experience. I was very young and watching an old John Wayne movie called The Comancheros on TV. What drew me to that film was the rousing score. I watched the film again recently and still found the score a great part of that film. He was also the most versatile composers in Hollywood scoring Epics (The Ten Commandments), Dramas (To Kill a Mockingbird), and countless shows and films for television. He was also a little ahead of his time scoring films that used a heavy dose of songs (Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters) which is commonplace now but at the time was very unusual.

It's nice that we have what these two men gave us but sad that we will no longer get any more. RIP, guys.