Well, not angry, exactly, but animated and exercised and passionate about whether the music from You Only Live Twice is better than the music from Goldfinger or not. (It is.) On Friday March 18, I was invited by BBC Radio 5 Live to join a jury charged with selecting the Top 10 instrumental film scores of all time for a forthcoming concert by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, whose running order would be based upon our hard-fought selection. It’s all part of BBC Philharmonic Presents … a week of concerts themed around the proclivities of various BBC radio networks [find out all about it here]. 5 Live’s was chosen to be film-themed, and goes out live in two Fridays’ time, June 10, from 2pm, curated and presented by its cult film-reviewing/bickering duo Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode, whose “Wittertainment” initiative has defied nature and survived Simon’s move to Radio 2 (it remained in place on a Friday afternoon on 5 Live, which shows just how valued it is by the Beeb). The idea of these concerts is to officially launch the BBC’s new Salford Quays home, MediaCityUK, which has a venue built in. I wish I was going up to Manchester for the gig, but I am too busy. Should be a fine afternoon’s “instrutainment”. Tune in.
You can see us all gathered around the warm glow of a green studio light that bright Friday afternoon, a jury of six charged with the ludicrous task of stacking up a dozen great orchestral film scores. From left, then: Mark Kermode, the good doctor, linchpin of the Corporation’s film coverage and – as luck would have it – a skiffle musician in his own right; chairman, the genial Simon Mayo, and Mark’s unofficial handler; the Philharmonic’s General Manager Richard Wigley (who’d just flown back, with the band, from Japan, when the earthquake hit – if you want airlifting out of a stricken country, be connected to the BBC!); eminent and garrulous American conductor Robert Ziegler, who actually conducted one of our shortlist, and about which he was extremely humble and gracious, There Will Be Blood; colourful, platinum-selling pop singer and actress Paloma Faith, the only jury member to dress up and wear a massive hat for the occasion as if it was on TV (unless she always looks like that, or was on her way somewhere else); and me. I had my laptop out because I’d forgotten to print off my own personal shortlist.
We all brought in a personal wish-list, as instructed, and to kick things off Simon asked us all to read them out. I went first, and as I remember just kind of rattled them off. Paloma went second, and opted instead to make a passionate case for each one of her choices. Because she is a singer, and had been part of a previous concert of film music, conducted by Mr Ziegler, most of her choices had been influenced by that experience. We discussed them all. (The whole judging process has been made available as a podcast by 5 Live, which is nice. If you really want to hear it, it’s here. I have yet to listen back to it, so maybe it’s not as tense and fraught as some of it felt on the day. I sincerely hope you can hear Paloma eating her ambient BBC canteen salad.) I enjoyed Robert Ziegler’s propensity for singing the themes when they came up – I seem to recall a spirited dum-de-duh-dum-dum-ing of Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven – again, I may be misremembering. Mark kept his powder dry and was the last to pitch in with his own personal favourites, most of which were on the obscure side and many of the other jurors weren’t familiar with them. That’s the way – uh-huh – he likes it. (The production staff on the other side of the glass were heroic on the day: the session was taped, as live, over an hour, and they managed to rustle up clips to play through our headphones almost as soon as they were mentioned. Even some of Mark’s. Top work.)
The final shortlist of 11 (don’t ask) – heavily influenced, it must be said, by Richard Wigley’s valuable input on the sheer practicality/impracticality of an orchestra actually playing the extracts on the night/afternoon, and by our collective aim of not putting any composer in twice (except for John Barry, because we couldn’t help it!) – included Raiders Of The Lost Ark, You Only Live Twice, Blue Velvet (or at least a specific song by Angelo Badalamenti from it, Mysteries Of Love), Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Taxi Driver, The Mission (specifically Gabriel’s Oboe), The Godfather (one of my picks, although not exactly difficult to pitch), The Magnificent Seven, Midnight Cowboy, There Will Be Blood, and last but not least, 2046, which Paloma championed from the start as her absolute, foot-stamping must-have, a score from a still fairly obscure Wong Kar-Wai sci-fi love story by Shigeru Umebayashi, who, if he knows he made the shortlist, would be pretty surprised, I should imagine.
You’ve got to love Dr Kermode – the case he made for Badalamenti, whose most famous score, after all, is for a TV series, was so feverish, the whole room went away convinced he is as vital a film composer as Bernard Herrmann or John Williams or John Barry. (Mark looked like he might commit suicide if we didn’t allow the theme from Firewalk With Me, which hardly anybody was familiar with, but we didn’t, and he was talked down off the roof in order to accept Blue Velvet.) I also like the idea that Mark was egged on to volunteer to play the harmonica with the orchestra for Midnight Cowboy. “Oh, go on, then …”
A funny, odd and mostly enjoyable way to spend an hour, and democracy in action. Hey, it’s the only way I’m going to get back into that 5 Live studio on a Friday afternoon.
Photos by Jane Long.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 
No J.C.Super-Duper? It’s fantastic, and while Tim Rice’s lyrics would barely tax an 8-year old, there is something about the music, particularly the ‘Gethsemene’ bit. It’s one of my favourite films.
Instrumental scores.
Ah, I see, that’ll teach me to read it properly before firing off my keyboard! (shuffles embarrassedly out of view);o)
Once Upon A Time In The West has always been a favourite of mine, or would it be disqualified due to Jill’s theme (not the actual title), which has sweeping female vocals, but no actual words. Even so, you still have Harmonica’s, Frank’s, and Cheyenne’s theme’s, all of which are amazing, along with the mash-up of Harmonica and Frank’s themes used in the final showdown. Morricone’s best, as far as I’m concerned.
On a much more recent note, I absolutely love Daft Punk’s score for Tron Legacy. That’d probably be rather impractical for the Philharmonic to play though!
Electronic scores were disallowed only because a traditional orchestra would be playing them. And we felt we should try to stick to one piece per composer, and Morricone’s The Mission made it in. (His spaghetti western scores were rejected on the grounds that they are impossible to reproduce well, and the arrangements aren’t written down, apparently!)
I read and listened to this with delight as I’ve only just recently been getting into film scores myself. Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy are both favourites and more recently Inception and The Social Network (it’s electronic though so non-elegible?) but I have to admit, I’m very surprised there’s no mention of Clint Mansell. His scores for Requiem For A Dream, Moon and Black Swan are all fantastic.
I love Clint’s work on the aforementioned films, and thought it a great shame that his score for Black Swan wasn’t eligible for the Oscars because it used too much existing music. It may be that with a jury like that such rougher edges would have been smoothed away anyway. It was a provisional running order for an orchestral concert after all.
Can you not arrange for an accident to Flloyd and Boyd next week, to get your feet back under the table at 5live?
Listened to the podcast last night. Not a film buff, so haven’t seen all that many of the films discussed, but just fun listening to everyone arguing so passionately. And the sort of list that no-one will ever agree on, so always good fun.
Funny how you were described as a critic though. Would have thought “Radio Times Film Editor” was the more pertinent qualification, especially as country’s most famous film critic was already in the room…
As far as orchestral scores go the music to Zulu should be high up the list. I suspect it’s fun to play as well
My wife walked down the aisle to Gabriel’s Oboe – it’s a beautiful piece of music.
(And sorry to be a pedant, but it is “Fire Walk…” rather than “Firewalk…”).
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest!
I’ve never felt more uplifted than when chief escapes. Unusual, orchestral and beautiful. How you can nominate zulu (as much as I love it) over this is beyond me.
really enjoyed this will now go and listen to all the scores ! I agree with Paloma though 2046 is amazing ! She did well on that panel too , got alot of criticism on twitter but I thought she was brilliant !