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The greatest director-composer partnerships
Hitchcock and Herrmann, Spielberg and Williams, Burton and Elfman - here are the most enduring and successful collaborations between film directors and screen composers.
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1. Steven Spielberg and John Williams
In Hollywood’s greatest collaboration, John Williams has scored practically every film directed by Steven Spielberg since The Sugarland Express. Their partnership has produced such magnificent scores as Schindler’s List, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan and E.T. For Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the two men developed their script and musical concept simultaneously, as in the film these are very closely associated.
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2. Maurice Jarre and David Lean
Frenchman Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films from Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on. Jarre won three Academy Awards in totoal, in the Best Original Score category for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984), all of which were directed by Lean.
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3. Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann
Herrmann composed the scores for some of Hitchcock's biggest films, including The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo , North by Northwest and Psycho. He also served as ‘sound consultant’ on The Birds which does not use music, but electronic bird noises. Thieir relationship came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain.
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4. George Fenton and Ken Loach
Director Ken Loach and composer George Fenton who have collaborated on more than a dozen films together. Beginning in 1994 with Ladybird Ladybird, their successes including Looking for Eric, and the Palme d'Or-winning The Wind that Shakes the Barley (pictured).
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5. David Cronenberg and Howard Shore
Lord of the Rings supremo Shore’s first film score was to David Cronenberg's first major film The Brood. He would go on to score all of Cronenberg's subsequent films, with the exception of The Dead Zone. He even turned his score to Cronenberg’s The Fly into an opera.
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6. Tim Burton and Danny Elfman
Working on Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Burton and Elfman developed an immediate rapport. Since then, they have worked their magic on Beetlejuice, Batman and Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands , The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mars Attacks!, Planet of the Apes , Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Dark Shadows.
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7. Sam Mendes and Thomas Newman
In 1999, Newman composed the score to Sam Mendes' first feature film American Beauty (pictured), using mainly percussion instruments. This was his first collaboration with Mendes, and he would go on to score most of the director's subsequent films, including Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, and Skyfall.
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8. J. J. Abrams and Michael Giacchino
Starting out as a video games composer, Giacchino has since written scores for movies and television series, including Abrams’ Lost, Alias and Fringe. Their film projects together have included Mission Impossible III, two Star Trek movies and Super 8.
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9. Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell
Clint Mansell started out as singer and guitarist for Pop Will Eat Itself. After they disbanded in 1996, Mansell was introduced to film scoring when director Darren Aronofsky hired him to score his debut film, π. Mansell then wrote the score for Aronofsky's next film, Requiem for a Dream. The Fountain was nominated for Best Original Score at the Golden Globe Awards. Their other notable collaborations include The Wrestler, and Black Swan.
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10. Luc Besson and Éric Serra
In 1982, French composer Serra met director Luc Besson and was asked to score his first film, Le Dernier Combat. Serra has scored all of Besson's directed films to date, except Angel-A. These include Subway, Le Grand Bleu, Nikita, Atlantis, Léon, The Fifth Element, Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and Arthur and the Minimoys.
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11. Kenneth Branagh and Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle joined Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 as composer and musical director composing for plays such as Hamlet, As You Like It, and Look Back in Anger. His song "Non Nobis, Domine" from Henry V was awarded the 1989 Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme. They have since worked together Dead Again, Much Ado About Nothing, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Hamlet , Love's Labour's Lost, As You Like It, Sleuth, Thor and Jack Ryan.
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12. The Coen Brothers and Carter Burwell
As a film composer, Burwell has had a long-working relationship with the Coen brothers, providing music for almost every film they have made. These have included such classics as Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men (pictured), and True Grit.
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13. Peter Greenaway and Michael Nyman
In 1980, British film maker Greenaway produced The Falls – a fantastical encyclopedia of flight-associated material. The score was composed by Michael Nyman who went on to work with Greenaway on his best-known films - The Draughtsman's Contract (pictured), A Zed & Two Noughts, The Belly of an Architect, Drowning by Numbers, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Prospero's Books.
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14. Ron Howard and James Horner
James Horner frequently collaborates with film director Ron Howard, a partnership that began with Cocoon in 1985. Coincidentally, Horner's end title music from Glory can also be heard in the trailer for Howard's Backdraft. Their films included Willow, Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind and The Missing.
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15. John Madden and Stephen Warbeck
English composer Stephen Warbeck won an Academy Award for his score for Madden’s Shakespeare in Love. They’ve also collaborated on Mrs. Brown, Captain Corelli's Mandolin (pictured) and Proof.
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16. Giuseppe Tornatore and Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone produced one of his finest scores for Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso in 1989. Since then they have collaborated on eight more films including The Legend of 1900 and Malèna – for which Morricone won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
