There are two composers in the United States named Bernstein, one is Elmer Bernstein and the other is Leonard Bernstein. The two are similar in age and not related by blood, but their careers have many similarities.
The two have played beautiful pianos since childhood, and both have been appreciated and directed by the famous composer Alain Copeland, resulting in their compositional ideas having many commonalities, such as knowing how to use jazz materials. But Elmer's main work was film music, with Hollywood as his stage; Leonard's achievements were musicals, most notably "West Side Story," a Broadway star.
This article is about Elmer Bernstein.
Elmer Bernstein
In 1950, he first entered Hollywood, ready to make a big splash in the field of film music. At that time, as McCarthyism was sweeping the United States, Bernstein was ideologically avant-garde and refused to go to the Senate's Non-American Activities Committee to identify left-leaning filmmakers, and was immediately placed on the political watch list by the authorities. Many studios are reluctant to hire him to compose music, which is undoubtedly a huge blow to young people who have just entered the industry.
Undeterred by the political storm in Hollywood, Bernstein turned to low-budget B-movie soundtracks in hopes of surviving the crisis.
Jon Burlingame, a historian of film music, commented more objectively about Bernstein from this period: "Although Bernstein was forced to work on low-budget sci-fi action films, two of them, Robot Monster and Daughter of the Moon, are still the favorites of some fans. Because of the low budget for these films, Bernstein had to abandon orchestral music, but "because of this, he became a real reformer and pioneered his attempts at electronic music in early films." ”
Today, electronic sound is a must-have for sci-fi action soundtracks, but in the 1950s, Bernstein's experiments were indeed at the forefront of the times.
After wandering around in B-grade films for several years, Bernstein's talent began to attract bernard Herman's attention. The latter strongly recommended the excellent young composer to the film industry. In 1955, frank Sinatra, the greatest Jazz Singer of the Twentieth Century, starred in the film The Golden Arm, when the jazz soundtrack was just emerging, and the director of the film, Pleiminger, was so impressed with Bernstein's previous music for the film Sudden Fear that he invited him to join the film, hoping that he would compose a jazz movement that complemented Sinatra. Bernstein lived up to his expectations, and with his enthusiastic jazz music, he perfectly reflected the painful emotions of the male protagonist played by Sinatra. The film's soundtrack also attracted jazz accretists, with trumpeter Shorty Rogers bringing together a big swing band, including the great jazz drummer Shelly Manne.
Stills from The Man with the Golden Arm
After The Man with the Golden Arm, jazz flourished in movies and TV shows. Bernstein also took advantage of the hit and created similar jazz scores for several other films, such as "Sweet Smell of Success" and oscar-nominated "Walk on the Wild Side," starring Joan Fontaine.
The following year, Cecil B. DeMille, a director who disagreed with Bernstein's political stance, began filming the religious film The Ten Commandments, for which Bernstein's music was an early masterpiece of his career, starting with The Ten Commandments, when composers no longer just stuck to jazz, but extended their creative talents to a wider field. According to the account of domestic music critic Han Bin in the article "Film Music White Paper: Epic Age", we learned some untold stories behind this soundtrack:
The Ten Commandments cost $13 million that year and were a huge production. Demir is known for his epic filming, and his best work is The King Of Kings. This time, he invited Charles Hayston, the actor of "Binxu", to play Moses. The film was magnificent, especially the stunt of splitting the Red Sea, which was a must at the time.
Demir first thought of veteran composer Victor Young, who unfortunately was in terrible health at the time (just the year the Ten Commandments were released, Young died of illness), and he recommended a young composer to compose music for the Ten Commandments, and that person was Bernstein.
Undisciplined by their political differences, Demir invited Bernstein to join the film's soundtrack. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Bernstein, although Demir was initially not too optimistic about the young man. Initially, Demir only wanted Bernstein to help compose some Egyptian dance scene music, but when Bernstein persevered and played the piano miniature after his composition to Demir, Demir was impressed by Bernstein's excellent performance and asked him to take care of the entire soundtrack.
