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Arnaud

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Everything posted by Arnaud

  1. Dear Indy4, it was clear to me from the start that your friend - whom you described as your 'classical music friend' - had what I would call an intellectual issue with film music. This is also known as a form of snobbery. Did you expect that once proven that Williams was original (this already very much a condescending issue coming from a closed and prejudiced mind - not yours, hers), she would drop her prejudices and suddenly come to appreciate his music? This is why I felt that the topic you started was not about the originality of John Williams' music but really about your friend and her ability to come to love it. There are plenty of people on these boards who love all kinds of music - including classical - in addition to John Williams. There are no contradictions at all. Anyone saying there is doesn't really appreciate music in my opinion. Some of these people claim to love classical music only because it makes them feel cleverer or superior to others but it has little to do with actual appreciation. Until they mature a little. Unfortunately some, never daring to leave their usual circles or unable to challenge what they have been taught, will never mature. It is a fact that we judge and we are judged by what we claim to like or not like. Many people from all kinds of places on the social ladder are never taught to be free and never taught to never be ashamed of what they like. They are condemned to merely follow the norm. On the other hand, it is a great gift to raise one's kids with the ability to explain to others and the desire to share with others what they love and why they love it. Because ultimately it's only about appreciating music and getting more joy from this world. If your friend doesn't like JW's music for whatever reasons, well, that's her loss. Finally, if you were not trying to help your friend discover John Williams to share something you love with her but merely having a rhetorical joust with her then it was indeed a waste of time. Anyone not seeing that John Williams' music is wholly original needs to have their ears and their musical education checked or is simply beyond saving!
  2. There was a time when bearers of bad news, real or false, were put to death. Right now it seems like the good old days... ;>)
  3. Dear Indy4, May I ask you what you hope to achieve by doing that? It seems to me that this thread is more about your friend than it is about the music of John Williams.
  4. That is simply beautiful. Thank you! Could you give us a link to your Tintin and War Horse covers? I'm very curious now.
  5. Thanks for posting that interview with William Ross. I'll take his word for it. In the end he didn't get to do as much as he could have on that score and I can't help but feel a touch of regret in his words. The Music Police? Really?! :>) He's no spring chicken and he has a great career though not filled with much public recognition. I would say that being chosen by Williams was quite an honor. He seems well aware of it, at once rightfully proud and very humble. Good man.
  6. Well hurrah for shamelessness. Spielberg was right!
  7. As much as I admire Steward Copeland, it seems he is falling in the old simplistic trap that measures art with the amount of freedom the artist got. This is entirely irrelevant and he should know better. As is the debate between art and craft. One can't produce art without knowing the craft. And then is all craft art? No, but time will tell what was and what wasn't. If Steward C. still feels to this day that he doesn't express himself artistically in his work for film and that it feels more to him like a craft than an art form, one can only respect his feeling. Incidently it is not impossible that John Williams shares the feeling. It doesn't mean they are right or wrong. It's just how they feel and how they see their place in the history of music. I would say this is rather humble of them. Is writing music for film an art? You bet it is! Is writing bad music for film still an art? That is the question!
  8. I agree that there are enough marvelous cues in Tintin to call it a masterpiece. Anything is still possible with good ol' John Towner. You don't have to be a completist to be continually curious about Williams' works past or present that were not previously available. You can't know what you're going to get: a solid score that won't necessarily touch you or some of your favorite music. Conrack was an extraordinary discovery for me a couple of years ago. What little music we got from this film is a gem. I even bought a 16mm copy of the film to hear the rest! But then again I have to confess that I am a completist...
