Composers, just like actors and directors, needed to "play the game" in order to score nominations and Oscars. At the beginning of his career, Herrmann was nominated for both Citizen Kane and All That Money Can Buy (The Devil and Daniel Webster) in 1941. He won his only Best Music Score Oscar for the latter film. His score for Anna and the King of Siam received an Oscar nom in 1946.
Herrmann passed away in 1975. His scores for Obsession and Taxi Driver were nominated in 1976. Most of his iconic, influential scores like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef, Vertigo, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, North by Northwest, Psycho, Mysterious Island, Cape Fear, Marnie, Fahrenheit 451, and many others did not receive Oscar nominations. Such a lack of proper recognition by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for such a groundbreaking, esteemed film composer is shocking and sad. It makes their organization look trivial and silly. Just IMO. |
