It’s with the heaviest hearts that I have to report this morning that Oscar winning composer James Horner has passed away after a small airc...
It’s with the heaviest hearts that I have to report this morning that Oscar winning composer James Horner has passed away after a small aircraft registered to him was revealed to have crashed north of Santa Barbara. He was 61.
His career dates back to 1978, and in the preceding years, he has been credited with nearly 158 film scores, and doesn’t include the numerous songs he helped write, including An American Tail’s Somewhere Out There and the monster hit from Titanic, My Heart Will Go On. While he had composed soundtracks for the likes of Oliver Stone’s The Hand and Battle Beyond the Stars, which was reused in later films from producer Roger Corman (if you are aware of Corman, this will come as no surprise) in the years previous, it was 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that established him as a mainstream composer, and led to him working on 48 Hrs., Krull, Commando, Field of Dreams, and The Land Before Time.
He was a frequent collaborator with Walter Hill (48 Hrs., Red Heat, Another 48 Hrs.), Mel Gibson (The Man Without a Face, Braveheart, and Apocalypto), Ron Howard (Cocoon, Willow, Apollo 13, Ransom, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, and The Missing), Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, and Jumanji)and James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar), and went on to bag numerous Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, finally bagging a golden statuette in 1997 for Titanic. It’s safe to say if you have visited the cinema since 1982 , you have heard his work.
The thoughts of everyone here at The Movie Bit go out to his friends and family at this hard time, and to remember the great man, I leave you with my two of favourites tracks from the great man, just two pieces from an absolutely incredible body of work.