  9. What William Ross did on Chamber Of Secrets is a very interesting subject indeed. As it is, a movie's credit is something that is not decided lightly. The minimum credit (or no credit given) is the result of a negotiation between employee's lawyer and production company and written in a contract. Then it is up to the producer to finalize movie's credits in accordance with everyone's contracts and also to give someone a better credit than was negotiated if someone's work deserves it. I would assume that a credit like "Music adapted by" is something that has many precedents and that it covers a very specific kind of work in the group effort that brings a film score to completion. There are industry standards generally defined by negotiations between Unions and Studios. Perhaps there is a mention of that particular credit in the book "On The Track" mentioned by the original poster. (Unfortunately I cannot find my own copy.) Otherwise, such information will be available at the Union office. I would say as a rule that people know exactly what they are contractually supposed to do and they will seldom venture to do what is somebody else's work and responsibility. A film crew is an army with a strong sense of hierarchy. There is at least one precedent of such credit in John Williams career except this time he was the adapter: Fiddler on the Roof. Williams got the exact same credit that William Ross got on COS: "Music Adapted and Conducted by John Williams". After years of uncertainty, we now have a pretty good idea of what Williams did on that film. I would sum it up like that but please feel free to correct and complete: entire supervision of the creation of the film score; orchestration choices to expand original Broadway music; supervision of orchestrations; writing new music when necessary; conducting. And we know that though Williams wrote little new music for the film, what he wrote was spectacular. (Incredibly enough, Jerry Bock, composer of the original music, was not credited on the cover of the soundtrack album. That can only have been the result of a serious mistake by his lawyer when negotiating with the production company.) If John Williams insisted that the producers give William Ross that very credit on COS, a better credit than was planned, one can assume that Ross did a fairly similar work to what Williams did on Fiddler and that he went beyond the call of duty. Does anyone know if Williams attended the scoring cessions? If not, it would mean that Ross was the only person present able to make changes or write new filler music if asked to by Chris Columbus. Of course, Ross had access to Williams' famous bag of tricks and he may just have picked there... Similarly, the use of music from Attack of the Clones may simply be the remnant of a cue used on the temp track. This has probably happened before on at least Return of the Jedi and Home Alone 2.
  10. You guys are simply amazing. Thank you!
  11. I'd say John Williams is still at the top of his game but the directors he worked with the past 10 years haven't been at the top of theirs. There is still greatness in Spielberg's work and he could blow us away with his next project but the recent ones have all been missing something. Perhaps the missing element is youth. In this case - youth having little to do with actual age - John Williams will always be young.
  12. Thank God, there's a lot of such people in the worlds of the Arts, Philosophy and Science in each of our respective countries. Their names are hardly ever mentioned on TV (except maybe when they die) because it's too busy showing bimbos quarrel on "Big Brother". But these old folks are here, they are pillars of a civilization they helped build and when they go we are all the poorer for it even if we never heard of them.
  13. I will dare add Star Trek - The Motion Picture to the list of great films scored by JG or made better by JG's score. I remember seeing this on a big screen and that was a total light and music show. Beautiful to look at and to listen to. It had its flaws but many of them have been smoothed in the Director's cut and it is still a special movie to this day.
  14. I would say Lucas has (or had) a good ear and a good sense of how to use music in a film. He did ask Williams to rewrite the music for the Tatooine sunset scene in SW and to use Ben's theme. That decision alone was a major factor in the quality of the film and its success. As for last minute editing and tinkering, every caring filmmaker wishes he had more time to fix this and that and will tinker till the very last minute.
  15. Did anybody mention Innerspace? Great fun film and marvelous score.
  16. So whom have they since asked? Lol. I think he meant 'formally'. Obviously, I did. Thanks! (I'll try to correct the mistake on the original post.) Sorry about it. Tears of joy were blurring my vision as I was typing!
  17. Everything you hear in the film is Goldsmith except the end credits (to my eternal dismay). Two or three cues were taken from an older Goldsmith score (Freud). Goldsmith also had to rewrite several cues but they are all his. Many times the music was edited and moments omitted but it's a natural process of filmmaking. Mixing wasn't too kind either as the music is sometimes (apparently) deliberately obscured by loud noises. I strongly recommend the complete two cd set of the Alien score. The music is exceptional and the liner notes very comprehensive. Who says Under Fire isn't a great film???
  18. Apparently Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, announced today at the Star Wars convention in Germany that John Williams had been formally asked to write the music for the three new Star Wars films.
  19. This is quite off-topic, but I disagree with your sentiments. I prefer Scott's choices for ALIEN over Goldsmith's (and yes, that includes the Hanson excerpt over the end credits) and think the Tangerine Dream score has elements that surpass the Goldsmith on LEGEND (but also vice versa on other elements). Hello Thor, I don't see how this was off topic... Anyway, now it may be. Regarding Alien, to each his own taste. Still, it makes no sense to bring totally new melodic material during End Credits just because Scott and his editor fell in love with their temp track. As for Legend, there is simply no way to show more disdain to a composer than to replace his score. All this can't have endeared Scott to the likes of Williams.
