THE TOP FORTY COUNTDOWN, PART ONE

By Scott Bettencourt

Have you ever read one of those Hollywood "Power Lists" in Premiere or Entertainment Weekly and wished there was a list like that about film composers, written by someone with no real grounds for speaking authoritatively about the film music business? This is your dream come true!

WARNING: Apart from the specifically factual material (ages, awards, grosses), the opinions expressed here are just that -- my opinions. Trust me, Richard Kraft and Michael Gorfaine do not call me up to tell me which clients get the most job offers. I've never even met them. But if they'd like to hear my demo tape--

That was a joke. I am not a composer. But I do have a few screenplays lying around--

This list is highly subjective, to say the least, and I eagerly await rebuttals from readers, composers, and agents (dream on, me). Frankly, I am like one of those comedians who has no material and relies on asking the audience questions to pad out the act.

Readers may be confused by the presence of 1997 rankings. This article is a sequel to an article written for Film Score Monthly in 1997 but which was never published. I use these earlier, phantom rankings to illustrate the career trajectories of the composers, and because it makes it all look more official.

1997 RANKING: 27
AGE: 79
REPRESENTATION: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR, 13 NOMINATIONS
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Martin Scorsese, Martha Coolidge, Bill Duke
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Ghostbusters--238 (U.S. gross in millions)
2. National Lampoon's Animal House--141
3. Wild Wild West--113
4. Trading Places--90
5. The Ten Commandments--85
6. Stripes--85
7. Airplane!--83
8. Cape Fear--79
9. Spies Like Us--60
10. Legal Eagles--47

One of the all-time masters of film music, Bernstein has excelled in every genre, from Western to animated sci-fi, from Biblical epic to low comedy. But like others of his generation (Barry, Goldsmith, Jarre), he has become increasingly reluctant to kowtow to the whims of musically ignorant filmmakers, and has seen several of his recent scores rejected, the latest being for the comedy Rat Race. It's a mark of Martin Scorsese's greatness that he keeps hiring Bernstein. And it's a mark of the industry's shortsightedness that Bernstein doesn't work more often.

WHAT'S NEXT: Gangs of New York

1997 RANKING: 24
AGE: 54
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Rob Cohen, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Lynn, Ivan Reitman, Ronald F. Maxwell
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Ghostbusters II--112
2. The Mask--119
3. Twins--111
4. Kindergarten Cop--91
5. While You Were Sleeping--81
6. The Last of the Mohicans--75
7. Six Days, Seven Nights--74
8. Anaconda--65
9. The Whole Nine Yards--57
10.  Shanghai Noon--56

Though he specializes in comedy, Edelman's anthem-like themes for Dragon, Dragonheart, and others have become a staple of televised sports and trailers. (One cue from Come See the Paradise has been heard in almost as many trailers as the phrase "In a world.") Though he works steadily, he hasn't had any major hits in the last few years, though the upcoming Vin Diesel action vehicle XXX could change that.

WHATíS NEXT: National Security, XXX, Gods and Generals, Frank McClusky C.I,

1997 RANKING: Not Applicable
AGE: 33
REP: Greenspan Artist Management
RELATIONSHIPS: Wes Craven, Bob Weinstein, Guillermo Del Toro, Mick Jackson
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Scream--103
2. Scream 2--101
3. Scream 3--89
4. The Faculty--40
5. Dracula 2000--33
6. The Watcher--28
7. Mimic--25
8. Angel Eyes--24
9. Joy Ride--21
10. 54--16

The talented Beltrami took a baby step out of the Dimension horror stable with the Jennifer Lopez romantic drama Angel Eyes, though Warners' misleading attempts to sell it as a supernatural thriller probably helped him get the gig. Beltrami has gotten farther from the horror genre with his work for the small screen, including Tuesdays With Morrie and the remake of David and Lisa.

WHATíS NEXT: Resident Evil, Blade II, The First 20 Million, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

1997 RANKING: N/A
AGE: Unavailable
REP: Blue Focus
RELATIONSHIPS: Baz Luhrmann
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Bone Collector--66
2. Moulin Rouge--57
3. William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet--46
4. Kiss of the Dragon--36

Though Armstrong predictably won a Golden Globe for Moulin Rouge, his work was declared ineligible for an Oscar, probably because of the voters' expected inability to distinguish between original scoring and pre-existing music. He has scored action thrillers and Baz Luhrmann spectaculars; it will be interesting to see what the rock-influenced Armstrong does in other genres.

