Cause and Effect

Let’s All Go to the Movies with DJ Miss Kitty

Sat, Oct 7, 2023

cats in a movie theatre

Join DJ Miss Kitty as she explores a brief history of music in film from the 1930s-2000s. Starting with film scoring of the late 30s/40s, composers during this period almost exclusively wrote original orchestral pieces to accompany a film. We’ll hear from highly influential composers from the time like Max Steiner and Alfred Newman. We then move to film scoring that is more influenced by pop and jazz during the 1950s-60s with well-known hits from masters like Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, and Ennio Morricone. The late 60s and early 70s began to include original music featuring vocals from famous artists like Simon & Garfunkle, Curtis Mayfield, and Jimmy Cliff. These soundtracks were famous in their own right, independent from the movies that featured them.  During the 1970s New Hollywood era, film music headed in two concurrent, divergent directions with the incorporation of synthesizers and a return to classic scoring with the likes of John Carpenter and John Williams.

The 1980s ring in the “jukebox” era of movie soundtracks. The 1980s are full of song-laden soundtracks, most of which were not produced to accompany a film, but are used to punctuate the film’s plot. Due to advancing digital technology—”especially sampling and computer-based sequencing—the 1980s also saw the proliferation of synthesizer-heavy scores. Notably: Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981), The Terminator (Brad Fiedel, 1984), Blade Runner (Vangelis, 1982), and Tron (1982, Wendy Carlos.) Jerry Goldsmith’s work on the Star Trek film series (1979 onward) explores the possibilities of fusing orchestral sounds with electronic elements.” The 1990s-2000s saw a boon in hit movie soundtracks that seemed to define generations through popular music of the time like Trainspotting or Clueless or evoke the nostalgia of simpler times like in the popular movies Dazed & Confused and Jackie Brown.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2005/10/27/4976727/the-evolution-of-movie-soundtracks

The Fi Hall of Fame: A Brief History of Film Music

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