[h2]5. Bernard Hermann and Alfred Hitchcock[/h2]
Bernard Hermann only scored a small percentage of Alfred Hitchcock’s total directorial output (the filmmaker was as prolific as he was brilliant), but when that percentage includes Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, and The Man Who Knew Too Much, the collaboration must surely be considered legendary. Psycho in particular is as good an example of director and composer working in harmony as exists, with Hitchcock himself famously remarking that “33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music,” and the score from the infamous ‘shower scene’ having entered the modern cinematic vernacular worldwide. A disagreement on the musical direction for 1966’s Torn Curtain ended Hermann and Hitchcock’s professional relationship, but in the eight films they collaborated on, the two forged some of history’s most memorable and influential unions of music and cinema.
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