Breaking down films, TV shows, games and whatever else into their macro elements allows you to appreciate them more, as a craft and an art form. It can help you understand just how much detail goes into them, but scoring is an art in and of itself, if you ask me. As time has gone by scores have become their own animal, being released as albums and being used for adverts, jukebox soundtracks and methods to make your Friday afternoon deadline-rush 100 times more epic. Nowadays bands like M83, Alt-J and many others are making a killing producing inherently cinematic music, to say nothing of Two Steps From Hell.
I could blather on all day about the best film, TV and game scores until I was blue in the face, but instead I’m going to list 15 of the most moving. Not my favorite, not the best, but the most moving, the ones that do unseemly things to your heartstrings, raise you up, knock you back down and leave you by the side of the road in a flood of tears wondering what the hell just happened. But enough about my love life, let’s get on with this.
This Is England
It could very easily be argued that Shane Meadows’ galling 2006 film is one of the most important social realist dramas ever made. You don’t tend to find that many social realist films leaning too heavily on their scores, many eschew them entirely, which sets This is England apart further still. The drafting of Italian concert pianist Ludovico Einaudi to work on the film was a masterstroke, and the difference between an exceptional film and an emotional roller-coaster. The lethal closing moments of the film would be nowhere near as effective without his sombre, beautiful key-tickling. He went on to score the equally excellent TV series as well.
Band of Brothers
From conception to production to release, Band of Brothers was always going to be something very, very special. Spielberg brought the unremitting horror of WWII combat brutally to screen in Saving Private Ryan‘s opening salvo, but Band of Brothers, which detailed the exploits of ‘Easy’ Company during the long march through Europe, is perhaps the most accurate dramatization there’s ever been. The late, great Michael Kamen might not have seemed like the most obvious choice, his previous credits ranging from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to Lethal Weapon to Metallica’s bizarre S&M concert, but he captured the sorrow and tragedy of the show absolutely perfectly. If the penultimate episode didn’t tear you apart like tissue paper in a tornado, you have no soul.
Chrono Trigger
You could be forgiven for thinking that creating moving music with no instruments and a mere 16 bits of data is impossible. I would beg to differ, as would anyone who’s ever played Chrono Trigger. Created by Square Enix in 1995, it has legendary status amongst RPG fans and Yasunori Mitsuda’s score is indisputably one of the most famous labors of love in the history of game music. Mitsuda often slept in the studio whilst he was creating the score, attributing the inspiration for some tracks (including the one above) to dreams. He fought through setbacks like a hard-drive wipe and an onset of stomach ulcers late into production, during which time Final Fantasy veteran Noboru Uematsu stepped in to help him finish it. The result is a massive score spanning dozens of pieces laden with majesty, melancholy and leitmotif. Worthy of consideration alongside all the greatest film and TV scores. Timbaland even sampled it. Make of that what you will.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
I am deeply, deeply envious of anyone who has yet to experience Beasts of the Southern Wild. It’s astonishing. Based on the one-act play Juicy and Delicious, it’s part coming-of-age story, part road movie and part fantasy. Director Benh Zeitlin did the score himself, a mixture of orchestral bombast, reserved country guitar and New Orleans brass, in-keeping with the post-flood Louisiana-esque setting, The Bathtub. The same cues and overtures emanate throughout the score, creating something as memorable as it is moving.
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