John Williams is one of the most renowned film composers in history. He has penned unforgettable scores for Star Wars, the Indiana Jones series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Superman, and countless other films. Fans flock to his many concerts, and with forty-nine Academy Award nominations as of 2014, he is the second-most Oscar-nominated person after Walt Disney. Yet despite such critical acclaim and prestige, this is the first book in English on Williams’s work and career. Combining accessible writing with thorough scholarship, and rigorous historical accounts with insightful readings, John Williams’s Film Music explores why Williams is so important to the history of film music. Beginning with an overview of music from Hollywood’s Golden Age (1933–58), Emilio Audissino traces the turning points of Williams’s career and articulates how he revived the classical Hollywood musical style. This book charts each landmark of this musical restoration, with special attention to the scores for Jaws and Star Wars, Williams’s work as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, and a full film/music analysis of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The result is a precise, enlightening definition of Williams’s “neoclassicism” and a grounded demonstration of his lasting importance, for both his compositions and his historical role in restoring part of the Hollywood tradition. Best Special Interest Books, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

An interdisciplinary exploration of the many facets of the composer John Williams's output, aimed at showing the range of his production (not merely focussing on film music) and at analyzing the depth of his dramaturgic and compositional skills with selected case studies.

Master composer Ennio Morricone's scores go hand-in-hand with the idea of the Western film. Often considered the world's greatest living film composer, and most widely known for his innovative scores to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and the other Sergio Leone's movies, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso and more recently, The Hateful Eight, Morricone has spent the past 60 years reinventing the sound of cinema. In Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words, composers Ennio Morricone and Alessandro De Rosa present a years-long discussion of life, music, and the marvelous and unpredictable ways that the two come into contact with and influence each other. The result is what Morricone himself defines: "beyond a shadow of a doubt the best book ever written about me, the most authentic, the most detailed and well curated. The truest." Opening for the first time the door of his creative laboratory, Morricone offers an exhaustive and rich account of his life, from his early years of study to genre-defining collaborations with the most important Italian and international directors, including Leone, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Argento, Tornatore, Malick, Carpenter, Stone, Nichols, De Palma, Beatty, Levinson, Almodóvar, Polanski, and Tarantino. In the process, Morricone unveils the curious relationship that links music and images in cinema, as well as the creative urgency at the foundation of his experimentations with "absolute music". Throughout these conversations with De Rosa, Morricone dispenses invaluable insights not only on composing but also on the broader process of adaptation and what it means to be human. As he reminds us, "Coming into contact with memories doesn't only entail the melancholy of something that slips away with time, but also looking forward, understanding who I am now. And who knows what else may still happen."

Peter Larsen traces the history of music in film and discusses central theoretical questions concerning its narrative and psychological functions. He looks in depth at film classics such a Howard Hawks's 'The Big Sleep' and Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest' as well as later blockbusters such as 'Star Wars' and 'Bladerunner'.

The story of the music that accompanies the cinematic adventures of Ian Fleming's intrepid Agent 007 is one of surprising real-life drama. In The Music of James Bond, author Jon Burlingame throws open studio and courtroom doors alike to reveal the full and extraordinary history of the sounds of James Bond, spicing the story with a wealth of fascinating and previously undisclosed tales. Burlingame devotes a chapter to each Bond film, providing the backstory for the music (including a reader-friendly analysis of each score) from the last-minute creation of the now-famous "James Bond Theme" in Dr. No to John Barry's trend-setting early scores for such films as Goldfinger and Thunderball. We learn how synthesizers, disco and modern electronica techniques played a role in subsequent scores, and how composer David Arnold reinvented the Bond sound for the 1990s and beyond. The book brims with behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Burlingame examines the decades-long controversy over authorship of the Bond theme; how Frank Sinatra almost sang the title song for Moonraker; and how top artists like Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Duran Duran, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, and Madonna turned Bond songs into chart-topping hits. The author shares the untold stories of how Eric Clapton played guitar for Licence to Kill but saw his work shelved, and how Amy Winehouse very nearly co-wrote and sang the theme for Quantum of Solace. New interviews with many Bond songwriters and composers, coupled with extensive research as well as fascinating and previously undiscovered details--temperamental artists, unexpected hits, and the convergence of great music and unforgettable imagery--make The Music of James Bond a must read for 007 buffs and all popular music fans. This paperback edition is brought up-to-date with a new chapter on Skyfall.