  20. To reply to the original post, Williams has worked on so many films with Spielberg and Lucas, it reduced his availability a great deal. As for Woody Allen, he couldn't possibly afford JW. Ridley Scott is another matter. It's possible Jerry Goldsmith told him what a disappointment Alien had been to him. As much as I love Howard Hanson's symphony - and I am grateful to Scott because that's how learned of its existence - , I still don't understand why Scott replaced Goldsmith amazing End Title track with Hanson's composition. It just doesn't make sense to do that on exit music. There is no excuse. And that was just the cherry on the cake... And then, after having been lured to work with Scott again on Legend (another great JG score) it became another kind of nightmare (having his score replaced by tangerine Dream for the US release). So Williams and Scott: this could have turned into a legendary Hollywood clash!
  21. When I saw Williams at the Bowl last year, he performed that entire finale to the film onscreen. I was expecting they would play the entire finale from E.T.. I'm not familiar with concert versions. The one they played the other night was cut and segments were played in a different order. I don't think that it adds to the piece for the specific purpose of a concert version. On the other hand I have to admit that the film version is so familiar that I am obviously biased. Parade of the Slave Children would be great to hear in concert. I was kind of hoping to get Cadillac of the Skies from Empire of the Sun when I checked the program but it needs a choir so that didn't happen. Has anyone here ever heard it in concert? The program is built to give the opportunity to each group of instruments to shine at least once. When the time for percussions comes I think Rescuing Sarah from Lost World would be very impressive. Bonsoir Eitam! I agree with you regarding Crystal Skull though Adventures of Mutt is growing on me like all the first cues from the album release. Give it another chance! ;>) The program didn't feature anything recent. I thought Lincoln would be the last encore. Star Wars, not being related to Spielberg, was a big surprise.
  22. Tragic is the word I was looking for! Thank you!
  23. I was lucky to attend the concert of John Williams music for Steven Spielberg films given yesterday (friday) at Salle Pleyel in Paris. Franck Strobel was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The program was as follows: Jurassic Park: Theme Jaws Suite: Shark Theme - Out to Sea - Shark Cage Fugue Shindler's List: Jewish Town - Theme Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Suite): Adventures of Mutt - Call of the Crystal - A Whirl through Academe - Raiders of the Lost Ark: End Title Hook: Flight to Neverland War of the Worlds: Escape from the City - Epilogue Close Encounters of the third Kind: Suite Empire of the Sun: Jim's new life The terminal: The Tale of Viktor Navorski E.T.: Adventures on Earth Suite There were three encores: Munich: A Prayer for Peace 1941: March Star Wars: Main Titles The concert was excellent. The LSO is a beautiful orchestra. Only two pieces were originally created with it (Raiders End Titles and Star Wars Main Titles) and I expect it is difficult to hear better concert versions. The LSO is just perfect for them. All the pieces are extremely familiar to me with the exception of War of the Worlds that I hardly ever listen to. I felt Close Encounters, E.T., Raiders End Titles (especially Marion's Theme) and Star Wars stood out in concert. I understand better why Williams often cites CE3K as one of his favorites. The Terminal and Munich greatly benefited from being heard live and were excellent surprises. I also never expected to hear the 1941 March in concert and it was a blast. There was only one drawback: film clips were projected on a big screen sometimes accompanied by poor lighting effects. I found it extremely distracting. The music doesn't need any help from images or effects and this is not what we were there for. I wish film music was taken seriously in concert halls and organizers didn't feel a screen was needed. There is also something slightly condescending to it. Two weeks earlier I attended a Prokofiev concert and Lieutenant Kijé was played. This was originally a movie score but no one in their right mind would suggest to show clips from the film as the music is played! The hall was packed full and the audience was very enthusiastic (hence the three encores!). It's a shame 300 seats were lost due to the presence of the screen behind the orchestra. Many people were looking for tickets but didn't manage to get in. Anyway, music wise, I guess it was the best concert possible in the absence of the master himself holding the baton. He's never conducted in Paris and I fear he never will.
  24. Thank you for this great analysis. I was fascinated by your "alternate" version. Personally I always found the march to be about something very dramatic but not necessity evil. I am in fact more attracted by the secondary theme, the one that starts with the solo piccolo or flute. (Is it the part called the bridge?) I listen to this part on its own. There is a sadness and serious drama to it that says a lot about the composer's understanding of the character in my opinion. It's such a beautiful piece.
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