Big (Howard Shore, 1988): Despite the fact that the film was an enormous blockbuster that essentially led Tom Hanks’ transformation from light comedy actor to major movie star, no soundtrack album was released at the time that the film came out. There wasn’t even a pop-song album with songs inspired from the film. Howard Shore’s score to the film remained unavailable until 2002 when Varese Sarabande finally issued a limited edition CD (which is still available) as part of their CD Club series.
Those familiar with Howard Shore’s music mainly from his popular scores to the Lord of the Rings trilogy or for thrillers like Silence of the Lambs and Seven probably wouldn’t be too quick to recognize this score as coming from the same composer. The Big score is light and pop-infused, with a bit of a new-age jazz styling to it. In fact, hearing this score without knowing the composer, I would probably be more apt to guess it was by someone like Dave Grusin or Michael Gore.
That isn’t to say that the score isn’t good. In fact, it is very charming and fits the film perfectly. The score is generally not fully orchestral, instead featuring piano as the predominant instrument, with synthesizers providing most of the backing for it. The score is primarily built around a fairly simple piano melody that serves as a primary theme for Hanks’ character. Shore creatively expands on the theme over the course of the film, with it essentially growing larger in scale, and becoming more fully orchestral, as the character becomes more a part of the adult world. Particularly notable is the addition of strings to the theme during the cue “Falling In Love”, essentially growing it into more of a romantic theme.
The score does also include some fantasy elements, mainly for the scenes involving the carnival and the story’s central fortune telling machine. The cue “Zoltar” is the primary example of this, with the music taking on a somewhat darker, almost creepy, tone. The CD also includes alternate takes of several cues as bonus tracks. These are all a bit darker in style and, interestingly, mostly more fully orchestral. Shore likely chose to rework portions of the score to lighten the tone a bit, partly by scaling the score down a bit.
The CD does include a couple source cues, most notably the toy piano version of “Heart and Soul” that accompanied the film’s most famous sequence. Shore also incorporates the melody of that famous song into the film’s end titles suite. The album also includes an adaptation of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade”.
Big Fish
The soundtrack album is actually a mixed song and score album, although Elfman’s portion runs about 40 minutes, which is roughly 2/3 of the album. The songs are the first seven cues on the album, opening with “Man of the Hour”, a Pearl Jam song specifically written and recorded for the film. The rest of the songs are period classics from Bing Crosby, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Vogues, The Allman Brothers, and Canned Heat. It is a nice collection of songs, although, other than the Pearl Jam song, they are so common that it is pretty likely most people already have one or two in their collection elsewhere.
Those expecting the gothic styling or predominant choruses that are common in Elfman’s Tim Burton scores are apt to be pretty surprised by this one. This is a much more intimately orchestral score, dominated by piano and strings. A gentle and effective main theme is established in the title cue. The theme is tender and melodic, bringing to mind the side of Elfman that was first noted in his score for Sommersby, but which doesn’t come out in too many of his scores. His “Sandra’s Theme” is a romantic, major key theme that had an interestingly more downbeat ending to it. Another highlight is “The Growing Montage”, which starts off quiet but builds into a brassy fanfare complete with a little bit of Elfman’s trademark choral writing.
The score does showcase a few different styles in order to accommodate the changing settings of the film. “Shoe Stealing” has a bit of a country feel, including a featured solo guitar. The cues “Leaving Spectre” and “Return to Spectre” have a bit of a sad tone, with the latter making very effective use of a solo violin. “Returning Home”, on the other hand, has a much more optimistic style, complete with soaring strings and triumphant-sounding horns. Pretty much the full range of the score is represented in the impressive 11 minute “Finale” cue.
Elfman does contribute one brief song to the film, which ends the soundtrack album. The song is entitled “Twice the Love (Siamese Twins’ Song)” and is performed by Bobbi Page and Candice Rumph, who played the twins in the film. It is a pretty typically goofy and quirky song, but pretty entertaining. Of course, it will mean basically nothing to anyone who hasn’t seen the film, though.
(Jerry Goldsmith, 1992): Throughout his career, Jerry Goldsmith all too frequently was hired as the composer for bad movies that failed at the box-office. Basic Instinct was a rare case where he scored a bad movie that ended up being a big hit. Obviously, there are probably a lot of people that disagree with my assessment of the film, but I also expect that most people will agree that Goldsmith’s score was among the film’s biggest strengths.
(James Horner, 2001): This Oscar-winning drama was the fifth collaboration between composer James Horner and director Ron Howard. It was the most low-key and introspective of the films that the two have done together and Horner provided a suitably sensitive score, although one that will sound pretty familiar to fans of Horner’s work as it does use many of his favorite motifs.
(Richard Sherman & Robert Sherman, 1971): Disney reteamed a number of key members of the creative team behind Mary Poppins for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, another musical that mixed live action and animation. While not as successful either creatively or financially as the earlier film, it is still a film with many charms, including another winning song score by the Sherman Brothers.
(Alan Menken & Howard Ashman, 1991): Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of Disney’s animated films and on my short list of favorite movies in general. The film’s music is absolutely critical to its success. At the time, it was the closest that an animated film had come to duplicating the style of a modern Broadway musical and, thus, it was no big surprise when several years later an adaptation of the movie became Disney’s first Broadway show.
(1989, Danny Elfman): Although Danny Elfman had already done a handful of film scores (including his first two projects with Tim Burton), his score for Burton’s 1989 Batman film really was the one that established him as an important voice in film scoring. The score was so successful that Elfman has frequently been the first choice for other super-hero movies, to a degree that sometimes has come perilously close to type-casting.
(Danny Elfman, 1992): I’m well aware that my view is in the minority on this one, but I actually prefer both the film and score for Batman Returns to the more popular original. After the enormous success of the first film, both Tim Burton and Danny Elfman were given a considerable amount of free reign and the result was a much more quirky film and score.
(Victor Young, 1956): When I wrote up my comments about the Trevor Jones score to the 2004 remake, I noted that I didn’t have a copy of Victor Young’s score in my collection. Some quick research found that a deluxe soundtrack release of that score from Hit Parade Records was pretty readily available and I ordered a copy from Amazon.com. 
(Alan Silvestri, 2010): It came as something of a pleasant surprise that Alan Silvestri was chosen to score the new film adaptation of the well-known 1980s action series, which was definitely a guilty pleasure for many of my generation. The film seemed like a more likely project for someone from the Hans Zimmer factory or for a more song-driven soundtrack. 
