Michael Nyman came of age as a classical composer in the radical London of the late '60s. His work embraces multiple vernaculars (jazz, avant garde, conceptual art) and helped cement the foundation of what came to be known as minimalism. Decades into his career, Nyman's score to Jane Campion's film The Piano made him a star. The movie's themes of colonialism and silence (its protagonist, ...
Director Lasse Hallstrom's recipe for Chocolat is bittersweet: a tale of human hope and frailty imbued with no small amount of symbolism. It's a story that requires a deft, sensitive musical touch and Hallstrom has wisely turned again to composer Rachel Portman for the honours. As she did on The Legend of Bagger Vance and her previous, Academy Award-nominated collaboration with ...
After two of the most riveting thrillers ever set on American soil, the serial-killer Hannibal Lecter faces FBI agent Clarice Starling in Florence. Composer Hans Zimmer, following the success of Gladiator, is swiftly reunited with director Ridley Scott, and takes a very different musical path from Howard Shore's austere score for The Silence of the Lambs. Paying regard to the ...