The Day The Earth Stood Still: Three Things You Might Not Know About The SF Classic
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The Score Inspired One Of The Most Prolific Modern Film Composers
Composer Bernard Hermann gave The Day the Earth Stood Still a creepy and unique musical score, making use of pianos, harps, vibrophones, glockenspiels, drums, brass, and electric versions of the violin, cello, and bass. One of the most recognizable elements of the score, however, is the film’s use of the theremin. Created by Russian inventor Léon Theremin, that instrument is played by waving your hands around between a pair of antennae, and was a staple of ’50s sci-fi scores. Hermann actually used two of them for The Day the Earth Stood Still, one pitched high and the other low.
So, which modern composer cites Hermann’s Day the Earth Stood Still score as a major influence on his own career? That’d be Danny Elfman, former front man of Oingo Boingo and frequent collaborator with Tim Burton. Elfman told Empire Online:
This was the first film score I ever really noticed, aged about 10. It made me aware that a person actually wrote these things — that they didn’t come from clouds or from space! After this I noticed Herrmann’s name on all of my favorite films, from Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and other fantasy films he did. Every time I saw his name on a movie, I paid attention. Then I rediscovered him in my teens through my newly-found infatuation with Alfred Hitchcock. I still think that North by Northwest, Vertigo and of course Psycho are three of the best film scores ever written. I was always a big film music fan — I’d pride myself on being able to recognise Max Steiner and Jerry Goldsmith’s scores and I loved Nino Rota’s Fellini scores — but Herrmann was my great inspiration.
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