1997 RANKING: 32
AGE: 51
REP: Soundtrack Music Associates
5 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Nora Ephron, Stephen Frears, Harold Ramis, Andy Tennant, Richard Attenborough, Nicholas Hytner, Ken Loach
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Youíve Got Mail--115
2. Groundhog Day--70
3. Ever After--65
4. Gandhió52
5. Anna and the King--39
6. Dangerous Liaisons--32
7. Object of My Affection--29
8. Final Analysis--28
9. Multiplicity--20
10. Summer Catch--19

Fenton's regular collaborators are numerous, yet none of them is exactly at a career high point right now -- for example, Richard Attenborough's latest film with Fenton, Grey Owl, went directly to video in the U.S. Creatively, Fenton's work has suffered since the rejection of his score for Interview With the Vampire -- Neil Jordan was his strongest collaborator, and they haven't worked together since. Fenton still works regularly, but often on such unenviable assignments as Lucky Numbers and Summer Catch.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Navigators

1997 RANKING: 29
AGE: 52
REP: Ingenuity Entertainment
RELATIONSHIPS: Roger Michell, Barbet Schroeder, John Duigan, Robert Halmi
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Notting Hill--116
2. Cliffhanger--84
3. The Last of the Mohicans--75
4. Sea of Love--56
5. Arachnophobia--53
6. G.I. Jane--48
7. The Dark Crystal--40
8. Thirteen Days--34
9. Mississippi Burning--34
10. From Hell--31

While Thirteen Days proved not to be the Oscar magnet its makers had hoped for, Jones, normally typecast in thrillers and dramas, had his biggest hit with the Julia Roberts romantic comedy Notting Hill, though his music was short-changed by the song dominated soundtrack. Some fans (such as myself) feel that Jones peaked early with his Dark Crystal score, and he hasn't written any scores nearly as popular as Last of the Mohicans since that film came out in 1992. However, he has a following among some younger filmmakers such as the Hughes Brothers, who hired him on From Hell on the basis of his Excalibur score from twenty years earlier, and has done several fantasy TV miniseries for producer Robert Halmi. Improbably enough, his latest release is the hit Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads.

WHAT'S NEXT: Dinotopia (TV)

1997 RANKING: 19
AGE: 44
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Jan de Bont, Antoine Fuqua, Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Ruben, Joel Silver
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Twister--241
2. Tarzan--171
3. Speed--121
4. Con Air--101
5. Training Day--76
6. Bad Boys--65
7. Speed 2: Cruise Controló47
8. Domestic Disturbance--44
9. Money Train--35
10. Assassins--30

Trying to move out of the action movie ghetto has led to fewer assignments for Mancina, whose gentle, Thomas Newman-ish score for Return to Paradise had the misfortune of being written for a movie barely anyone saw. His desire to avoid being typecast is understandable, yet his latest big hit was yet another urban thriller: Training Day.

1997 RANKING: 33
AGE: 52
REP: Soundtrack Music Associates
1 OSCAR, 2 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Anthony Minghella, Jean-Jacques Beneix, Jean-Jacques Annaud
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Talented Mr. Ripley--81
2. The English Patient--78
3. City of Angels--78
4. Message in a Bottle--52
5. Autumn in New York--37

The career momentum Yared gained from his English Patient Oscar was slowed somewhat by the rejection of his scores for The Wings of the Dove and Les Miserables. Despite the variety of films he's scored in Europe, since Patient he's been pigeonholed in America for films that are tragically romantic, or sometimes just tragically awful (The Next Best Thing). He remains one of the few composers from continental Europe to work regularly in the States, but we're only getting a fraction of his range -- his first score, for Godard's Every Man For Himself, was as far from easy listening as you could imagine.

WHATíS NEXT: Possession

1997 RANKING: N/A
AGE: Unavailable
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Dreamworks, Tony Scott
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Shrek--263
2. Enemy of the State--111
3. Spy Kids--111
4. Chicken Run--106
5. Antz--90
6. Spy Game--60
7. The Borrowers--22
8. The Replacement Killers--19
9. Light It Up--5
10. Smilla's Sense of Snow--2

This composer has worked on several highly successful films, including the enormous hit Shrek, but his career has suffered from, of all things, collaboration. His top five grossers were all scored with partners -- Spy Kids was scored by nearly half of BMI. Tony Scott's willingness to trust him (and him alone) with the big-budget Spy Game (or Spy Grownups) should enable Gregson-Williams to get more high profile solo work, though the film's disappointing box-office performance won't help.

WHAT'S NEXT: Passionada

1997 RANKING: 15
AGE: 48
REP: Air-Edel
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Kenneth Branagh, Brian DePalma, Alfonso Cuaron, Regis Wargnier, Mike Newell
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Bridget Jones's Diary--71
2. Sense and Sensibility--43
3. Donnie Brasco--41
4. Dead Again--38
5. Carlito's Way--36
6. Gosford Park--28* (as of 2/24/02)
7. Great Expectations--26
8. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein--22
9. Quest For Camelot--22
10. Much Ado About Nothing--22

Doyle got his start as Kenneth Branagh's pet composer, but while Branagh's directorial star has dimmed considerably, Doyle's career, despite some setbacks, seems to be back on track. Recovering from the double whammy of serious illness and the rejection of his Stepmom score (the movie went on to gross 91 million in the U.S.), Doyle is on the upswing. Bridget Jones's Diary is his biggest hit yet, though his music is fairly buried in both the film and the album, while his elegant, understated work for the superb Gosford Park is one of his finest achievements.

WHAT'S NEXT: Femme Fatale

Who will it be? Will it make any sense? Let the angry letters and hurried corrections begin!

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