further readings: Bernard Herrmann

With so many screenings devoted to composer Bernard Herrmann, it's high time I gave you all something to think about when you're watching his films at the Trylon, Riverview or the Walker this month (Citizen Kane is screening at the Walker tonight at 7:30).

First, we got some local coverage for all the Herrmann happenings around town, including this article from MinnPost, which focuses both on his only opera as well as the man himself:

One of Herrmann's hallmarks was his sensitivity to orchestration — unlike most film composers, he did his own orchestrations. They often involved unusual sounds: the shrieking strings in the famous shower scene of "Psycho," an effect unprecedented in film at the time, or the ominous low woodwinds that open "Citizen Kane," a device Herrmann repeats in the prelude to "Wuthering Heights" in a five-note theme that runs through the entire opera. For "Taxi Driver" he composed a jazz score, while for "Torn Curtain" he used the strange combination of 16 horns and 12 flutes. And right from the start of his film career, Herrmann wrote in short, atmospheric phrases, at a time — the early '40s — when film composers such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner filled the soundtrack with almost continuous music in a largely Viennese style, a practice that actors sometimes resented. Said Bette Davis, "What that awful music does is erase the actor's performance note by note."

TC Daily Planet interviews opera expert Phillip Gainsley, who's discussing Herrmann at the Rimon Artist Salon on April 10th:

Most composers wrote background music. Bernard Herrmann wrote music expressing the emotions of his character: Citizen Kane, Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Taxi Driver. He wrote the music as the movies were being shot. His music underscores the action. Herrmann was an unsung hero. He never got his due with his other works as he did with film, especially those he did with Hitchcock. He wanted to be accepted as a classical composer, but he was never taken seriously. That wouldn't be true today.

A few years back NPR interviewed another great composer, Danny Elfman, who had some high praise for Herrmann (some of the paragraphs here aren't in the same order as they originally appeared):

Herrmann's scores were "so perfectly laid out and up front and in your face," Elfman says. Alfred Hithcock's Psycho is another classic film in which the music played a crucial role, Elfman says. "I can't imagine almost any of the scenes in the movie working as well without the music — not just talking about the famous shower scene."  Elfman says Hitchcock toyed with the idea of making a scoreless movie. The director thought about having the shower scene play with only the sound of the running water. But the composer, Bernard Herrmann, convinced Hitchcock to include the now iconic slashing of strings.

Here's probably the most comprehensive article on Herrmann I found, and it appeared in Slate only a week or so ago.  It was written in honor of the Blu-ray release of Taxi Driver, which will be playing at the Trylon at the end of the month.  Check out the film, continued to check out this blog for more info on Herrmann screenings, and of course check out the article:

This music cue, titled "The .44 Magnum Is a Monster," may represent the pinnacle of the Taxi Driver score's lunacy, and its achievement. The swirling harps associated with Travis' racing thoughts, and with his vigilante fantasies about Jodie Foster's child-prostitute character, weave in and out of menacing bass chords, while that sadly diminished love theme wanders in and out. The film's screenwriter Paul Schrader has spoken of his sense, during filming, that the movie was a three-way collaboration between writer, director, and star: "Scorsese and De Niro and I … we were in sync. We didn't need to communicate with each other that much; we knew what this movie was about." The profound understanding of the film present in Herrmann's music—its characters, its themes, its place in film history—indicates that the collaboration actually went four ways.