I
have to say that Thomas Newman is one of my favorite film composers. From the
moment I first saw Scent of a Woman (1992),
I knew this man had a gift when it came to capturing true human emotion and
conveying it musically.
Newman
comes from a family of successful film composers including his father, Alfred
Newman, who worked for years as the music director at 20th-Century
Fox and composed their theme. Alfred is known to have worked alongside major
names including George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin.
Though
Thomas Newman originally sought work on Broadway (Stephen Sondheim was his
mentor), he sort of fell into film when offered the chance to score the 1984
drama Reckless. Since then, he has
many major film scores to his credit including Wall-E (2008), Erin
Brockovich (2000), The Green Mile (1999),
The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Finding Nemo (2003) and Saving Mr. Banks (2013).
Working
from his father’s studio at his childhood home in Los Angeles, Newman has
developed the skill of creating a score that adds to a motion picture without
getting in the way. The Shawshank
Redemption, for instance, contains deep visual emotion. Rather than
competing with it, Newman created music that enhances it.
Newman’s
compositional style varies somewhat depending on the film he is working on.
Some films, like Little Women, use a
19th-century-sounding orchestra. Other films, such as Unstrung Heroes, use unique instruments such as the zither, hurdy-gurdy, psaltery,
and hammered dulcimer.
Some
of his scores reflect the film’s geographical location such as the sounds of
the south in The Green Mile while
others sound more minimalistic like American
Beauty:
Despite
these variances, I believe all of Newman’s work equally shares his ability to
capture the deepest of emotions for the listener. Do you have a favorite Thomas
Newman soundtrack that you find especially moving?
