Musical brilliance on DVD

It’s a luxury when a documentarian is allowed a full hour to edify viewers on the brilliance of a singular film composer, and while it’s been 15 years since Joshua Waletzky’s doc on Bernard Herrmann debuted on PBS, it still holds its own as a fine intro to the world of one of cinema’s greatest film composers.

From his long association with Alfred Hitchcock – producing such magnificent scores for The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, The Wrong Man, Psycho, and Marnie – to his superlative scores for Ray Harryhausen’s enduring fantasy epics – The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and Mysterious Island – and his final work, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Herrmann’s style and unique approach to film scoring is detailed with film clips, music excerpts, and rare footage of Herrmann himself, including clips from the recording sessions for Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black.

Released as part of a 4-title wave from Kultur, you can read my DVD review at Music from the Movies HERE, along with the first title in the series, The Hollywood Sound.


- MRH

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