Chinatown

The story goes that Jerry Goldsmith wrote and recorded this score in ten days, after the film’s producer Robert Evans pulled Phillip Lambro’s finished score at the eleventh hour. Economy of means turns out to be the score’s biggest strength. It works in dabs and brushstrokes, relying on a tight, clever, and unusual set of sonic textures. The opening few seconds are as weird as they are satisfying: a foreboding harp stroke on the strings of piano, a high string wail, and the famous neo-noir trumpet solo, delicately overlaid with a twinkling piano figure. The score also shines as an example of how to place a historical setting in a modernist frame: Goldsmith paints mist and uncertainty around 30’s pop standards, like “The Way You Look Tonight ” and “Easy Living.”