MARK KERMODE’S
MOVIE MUSIC
THE CRITIC AND SCALA RADIO PRESENTER ON THE WORLD OF CINEMATIC SOUNDTRACKS
THIS MONTH FIVE FILMMAKERS WHO HAVEN’T JUST DIRECTED MOVIES, BUT ALSO COMPOSED THE MUSIC
From New York and Big Trouble In Little China.
1. CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Despite receiving honorary Academy Awards in 1929 and 1972, the groundbreaking cinema pioneer won his only competitive Oscar in 1973 — as a composer of the music for 1952’s Limelight. The movie had been pulled from US cinemas when Chaplin was accused of Communist sympathies (the FBI called him a “parlour Bolshevik”) in the ’50s, and qualified for Oscar consideration when it was finally released in LA in 1972. Chaplin, who was self-taught on the piano, violin and cello, couldn’t read sheet music and needed the assistance of professional composers for the many scores he conjured up, for both new and re-released films.