At the time of composition Rózsa had made only one previous excursion into such territory, for MGM's 1950 epic Quo Vadis, for which he composed one of the greatest scores in cinema history. I see no reason to disagree with any of that, and it neatly explains why the music is as it is, falling somewhere in style between Miklós Rózsa's film noir style (the dark intensity of Lost Weekend, The Killers and Brute Force) and the faux Roman Empire pomp of he would later become inseparably associated with via such epics as Ben-Hur and King of Kings. Rozsa instead decided to score the film as a universal drama: 'I wrote the same music I would have written for a modern stage presentation: interpretative incidental music, expressing with my own musical language, for a modern audience, what Shakespeare expressed with his own language, for a modern audience 350 years ago.' At the same time, evoking stage music of 16th century England would have also been wrong. The story is set in Roman times, yet musical fidelity to ancient Rome would be inappropriate for a Shakespearean tragedy with its origins in the Elizabethan era. Scoring Julius Caesar was M-G-M's premiere dramatic composer, Miklós Rózsa, who faced a unique challenge. The film was produced by John Houseman and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, filmed in stark black-and-white and using no additional dialogue beyond Shakespeare's text. "M-G-M's 1953 Julius Caesar is one of the finest screen adaptations of William Shakespeare, featuring a stellar cast in Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud, Louis Calhern, Edmond O'Brien, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr and more. To quote Film Score Monthly's press release: Julius Caesar: Music composed and conducted by Miklós Rózsa : Film Music on the Web CD Reviews September 2004įilm Score Monthly, 8503 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, CA90232 Tel: 1-88 overseas: 31 fax: 31 e-mail: also:
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