march / april 2007:

Tribal Sounds
Thanks to their lineage, Jewish film composers are hitting all the right notes.

By Molly Beth Martin



If you are a movie lover like me (and I assume that AJL readers are up to date on their pop-culture), you’ve been listening to some of the most successful Jewish musicians in American history. You just didn’t know it.

Composers like James Horner, Howard Shore, Phillip Glass, and Danny Elfman write the background music for some of today’s most popular films. (As an aside, ‘background music’ is a terribly offensive term for such artistic creations, but that’s for a different column.) They work in a genre that requires the unique ability to transform human emotions into musical sounds. Their music doesn’t necessarily sound Jewish, so what is the common chord between Jewish composers and their disproportionate success in the film industry if the connection isn’t audible?

Judaism has a unique bond with music in a way that is different from most other cultures. While most groups have a connection to music (African Americans with jazz and hip-hop; the South and country music, Christians and … Christian pop?), Jews are raised to relate music to important life events at a personal level much like a film score binds music to characters and events. Reading the Torah at a bar mitzvah — a very musical and difficult feat in and of itself (not to mention during the throes of puberty) — is a personal event which sears music into the minds of young Jews. We sound the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and many of our holiday and personal prayers are musical, if not in pitch, than in the repeated sounds and rhythms of the Hebrew language. This individual musicality, combined with our religious teachings that challenge us to analyze the world around us, allows Jewish composers to take films and put them into musical terms.

As a result, Jewish film composers are at the top of their field. Shore’s Lord of the Rings soundtrack has sales numbers that would make a pop star drool. Phillip Glass has been a leader of the minimalist movement of classical music in addition to his film scores (like The Illusionist and The Truman Show). Horner took home two Oscars for his work on Titanic, and Danny Elfman continues a long-running creative partnership with one of my favorite directors, Tim Burton (Elfman worked on The Corpse Bride, among others). These guys are hitting all the high notes, so to speak, with a little help from their roots. So next time you hit the theater, be sure to stay for the music credits. Odds are they include a member of the tribe.


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