[Cailin]

I couldn’t figure out a better title for this, but I was wondering about your favorite pieces of music in movies where the story is focused on a composer. Not biographical or historical films, but modern and contemporary ones.

A couple examples that popped into my head are:

Mr. Holland’s Opus
August Rush
Music & Lyrics.

All these films center on a musician/composer, whose great piece is usually performed at the end of the film. Every time I watch movies like these, I think about the actual composer scoring the film. And how much pressure they must be under to produce something really “great”, something worthy of the genius level, talent driven or passionate composer character in the fictional film.

So my question is, what are the other movies in this category…and in which film of this genre, did the actual composer best deliver?

[GerateWohl]

For such kind of movies rather song driven movies about song writers come to mind like Grace of my Heart or A Star Is Born.

And there is Hangover Square with this wonderful concerto macaɓre for piano and orchestra by Bernard Herrmann. But this is rather about a piano Player and not a composer.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Cloud Atlas

[Gloin the Dark]

The Red Shoes: one of the trio of main characters is a composer (though I’m not sure whether it meets the “modern and contemporary” requirement any more).

Three Colours: Blue: not a favourite of mine (and, from the trilogy, I like Red much more) but, still, it’s a highly regarded film about a composer focused on one of their major works…

Hangover Square with this wonderful concerto macaɓre for piano and orchestra by Bernard Herrmann. But this is rather about a piano Player and not a composer.

But I think that guy composes his own concerto, doesn’t he?

[Malte Müller]

THREE COLORS BLUE came to mind instantly, too.

Also THE SILENT TOUCH by Krzysztof Zanussi with Max von Sydow and music by Kilar using his concert work “Exodus”.

Isn’t ESCAPE ME NEVER with music by Korngold also about a composer? Don’t remember anything or if I actually saw the movie though…

The Columbo episode MURDER WITH TOO MANY NOTES was about a film composer as a suspect (I thought there was another older one from the 70s but can’t remember/find it) 😉

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I mostly think of films about prodigy musicians rather than composers for this (SHINE, THE SOLOIST, WHIPLASH, THE LEGEND OF 1900, THE SONG OF NAMES and so on).

But beyond those mentioned so far, Todd Field’s recent TÁR (2022) comes to mind. Cate Blanchett’s fictional composer Lydia Tár is seen working on and composing a piece throughout the film, but it’s never performed in full, not climactically like in MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS. That’s largely the point, as her aspirations and dreams are squashed. However, the piece CAN be heard in full on the soundtrack album, composed by the film’s composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. So that’s a similar situation to the Kamen-Dreyfus in MHO.

And how should we label a film like THE RED VIOLIN (1998)? About an instrument? About musicians? Or about composers (one of the segments is about a composer who draws inspiration from the instrument)? John Corigliano’s score is great, capturing both the spirit of the instrument and – if memory serves – attempts to compose things in-story.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Yes TÁR is a good movie, I thought of mentioning it, but then I thought of Lydia Tár primarily as a high-profile conductor in the movie, that’s where the focus was, but yes, she was also a composer.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Would the animated film SOUL count?

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