by filmfactsman on 1/22/2005
favorite track: 2
 
A Landmark Film Score. With his 1961 score for Breakfast at Tiffany's, Henry Mancini truly established himself as the eminent composer of film music for the early part of the 1960s. In his book "Medium Cool," film critic Ethan Mordden observed, one couldn't imagine these tunes, in these orchestrations, making do in any other film: "Moon River," "Latin Golightly," "Something for Cat," "Hubcaps and Taillights," "The Big Heist." With these songs, as well as with his overall arrangement of the music for Breakfast at Tiffany's, Mancini radically challenged the entire era that movie music should provide background and exist as a secondary and relatively formulaic accompaniment to the picture and dialogue. Mancini wanted his music to be conspicuous; he was at the forefront of shifting the aesthetic of motion picture music in Hollywood toward this concept. Mancini's impact in demonstrating that the times were truly changing for Hollywood movie music was evidenced when Breakfast at Tiffany's lapped up the film industry's approval by winning the Academy Award for best original score. His winning of this particular category with a score that was entirely jazz/pop-oriented, and beating out traditional powerhouse Hollywood composers that year, including Miklos Rozsa (El Cid), Elmer Bernstein (Summer and Smoke) and Dimitri Tiomkin (The Guns of Naverone), marked the beginning of a new era for movie music in the United States.