Stills from The Ten Commandments
Demir's requirements for the soundtrack were quite high. Bernstein naturally did not dare to slacken off. In terms of orchestra configuration, in order to deliberately emphasize the grandeur of epic films, he used a 71-person orchestra, of which there were 8 horns, far more than ordinary large orchestras.
The most intriguing scene in The Ten Commandments is undoubtedly Moses crossing the Red Sea, for which Bernstein composed a march with a Hebrew musical style, a theme that is impressive and exudes a typical Hollywood exoticism.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Bernstein did not stick to Hebrew or Egyptian musical materials (to this day, many composers like to use some ancient folk instruments to echo the region itself when faced with exotic themes), but everything starts from the actual needs of the picture. For example, he used an early electric piano, the Novachord, in the film, which has 6 octaves and resembles a piano that can play not only a single note, but also a chord. The volume is manipulated with a foot pedal, which also extends the sound. This modern instrument is not comparable to ancient Egyptian or Hebrew music, but it has achieved a moving effect.
The soundtrack work on The Golden Arm and the Ten Commandments unfolded around the same time period, and in the words of Berliner: "With those back-to-back soundtracks, the master began to be widely recognized as a film scorer." The Ten Commandments and The Golden Arm, in particular, actually changed the sound trends in American film music, creating new styles and tones in Hollywood, and allowing fellow soundtrackists of the period to follow in his footsteps. ”
Bernstein of this period was almost synonymous with the new Hollywood fashion. Every shot he makes can make a lot of waves in Hollywood. After entering the sixties, Bernstein continued to play the role of "hipster".
Stills from "Seven Heroes of The Seven Heroes"
In 1960, he composed music for the Western Film The Magnificent Seven. The film has a simple plot and a heroic tragic ending, and was later considered the most household name American Western. Bernstein introduced American folk elements to the film and composed a stirring and beautiful theme music - a march like a horse galloping. A series of aggressive jumping notes quickly bring the mood to a climax at the beginning, followed by soothing strings. The music was later transformed into a cigarette commercial by Marlboro and quickly became popular around the world.
What is more interesting is that many years later, the song spread to China across the ocean, and quickly replaced the "Radetzky March" as the royal background music for major awards ceremonies.
Seven Heroes set the purest sound paradigm for American Westerns, and Bernstein once again created a new fashion trend. The film's director, John Sturges, was quite pleased with Bernstein's music and subsequently collaborated with him on "The Great Escape," which also became Bernstein's 1960s.
Then, in 1962, director Robert Mulligan began making one of the most important films of his life: To Kill a Mockingbird. This film about racial discrimination has attracted many stars to join, and the popular young student Gregory Parker wears a pair of wide-rimmed glasses in the film, changing the youthful exuberance of the past and becoming old and heavy. The film focuses on the theme of good and evil of human beings, the robin, which is not related to the plot of the film, has a strong symbolic meaning, representing those naïve innocents, and "killing a mockingbird" is the story of the evil destroying the innocent.
The soundtrack was a huge challenge for Bernstein. He studied the script repeatedly, and finally realized that this film that reflects racial discrimination has a wonderful perspective of small and large, and all evil is done through the perspective of children. From this starting point, Bernstein created a distinctive American voice, like his mentor Copeland's style—typical of small band formations. Bernstein built a simple texture structure for the small band, and from time to time added monophonic embellishments of the piano and flute solos, which sounded like a child's simple memory display.
Stills from To Kill a Mockingbird
As Berliner puts it: "No film can sum up Bernstein's unparalleled career, but To Kill a Mockingbird represents many of his strengths, and it is because of these factors that he has become one of Hollywood's most respected composers." In fact, it was Bernstein's own favorite soundtrack. The revolutionary significance of the work is that it completely changed Hollywood's inherent large orchestral thinking in dealing with socially serious subjects, and drew more on the rich nutrition of European film music, and this sound aesthetic was widely accepted in Hollywood for the next three or four decades.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, some of the characteristics of Bernstein's mid- and late-stage film scores, such as the resilient rhythm, the malleable melodic lines, and the uncomplicated but textured orchestration, have created a major feature of Bernstein's soundtrack: fully integrated with the plot and suitable for solo listening.
