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The 25 Greatest Film Composers In Cinema History


filmmusic

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This was brought to my attention by Robert Folk's facebook profile.

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/the-25-greatest-film-composers-in-cinema-history/

John Williams is in number

3

The one I don't know at all is an Indian one..

Any omissions?

Hmmmm...

Alex North and Miklos Rozsa should be there too!

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Meh. What is the point of these lists?

From what I understand people these days have hard time reading anything that isn't a list. It's what gets most hits on the net.

Karol

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There's no other place for JW but at # 1 for Star Wars alone . It looks like he wrote the whole article to place Ennio in the #1 spot to look like he "knows better" . You THOUGHT this guy would be #1 ?(he says talking about JW) . Of course he is. Ennio has not a well known score except Once Upon in the West and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

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There's no other place for JW but at # 1 . He placed Ennio at #1 just to be dick and look like he "knows better" . Ennio has not a well known score except Once Upon in the West and The God, The Bad and the Ugly

He's definitely not "top" over JW, neither is Steiner

Oh I don't know about that, KM. John Williams is popular among film goers, but Ennio is a real pop star known to wide group of people. Can't really determine if he's more popular, but he does have a lot to show for it.

Karol

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Ennio has not a well known score except Once Upon in the West and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, The Untouchables, Battle for Algiers etc.

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I think a proper ranking should rank the most skillfull composer first!

Not the one that has the most popular (or iconic) scores.

So, ask yourselves who do you think is the most skillful.

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Ennio has not a well known score except Once Upon in the West and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, The Untouchables, Battle for Algiers etc.

Those aren't well known

I think a proper ranking should rank the most skillfull composer first!

Not the one that has the most popular (or iconic) scores.

So, ask yourselves who do you think is the most skillful.

JW exceeds Ennio Morricone by lightyears, Morricone can wrote pretty main themes (occasionally) and that's it

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Yes, i agree with crocodile (or Karol) on this.

People that don't know anything about film music, know Morricone (and may not know at all who Williams is).

One explanation I have is that the spaggheti westerns are more popular among "the guys", than Star Wars, or Superman, or Indiana Jones etc., so they know him from there.

Also Morricone's music is more easy listening music than Williams'.

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It's the same handful of themes. Once Upon in the West, The Good the Bad and the Ugly,The Mission and the rest of the c.d. you skip over

I remember I had a Morricone compilation a long time ago and I'd skip most of the tracks


One explanation I have is that the spaggheti westerns are more popular among "the guys", than Star Wars, or Superman, or Indiana Jones etc., so they know him from there.

Also Morricone's music is more easy listening music than Williams'.

Jaws

Star Wars

E.T.

Indiana Jones

Superman

Jurassic Park

Harry Potter

That comprise more of an audience than "spaghetti westerns"

I'd say Hans Zimmer probably deserves more of a top spot than Morricone even if I hate his music

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What do they know from Williams then? Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Back to the Future, Titanic and Star Trek.

I was told the other day by one friend that he really liked that Harry Potter theme by Alan Silvestri. And that person is far from film ignorant. In fact, in general I'd say he knows more than most of us. But people don't care about film music and Williams is just another name for them.

Karol

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Also in terms of iconic status, Maurice Jarre and John Barry probably top Morricone too

Morricone is probably one of the most overrated film composers. As I said some of his themes are absolutely gorgeous, but they are far in between a truck load of mediocre crap. The "underscore" portion of his scores is unlistenable outside of the films

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Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact he's the only film composer (with the exception of Williams, to some extent) that broke into the mainstream. Popular artist record cover of his music and he's considered hip. The audience at the recent concert I attended absolutely went nuts.

It's not a matter of taste, it's a fact.

Karol

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No, but film score fans group is probably only a few thousand people around the world.

Romeo and Juliet is often mentioned as one of the finest film scores ever written, though.

Karol

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oh wait he placed Nino Rota at # 5. NINO ROTA???? What the hell has he composed besides the Godfather theme

Rota's more of a cinephile's composer, if you get what I mean. A bit like Herrmann in that respect, but more obscure to the Anglosphere because he's foreign.

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So what, did you ever hear a film score fan mention these?

You'd be truly ignorant looking down on Rota and his scores for Fellini and Romeo and Juliet. Especially the latter one is an absolute masterpiece.

But aside from that argument: Thomas Newman ranked higher than Danny Elfman, and Menken higher than Horner ... mmmmkay.

And Newton-Howard and Silvestri (based on The Avengers and Cap America?) make it into the list while Henry Mancini and Alex North don't? Fucking moron.

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Why not just say "here is a list of 25 composers"?

Yeah, sure, and why not say: "Here's a list of 25 random dudes"?

The 25 Greatest Random Dudes in Human History.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold should be higher. (On the composers' list; not sure about the random dudes' one.)

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