Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann explores the work of a composer who created music for over 50 films, collaborating with such diverse directors as Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, and Martin Scorsese. Best remembered for his twelve-year collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in such classics as Vertigo, North By Northwest, and the unforgettable Psycho, Herrmann pioneered many fundamental techniques of film scoring in the course of his 35-year career.

This fascinating program takes audiences behind the scenes in Hollywood to the mixing rooms and dubbing stages where music is put to picture. We follow Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock, examining the bitter breakup of one of the riches collaborations in Hollywood history over the score for the 1966 film Torn Curtain. He see Torn Curtain as it has never been seen before - accompanied by Herrmann's brilliant score.

Including clips from: Citizen Kane, Sisters, North by Northwest, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, On Dangerous Ground, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Psycho, Torn Curtain, The Bride Wore Black, and Taxi Driver.

Featuring interviews with directors Martin Scorsese and Claude Chabrol, composers David Raksin and Elmer Bernstein, film scholar Royal S. Brown, Herrmann's first wife, musicians, film editors and sound mixers, as well as home movies, archival photos and interviews with Herrmann himself.

"Wisely, filmmaker Joshua Waletzky doesn't flinch from the harsher details of Herrmann's life and personality (composer David Raksin describes Herrmann as "not a sociable man" and "a virtuoso of non-specific anger"), serving up an even portrait of an ambitious but also temperamental genius. Highly recommended." - Video Librarian

Music For the Movies is an exciting documentary series chronicling the influence music has had on the making of movies. These four programs - Bernard Herrmann, Toru Takemitsu, Georges Delerue, and The Hollywood Sound - explore the complex relationship between image and music in cinema, taking audiences behind the scenes to bring the story of movie music to life.