Until the nineties, Bernstein did not stop challenging himself, and he continued to break new ground in the seventies and eighties, when composers devoted much of their energy to comedy soundtracks, maintaining long-term relationships with the long-standing director and producer Ivan Reitman and comedy director John Landis.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a large part of Bernstein's soundtrack library was dominated by the following blockbuster comedies: Animal House (1978), Meatballs (1979), Airplane! (1980), Heavy Metal (1981), Stripes (1981), And Trading Places (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), Three Amigos! (1986), Funny Farm (1988), and so on, are almost all works by Ivan Reitman or John Landis. Perhaps because of the limitations of the film's subject matter, Bernstein's impression on future generations in this period is not profound, but these music still have a significance for a more comprehensive understanding of Bernstein's more than half-century-long career.
From the early jazz boom and epic soundtracks, to later Western voices, social themes, and comedy music, Bernstein before the nineties won the respect of Hollywood directors of all genres with a huge creative field.
It's worth noting that while most Hollywood audiences were enjoying the fun That Bernstein brought to them with his comical and humorous music, the composer, who refused to be restricted, began to focus on independent films. By 1989, bernstein, who was nearly seventy years old, was no longer keen on comedy, first turning down an offer to score Ghostbusters II and then focusing his interest on the indie film My Left Foot. The work ushered in Bernstein's next major creative period and was the first of his later years.
Adapted from the autobiography of Irish writer Christy Brown, My Left Foot tells the story of Brown, who was paralyzed by polio, and relied on the only left foot that could be moved to change his life and become a painter and poet. Bernstein was so impressed by the screenplay that he promised Irish producer Noel Pearson that he would write the soundtrack for free for crippled Christie Brown. The film's director, Jim Sheridan, was still a newcomer to the film industry at the time, and "My Left Foot" was a great success, and the following year, Sheridan shot "The Field", which was still an independent film, and Bernstein once again wrote the soundtrack.
In My Left Foot, Bernstein uses the Mateno electronic keyboard (an electronic synthesizer) to coordinate with orchestral and harps. The whole soundtrack is sharp and slow, strong and weak, and there are many places where the killing machine is hidden, especially the timpani drum with the dense rhythm of the strings, which is impressive.
The lyrical sections continue Bernstein's usual melodious atmosphere, and the flute and harp often appear at the point of the point, which plays a finishing touch. The Mateno electronic keyboard appears from time to time in various sections, sometimes hidden, occasionally entering the narrative and quickly departing. In this soundtrack, the use of synthesizers is the biggest highlight, always appearing before the theme melody appears, giving the audience direct listening inspiration.
"My Left Foot" can clearly feel that the composer deliberately returned to the simple technique of orchestral music in his later years, no longer pursuing novelty in form, and the style of music became more and more natural. Including the later "River Runs Through It" and "Far from Heaven", etc., they all continued this slow and long style of "narrative poetry".
Stills from "My Left Foot"
In Bernstein's later years, there is another director who has to be mentioned, that is, Martin Scorsese.
In his later years, Bernstein was almost scorsese's perfect partner, working together on seven films, including the household name The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York. The more than two dozen magnificent classical movements in "The Age of Innocence" are evocative, as if hearing the sounds left over from the Golden Age, elegant and beautiful, full of charm.
Chinese film fans and music fans began to know the evergreen tree of the music scene from Bernstein's later works. Many people think that the amiable white-haired old man always likes to show people in a simple and soothing style, but ignores Bernstein's early passionate years. At that time, as a dilapidated and new wavemaker, he once caused great controversy in the industry, but today, half a century later, when a new generation of people mention the name Ermer Bernstein, they always have great respect and respect. Although he has only won an Oscar once, Bernstein, like his idol Herman, is a master scorer who doesn't need to be measured by awards.
For such a composer who has led the trend of film scores several times, we only need to remember Berliner's assessment: "Bernstein is unique. His music belongs to him. What is clear is that this man will be remembered and his concerts will continue. ”