James Horner has tragically passed away. He was 61.
Reported on Monday by his assistant Sylvia Patrycja on Facebook, the Oscar-winning film composer was piloting a plane 60 miles north of Santa Barbara. The plane was reported down by police, but it was unknown what happened to its pilot until now. (Source.)
Not much is known beyond that, including what happened during his flight, but I personally think that stuff is irrelevant right now. We’ll know that when we’re told, let’s not speculate. We lost a great artist, and that’s what’s important.
To say James Horner had a stellar career is an understatement. In his short 61 years on Earth, Horner earned himself immortality by leaving his mark in the world of cinema. He scored countless of iconic movies we’ll remember until our civilization is dust.
You can scroll through the long list yourself, but some key works you’ll probably be most interested in include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Aliens, A Beautiful Mind, An American Tail (which he earned an Oscar nom for), Field of Dreams (another Oscar nomination), Apollo 13 (yet another Oscar nom), and Titanic (an Oscar WIN). His career certainly doesn’t end there, not when there are more Oscars to get nominated for, but to list them all would be a chore. The upcoming Southpaw will be his latest work.
James Horner was just one of the best. There is comparison, but that’s not the time or place for that now.
There’s one work in particular of his I’d like to highlight: Casper.
Let’s be clear: Casper is kind of a shitty movie. It’s sweet but tonally confusing, with numbingly slow pacing and flawed direction. But if there’s one saving grace, it’s James Horner’s score. Fusing together an ethereal, angelic mystique over a sleepy northeastern harbor town resulted in a beautiful, utterly haunting score that deserves both adjectives. Puns be damned. Most of the soundtrack takes on a whimsical flair — with some tweaking it could score a romantic comedy set in Manhattan — but Horner hits his stride on the Casper soundtrack with “Casper’s Lullaby.” I guarantee that if you play this song to anyone who had any kind of memory with Casper, this is the one that will trigger every sensation and memory.
I thought I’d share this one with you today. It may be tasteless, given that it’s a movie about ghosts and it plays at every scene that tugs so hard on your heartstrings it feels disingenuous, but I really think it’s one of Horner’s best and most under appreciated compositions. Whatever memories you attach to this or to any of Horner’s other work, I hope they are pleasant enough to make you smile when the day is difficult. And not to drag in the ugly outside world right now, but for many of us the very recent times have been testing our patience and tolerance. We still don’t know how to live with each other peacefully, but if art makes life worth living then I hope there’s some art in Horner’s work that inspires you to keep on going. This one is mine.