With his score for The Book Thief, John Williams earned his 49th Oscar nomination, adding to his impressive achievement as the second most Oscar-nominated individual in history behind only Walt Disney, who earned 59 nominations. As with so many of … Continue reading →
Miklós Rózsa won his third Academy Award for Best Music with the 1959 epic Ben-Hur. The music is often touted as Rózsa’s best film score and one of the finest in Hollywood’s history, in part due to “Rózsa’s ability to … Continue reading →
Erich Korngold’s music for the The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) remains one of his most admired and enduring film scores. Indeed, the score was awarded the Oscar for Best Original Score and is one of the best examples … Continue reading →
While films of the 1930s and 40s were mainly furnished with orchestral music, they also drew upon popular songs. These films, however, made a major distinction between these two types of music: whereas orchestral music usually provided the non-diegetic accompaniment, … Continue reading →
In most analyses, how film music is used is divided into two categories: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic music is understood to emanate from a source in the fictional narrative or “diegesis”. Hence it is also known as “source music”. These … Continue reading →
The term leitmotif was first applied to the operas of Richard Wagner to describe a recurring melody that is associated with a certain character, people, object, place, emotion, or idea. The leitmotif has long been a standard technique of how … Continue reading →
