Continuing my series about my favourite composers comes a post on the work of James Newton Howard who has had a long and varied film career. One of the best elements of his music is his ability to highlight emotion within huge blockbuster movies like The Hunger Games, King Kong or The Dark Knight. He is also known for his frequent colloboration with director, M. Night Shyamalan.
Honorable mentions: The Fugitive, Atlantis, Fantastic Beasts, Detroit, Nightcrawler, The Sixth Sense
8. 'Rue's Farewell': The Hunger Games
Though the latter Hunger Games movies released at a time where the popularity of Young Adult properties had begun to decline, the first movie was a sensation that launched Jennifer Lawrence's career as one of the most prominent actresses working today.
James Newton Howard's score for the first film is one I revisit frequently and 'Rue's Farewell' in particular has lost none of its power or emotion.
7. 'Those We Do Not Speak Of': The Village
As seen later on in this list, Howard has frequently collaborated with horror director M. Night Shyamalan. The Village is a movie that blends a period drama with Shyamalan's traditional horror storytelling and Howard's score masterfully balances that blend.
'Those We Do Not Speak Of' begins as a horror piece- more akin to something like The Sixth Sense- but (at the 2 min 36 sec mark) as Lucius grabs Ivy's hand in the scene, the music transitions to a stunning violin composition that seems like it belongs more to Sense and Sensibility than a Shyamalan horror.
6. 'Fairy Dance': Peter Pan
'Fairy Dance' from the 2003 adaptation of Peter Pan is an incredibly beautiful track that feels delicate, light and magical without being overly sentimental. This score *feels* like childhood innocence and is a perfect fit for a fairytale like Peter Pan.
5. 'Central Park': King Kong
Peter Jackson's take on King Kong is a grand, sweeping action-adventure film which involves lengthy battles between dinosaurs and Kong, giant insect attacks and the iconic Empire State building show down. In amongst all that, Howard's score accentuates some of the more emotional moments in the story, contributing to the impact of the story's tragic ending. In fact, it's hard to believe such a gentle, sentimental score belongs to a huge blockbuster movie about a giant gorilla.
4. 'Eptisicus': Batman Begins (with Hans Zimmer)
Batman Begins marked the first collaboration between composers Howard and Hans Zimmer, who had always wanted to work together. The mixture of their different styles results in a soundtrack that is simultaneously epic and personal.
One such score is Eptisicus (every track is named after a species of bat) which is a piece of music that somehow encompasses both the loss of Bruce Wayne's parents and also his transition into the caped crusader. A highlight of the piece comes at 1 min 28 sec (above); the gentle piano notes that accompany a flashback of Thomas Wayne giving his son a stethoscope gives the scene a weight and melancholy despite the limited screentime Bruce's parents get.
3. 'The Orange Man': Unbreakable
James Newton Howard's score for Unbreakable is one of the most underrated movie soundtracks out there. It is an utterly remarkable score that adds so much to every scene it features in.
'The Orange Man' plays during the climactic fight of the story. All that we see on screen is a continuous shot of David, our protagonist, struggling to subdue a man who is fighting back. Yet somehow, the music and the build up of story so far leads to an incredibly cathartic moment in the film.
2. 'Watch the World Burn': The Dark Knight
In amongst the chaotic, electric noises that signify Joker's theme and the bold motifs that are associated with Batman, comes Harvey Dent's theme. At first played to highlight his unwavering moral compass, the music takes a dark turn during the final scene of the film. 'Watch the World Burn' is one of my favourite compositions of the trilogy due to its simplicity. Combining the music with Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman's magnificent performances makes for a tragic, tense and unforgettable scene.
1. 'Hand of Fate Parts 1 & 2': Signs
Signs is one of my favourite movies of all time and its soundtrack forms a significant part of the reason why (along with the characters, directing, writing etc). The music that plays over the opening credits pays homage to the work of Bernard Hermann in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and helps to instill a building sense of tension through the film.
On the flip side, Signs is first and foremost a story about a family reeling from the loss of a close family member; James Newton Howard is able to blend the horror elements of the score with cathartic emotion- all of this culminating in 'Hand of Fate Parts 1 and 2'. As pointed out by a Youtube commenter on the above video, Howard is able to transition the same three note melody to make it horrifying, touching, creepy, triumphant and reflective, making this one of the best film scores I have ever heard.
Thank you for reading this article- find the previous two in the series here:
I do not own any of the images or videos used in this post.