Kaleidoscope of Mathematics

Almost seven years ago the first thing that I fell in love with on watching the movie A Beautiful Mind for the first time was the opening theme known as Kaleidoscope of Mathematics. Another movie that I watched for the first time around the same time was Bicentennial Man, directed by Chris Columbus. It was only when I watched it again a few years later that it dawned on me that the opening score of Bicentennial Man was pretty much the same as that of A Beautiful Mind. Music for both films was scored by James Horner, but I'm not sure if I knew this ahead of my discovery. Surfing around in YouTube I came to know that Horner had apparently used the same piece of music in an earlier film - Searching for Bobby Fischer, released in 1993 - as well. Of course, I cannot vouch for the truth of this assertion because I've neither watched the movie nor heard its score.

The fact that Horner has used the same theme in at least two different movies has led to some predictable criticism. This ranges from sane calls for a bit more of originality from the composer to insane assertions of plagiarism. I on the other hand, find nothing at all to criticize the composer about. For me, the fact that he used the same musical theme in the opening scores of both Bicentennial Man and A Beautiful Mind indicates his understanding of the deeper intellectual themes that underlie these two movies. While the Bicentennial Man is about a robot who strives to become human, A Beautiful Mind traces the life of a schizophrenic mathematician. So essentially, the former follows the evolution of a beautiful mind while the latter is concerned with the consequences of the existence of a beautiful mind. It's nothing short of amazing for me that James Horner not only understood this, but was able to translate it into a beautiful piece of music. One last point that I want to make is that even though the musical theme is the same, the style of orchestration in terms of the instruments used, the aural ambience and the tempo are vastly different between the two movies and Horner makes sure that the music for each movie is its own. Bravo James Horner!