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Oscars nominees include all-star lineup of film composers

Goldsmith conducting
Goldsmith   
March 17, 1998
Web posted at: 1:25 p.m. EST (1825 GMT)

HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- The actor and director nominees may get most of the publicity at the March 23 Academy Awards, but awards will also go to creative artists whose work often goes almost unnoticed even though it has a strong emotional impact: the composers of film music.

Veteran film composer Jerry Goldsmith describes what the music should do: "It's there to highlight the emotional elements of a picture, hopefully not to illustrate what you're seeing -- it's what you're not seeing."

Goldsmith knows what he is talking about. He already has garnered 17 Oscar nominations, and he again figures prominently this year with a nomination for best original dramatic score for his music in "L.A. Confidential." On top of that, he has been invited to create the new Oscar theme for this year's award ceremony.

Ron Tank reports on Hollywood's Oscar-winning composers
icon VXtreme streaming video (2:27)

Hans Zimmer won an Oscar for "The Lion King" three years ago, and this year he has again been nominated for best original musical or comedy score for his work in "As Good As It Gets."

The challenge for Zimmer in that movie, he said, was to emphasize the love relationship written into the story by James L. Brooks.

"The process started to evolve when I was going in a way against the comedy and was literally stepping on Jim's jokes ... let's see if we can get the emotional life of this movie happening," he said.

"Anastasia"   

Brooks himself was aware of the balancing act that Zimmer had to master: "A little too this way and it was frivolous, a little too that way and it took itself too seriously."

Composers may lead their musicians, but they must follow the director. Philip Glass, nominated for "Kundun" in the category best original dramatic score, worked for Martin Scorsese.

"Marty's a very meticulous director and he looked at every frame a zillion times, and the music kept moving around a lot -- but it was fun to do," Glass said.

Animation requires the most scoring -- a job David Newman took on in "Anastasia." It earned him a nomination for best original musical or comedy score.

His father, Alfred Newman, composed the music for the original "Anastasia" 42 years ago.

Danny Elfman wrote the music for "Mission: Impossible," "Batman," "Dick Tracey," "Edward Scissorhands" and 27 other films and never got a nomination. But this year, fortunes have turned and he got two in one batch for "Good Will Hunting" (best original dramatic score) and "Men in Black"(best original musical or comedy score).

The dominant role of the blockbuster movie "Titanic" extends to James Hoerner, who was nominated for an Oscar for best original dramatic score.

Correspondent Ron Tank contributed to this report.

 
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