So why are the film scores to blockbuster superhero films so undistinguished? You know something’s got to be wrong when Patrick Doyle, one of the screen’s great melodists (he wrote the music for “Henry V,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” and “Sense and Sensibility”), succumbs to a bludgeoning drum beat for “Thor.” One thing’s for certain, we are a long, long way from John Williams’ “Superman” (1978), which proved, even in its most intimate scenes, how indelible and uplifting a superhero score could be.
To be fair, there isn’t a lot of room in contemporary superhero films for the music to breathe, the scores often swallowed up by hyperkinetic editing and ear-splitting sound effects. For a composer’s contribution to be heard, he needs to be pounding the biggest drum – even if it’s an electronic drum – in the room.
If there is melody, it is either cranked out of a noodle press, someone running their fingers mindlessly across a keyboard with no concept of how a true melody is structured, or limited to a recurring motif (as in “The Avengers”), as if the composer is embarrassed to let his score “sing.” Alan Silvestri, composer for “The Avengers,” wrote the music for “Back to the Future,” for crying out loud! His scores since at least “Van Helsing” (2004) have been horrifying assaults. He was given the chance to write a good old-fashioned march for “Captain America,” but the film itself was a self-conscious throwback, directed by Lucas and Spielberg associate Joe Johnston.
So who decided audiences were fed up with grand, post-romantic, orchestral scores? What film composer has sold more albums than John Williams? What composer is more represented in a list of top-grossing films of all time? Who doesn’t love “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” and “Harry Potter?” I’m not saying every score has to be like those, but the majority of scores these days sound as if they are churned out on a synthesizer – which may very well be the case. Sure, the composer, as the last in the post-production assembly line, has to deliver very quickly, but Jerry Goldsmith churned out plenty of memorable music at white heat.
The sad fact of the matter is that the bean-counters have figured out that music no longer has to make much of an impression for a film to make a billion dollars worldwide. Also, if a composer no longer requires extensive training, then anyone can sit down and noodle something out on their computer – which is why so many rock musicians are now on the rise as film composers. Think back on the incredibly rich scores by Erich Wolfgang Korngold or Miklós Rózsa or Bernard Herrmann or Andre Previn, and measure their contributions against just about anything being written today. These guys were honest-to-goodness geniuses at their craft.
Hans Zimmer, who, by his own admission doesn’t have the chops to write on Williams’ level, as far as orchestral scores are concerned, helped sow the seeds of destruction by demonstrating that synthesizers and electronic sampling by a team of composers would be perfectly acceptable to most audiences. When producers have the choice between hiring out to Zimmer’s studio or leasing the London Symphony Orchestra, who are they going to go with? It could take a composer, working with a trusted orchestrator, a good month or more to come up with a polished score. Using electronics, music can be cranked out like sausages, and today’s audiences are only too ready to gobble them down.
Okay, that’s my rant. Here’s a related piece on how cannibalized temp tracks have helped keep Marvel movies at a level of musical mediocrity.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/12/12893622/hollywood-temp-scores-every-frame-a-painting-film
