Kamen composed the music for The Iron Giant, a score built on Americana, brass and a recurring theme for the machine that carries the film's argument about choice. It is restrained where the subject invites bombast, and it lets the film's final sequence work through a single held melodic line.
He trained in classical oboe and came to film through rock and roll, collaborating with major bands on orchestral arrangements throughout his career. That combination shaped his scoring: symphonic craft applied without any snobbery to action films, comedies and animation alike, in a period when those genres were rarely given it.
Recurring subjects: heroism scored with tenderness rather than volume, outsiders given the strongest melodic material, and orchestral writing that leaves room for silence. He wrote memorable primary themes and orchestrated richly, and his action work retained melody at a time when the genre was moving toward texture.
His action scores of the nineteen eighties and nineties defined the sound of that period, and his collaborations with rock musicians produced some of the most widely heard orchestral arrangements in popular music. He founded a charity supplying instruments to schools, which continues after his death.
For listeners who want orchestral film music with genuine warmth. Suited to families approaching the animated feature, and to anyone who knows the action scores without knowing the name behind them.
