1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith Quotes

Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for such films as Star Trek: The Motion Picture and four other films within the Star Trek franchise, The Sand Pebbles, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, The Boys from Brazil, Capricorn One, Alien, Outland, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, The Mummy, three Rambo films, and Explorers.

He collaborated with some of film history's most accomplished directors, including Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Joe Dante, Richard Donner, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, Michael Winner, Steven Spielberg, Paul Verhoeven, and Franklin J. Schaffner. His work for Donner and Scott also involved a rejected score for Timeline and a controversially edited score for Alien, where music by Howard Hanson replaced Goldsmith's end titles and Goldsmith's own work on Freud: The Secret Passion was used without his approval in several scenes.

Goldsmith was nominated for six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, and eighteen Academy Awards .



✵ 10. February 1929 – 21. July 2004
Jerry Goldsmith photo
Jerry Goldsmith: 7   quotes 2   likes

Famous Jerry Goldsmith Quotes

“If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will be because it is good.”

Jerry Goldsmith

Tony Thomas, Film Score: The Art & Craft of Movie Music (1991), pp. 285–295<!-- check citation -->
Context: It's nice to think about the Golden Age of Hollywood, with the big studios and their fabulous music departments and the hundreds of films coming out every year. But it's gone. In some ways the composer today is more fortunate, provided he can find a good film, because he can attempt more than he could two decades ago. Twelve-tone music was unheard of during Max Steiner's heyday, as were any other avant-garde techniques. Finally, the future of film music rests with the composers themselves. lf they take their work seriously and turn out the best that is within them, then perhaps we can persuade not only the public, but the filmmakers that good music is valuable in films. The public is not stupid. If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will be because it is good.

“Working to timings and synchronising your musical thoughts with the film can be stimulating rather than restrictive. Scoring is a limitation but like any limitation is can be made to work for you. Verdi, except for a handful of pieces, worked best when he was 'turned on' by a libretto. The most difficult problem in music is form, and in a film you already have this problem solved for you. You are presented with a basic structure, a blueprint, and provided the film has been well put together, well edited, it often suggests its own rhythms and tempo. The quality of the music is strictly up to the composer. Many people seem to assume that because film music serves the visual it must be something of secondary value. Well, the function of any art is to serve a purpose in society. For many years, music and painting served religion. The thing to bear in mind is that film is the youngest of the arts, and that scoring is the youngest of the music arts. We have a great deal of development ahead of us.”

Jerry Goldsmith

ibid., p. 209

“You read reviews by top reviewers of films that not only had remarkably interesting scores, but films whose effectiveness was absolutely enhanced, and frequently created by the music, yet the reviewers seem unaware that their emotions and their nervous reactions to the films have been affected by the scoring. This is a serious flaw. Any film reviewer owes it to himself, and the public, to take every element of the film into account”

Jerry Goldsmith

ibid., p. 209
On Goldsmith's irritation at the lack of response from responsible critics

“I admit it worked fairly well but my first reaction was to get up and walk away from the job, but I couldn't. Once you've heard music like that with the picture, it makes your own scoring more difficult to arrive at, it clouds your thinking. Later, as an inside joke, I included a snippet of the Strauss in the score-and some critic pounced on me for stealing. You can´t win.”

Jerry Goldsmith

Tony Thomas, Music for the Movies (1973), p. 209

“Jerry Goldsmith is an artist who meets all the demands upon the composer in films. He communicates, integrates, subordinates, supports, and designs with discipline.”

Jerry Goldsmith

Franklin Schaffner
About

“Originally I was supposed to do Grand Prix, but I was under contract to 20th Century Fox at that time and Alex North was supposed to do Sand Pebbles, but he got sick, so Fox preempted me out of Grand Prix, and to my good fortune, I got to do Sand Pebbles. It was my first time working with Robert Wise and it was a great experience.”

Jerry Goldsmith

AOL Online Host (1995-07-11)

“The fact that certain composers have been able to create first-class music within the medium of film proves that film music can be as good as the composer is gifted.”

Jerry Goldsmith

ibid., p. 209

Similar authors

Frank Zappa photo
Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil…
Barbra Streisand photo
Barbra Streisand 5
American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and direct…
Paul McCartney photo
Paul McCartney 50
English singer-songwriter and composer
Elton John photo
Elton John 80
English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist
John Cage photo
John Cage 43
American avant-garde composer
Hayao Miyazaki photo
Hayao Miyazaki 34
Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka
Sylvester Stallone photo
Sylvester Stallone 8
American actor, screenwriter, and film director
Charlie Chaplin photo
Charlie Chaplin 75
British comic actor and filmmaker
Franco Battiato photo
Franco Battiato 4
Italian singer-songwriter, composer, and filmmaker
Walt Disney photo
Walt Disney 102
American film producer and businessman