Score Masters: A Celebration of Music in Film
8 December 2020
February marks the birthday month of film composers John Williams and the late Jerry Goldsmith, and we're celebrating with a special weekend of films devoted to the work of both artists. SCORE MASTERS: JOHN WILLIAMS & JERRY GOLDSMITH commences a regular strand bringing the art of film scoring to the forefront and we're delighted to launch with the support of The Legacy of John Williams and The Goldsmith Odyssey.
Widely regarded by many as the most accomplished film composer of all time, John Williams has lent his musical personality to cinematic legends like Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Superman and Darth Vader. With 52 Academy Award nominations he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. In 2005 the American Film Institute selected Williams’ score to George Lucas’ 1977 STAR WARS as the greatest score of all time. The U.S. Library of Congress also entered the STAR WARS soundtrack album into the National Recording Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Williams’ extraordinary list of musical achievements include scores to films as varied as JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, HOME ALONE, IMAGES, DRACULA, THE TOWERING INFERNO, FAR AND AWAY, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and SCHINDLER’S LIST, for which he won his fifth Oscar.
Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004) was an American composer whose big break came with the television series, PLAYHOUSE 90 in the 1950s. He followed this with an increasing roster of TV work including DR. KILDARE, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE MAN FROM UNCLE, THE WALTONS, BARNABY JONES and many more. Goldsmith’s early film scores were delicate, quiet or atonal works, informed by his decade in television. His intimate score for 1962’s LONELY ARE THE BRAVE brought widespread recognition and in 1968 he began a long, fruitful collaboration with director, Franklin J. Schaffner with PLANET OF THE APES. This relationship went on to deliver such cinematic classics as PATTON, PAPILLON, ISLANDS IN THE STREAM and THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL.
At the time of his passing in 2004, Goldsmith had received 18 Academy Award nominations (he won only one, for director Richard Donner’s THE OMEN), and had scored 200 films including five STAR TREK films, the RAMBO trilogy and the OMEN trilogy. He also left behind a legacy of collaborations with some of cinema’s most distinguished directors including Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and Michael Winner. Goldsmith's ability to quickly provide beautiful, effective scores, sometimes in a matter of days, earned him the catchphrase "don't worry, Jerry will fix it".
Tickets are available now for the scheduled films with more to be announced shortly.