This week on Film Score Friday, we listen to the score from 1989's Batman. Danny Elfman wrote the score from this take on the dark knight. Depending on your perspective, at the time this film premiered there had been few to no successful (read: good) comic book hero movies. Elfman's challenge here was to make a programmatic score, but not one cartoonish. He succeeded.
Elfman on the score
It's a fantastic score with great range. At time it goes from sounding like a dark Viennese Waltz to Also Sprach Zarathustra. Each brass section gets time to shine many times in this score. Not only that, it feels like the bell is about to come off everything from lead Trumpet to Tuba. The recording absolutely feels like every brass player pushed it to the limit. The other element that works well with the score is doubling of brass parts with organ. The depth of sound matches the tone of the movie perfectly. The Sinfonia of London recorded this. Well done.
“For Batman, they wanted it to sound like John Williams’ music but I don’t do that - only John Williams can do John Williams.”
Is this the greatest score from a Batman film? Tell us in the comments.
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