Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann (1992)

Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann explores the work of a composer who created music for over 50 films, collaborating with such diverse directors as Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, and Martin Scorsese. Best remembered for his twelve-year collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in such classics as Vertigo, North By Northwest ,and the unforgettable Psycho, Herrmann pioneered many fundamental techniques of film scoring in the course of his 35-year career.

Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann takes audiences behind the scenes in Hollywood to the mixing rooms and dubbing stages where music is put to picture. We follow Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock, examining the bitter breakup of one of the richest collaborations in Hollywood history over the score for the 1966 film Torn Curtain. We see Torn Curtain as it has never been seen before ­ accompanied by Herrmann's brilliant score.

Including clips from: Citizen Kane, Sisters, North By Northwest, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, On Dangerous Ground, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Psycho, Torn Curtain, The Bride Wore Black, and Taxi Driver.

Featuring interviews with directors Martin Scorsese and Claude Chabrol, composers David Raksin and Elmer Bernstein, film scholar Royal S. Brown, Herrmann's first wife, musicians, film editors and sound mixers, as well as home movies, archival photos and interviews with Herrmann himself.

Music For The Movies is an exciting documentary series chronicling the influence music has had on the making of movies. These four programs ­Bernard Herrmann, Toru Takemitsu, Georges Delerue, and The Hollywood Sound ­explore the complex relationship between image and music in cinema, taking audiences behind the scenes to bring the story of movie music to life.

Executive Producers: Richard Copans,Yves Jeanneau, Margaret Smilow
Produced By: Margaret Smilow and Roma Baran
Narrator: Philip Bosco
Directed and Edited By: Joshua Waletzky Product Description

Bernard Herrmann composer

If you have an interest in Bernard Herrmann or composing music for movies, this is an excellent biography centered primarily on Herrmann's music and music career.

Thanks -Great nephew of Bernard Herrmann February 9, 2008

Excellent Bio

This is a great biography of the Composer/Conductor Bernard Herrmann. He was one of those inovators particularly in the Hollywood Film Music scene and you hear about him from many of his contemporaries. What a character he was. Herrmann's known chiefly as the composer of choice for Hitchcock in the 50's and early 60's, but he did much more, starting in radio, segueing into film while working on serval substansive pieces of concert music.

I was given the VHS as a gift years ago and now that it's out on DVD I will cherish this version as well.
January 16, 2008

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