From the earliest days of the movies, films have traditionally used music to (1) _________________ on screen. The first cinemas came equipped with a piano, a (2) ________________________, or an organ, and the
(3) ________________of the 1920s had live musical accompaniment. The pianist or organist had to watch the screen closely all the time to (4) ______________ that the music, he or she was playing, matched the action of the film. With the (5) _______________, it became possible to put music as well as dialogue onto a film’s (6) ______________. It is difficult to think of a single film made since then without some sort of background music. Film musicals were spectacularly popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, with extravagant screen productions of popular stage musicals like “Oklahoma” (1955) and “My Fair Lady” (1964) involving hundreds of singers and dancers.
(7) _________ it became less popular at the end of the 20th century, the film musical has recently been
(8) ____________ through box-office successes such as “Moulin Rouge” (2001) with Nicole Kidman and “Chicago” (2003) with Renee Zellweger.
Film music has also become popular away from the cinema. Many soundtracks become best-selling records, and film scores are now studied seriously and played by classical orchestras and radio stations. The most acclaimed and popular film music in recent years has often been the scores of epic or science-fiction films such as “Star Wars” (1977), “ET” (1982), “Gladiator” (2000) and “The Lord of the Rings” (2001), many of which have been composed by John Williams (American composer) [4; p. 116-117].