The American President Film Score

The American President is part of a tradition of movies about laid back men in positions of power, similar to Dave, and King Ralph. Even though not a commercial success, it was well appreciated by movie critics, and is frequently broadcast on cable TV. The film starred Michael Douglas, Annette Benning and Martin Sheen, under the direction of Rob Reiner. Marc Shaiman was in charge of the film score, for which he received an Original Musical or Comedy Score Academy Award nomination.

Marc Shaiman is a prolific American composer who has worked in a wide variety of film scores, including Broadcast News, Beaches, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery, Hot Shots!, A Few Good Men, Sleepless in Seattle, North, Forget Paris, The First Wives Club, In & Out, My Giant, Simon Birch, Patch Adams, The Out-of-Towners, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, The Story of Us, The Kid, The Wedding Planner, Bowling for Columbine, Down with Love, Alex & Emma, Marci X, The Cat in the Hat,

Team America: World Police, Rumor Has It..., Hairspray, The Bucket List, and Flipped, among many others. Shaiman has also contributed his talent to the small screen and the stage, winning Tony and Grammy awards.

The main themes in The American President movie score are driven by strings and horns. The title theme, which represents the office of the President, is the most well known, although the downplayed romance theme bears the brunt of the work in the central parts of the movie. There is no doubt that this original score is one of the reasons that The American President remains in the collective mind, other than the fact that the movie actually inspired the highly more popular TV series The West Wing, which was created by Aron Sorkin, who wrote The American President.