The Poseidon Adventure vs. Earthquake vs. The Towering Inferno

[Josh500 1,615]

6 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

I should listen to War Horse, i think I have the CD.

 

You're kidding, right?

[JoeinAR 1,949]

14 hours ago, Josh500 said:

 

It's not like Poseidon invented the disaster genre! When Poseidon was made, wasn't the disaster movie genre pretty well established? 

No it was not. You are so incorrect.  There have been disaster films since the beginning but the Poseidon Adventure started the wave of disaster films pardon the pun. There are films associated with the disaster genre from that time period that are not disaster films, Airport and Jaws come to mind.

[Thor 7,478]

Well, I'd argue that AIRPORT is a disaster film, strictly speaking, as is THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, SAN FRANCISCO, IN NACHT UND EIS, KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAWA and so forth. But none of them use the 'recipe' that POSEIDON did, and that launched the modern way of thinking about the genre. There is a disaster in the "background" of AIRPORT, but it's essentially about the intrigues and going-ons of the crew on the ground, while it is happening.

 

POSEIDON launched what I call "The Five Phases" - 1. The Human Landscape, 2. Silence before the Storm, 3. The Disaster, 4. Human orientations in the aftermath and 5. One Last Hindrance that is the benchmark used by Roland Emmerich and others in later years, with a higher reliance on 'spectacle' -- especially in phase 3.

[MikeH 768]

21 minutes ago, Thor said:

KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAWA

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Isnt it west of Java?

[Holko 9,499]

I love the java jive and it loves me.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

Well, I'd argue that AIRPORT is a disaster film, strictly speaking, as is THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, SAN FRANCISCO, IN NACHT UND EIS, KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAWA and so forth. But none of them use the 'recipe' that POSEIDON did, and that launched the modern way of thinking about the genre. There is a disaster in the "background" of AIRPORT, but it's essentially about the intrigues and going-ons of the crew on the ground, while it is happening.

 

POSEIDON launched what I call "The Five Phases" - 1. The Human Landscape, 2. Silence before the Storm, 3. The Disaster, 4. Human orientations in the aftermath and 5. One Last Hindrance that is the benchmark used by Roland Emmerich and others in later years, with a higher reliance on 'spectacle' -- especially in phase 3.

Airport is not a disaster film for that exact reason you state. But it does have similar construction. It certainly is a platform for great scoring. 

[Sir Hilary Bray 235]

Alfred Newman's music for the emergency landing in Airport is one of my favourite pieces out of any disaster movie. Even if Airport isn't an out and out disaster movie for the reasons listed above. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,508]

4 hours ago, Stefancos said:

Isnt it west of Java?

It is.

 

You want a cup of Java juice?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Waddya know!

[Josh500 1,615]

10 hours ago, Strangways said:

Alfred Newman's music for the emergency landing in Airport is one of my favourite pieces out of any disaster movie. Even if Airport isn't an out and out disaster movie for the reasons listed above. 

 

You mean this? Seems a little overscored to me... from the music alone, it sounds like evil flesh-eating aliens crashed down on earth and started slaughtering the population!.

 

But that was the 70s, so maybe it's permissible.... At 3:02

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,508]

The priest crossing himself, and then slapping the man, is priceless! 

[Thor 7,478]

AIRPORT is definitely oddly scored -- like a remnant of the past plastered on to a contemporary film (at that time). Newman goes all Golden Age in the dramatic music, and even the jazzy love theme has an air of 40s about it. I find it slightly anachronistic and out-of-place, but I can admire it for its unusual approach too. It's certainly unique. I don't believe there were many other scores in 1970 that sounded like that.

[Josh500 1,615]

22 minutes ago, Thor said:

I don't believe there were many other scores in 1970 that sounded like that.

 

Uh, Jaws?

 

Clearly JW was channeling the Golden Age on that one. Especially Korngold, with a touch of Herrmann!

 

And then there's this little movie called Star Wars. 😂 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,508]

@Josh500, JAWS? 1970? really?

[Josh500 1,615]

Oh, just the year 1970?

 

I thought the 70s.

 

My bad.

[Thor 7,478]

I'm also not sure I would label the JAWS score "Golden Age" in sentiment. It's far more modern and Stravinsky-ian.

[Josh500 1,615]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

I'm also not sure I would label the JAWS score "Golden Age" in sentiment. 

 

Maybe the movie. The score seems more Golden Age to me. In a good way. Full symphonic orchestra, expressing the romanticism and heroism and danger on the open sea....

[publicist 4,643]

Much to dry. It's really just a fraction of the second half that qualifies.

[Josh500 1,615]

This scene is certainly very well scored... Evokes the Golden Age era, but it's not too over the top, either.

 

 

[The Five Tones 302]

23 hours ago, Josh500 said:

You really should feel bad for not watching War Horse and Tintin! 

 

Partly it is taste in genre/period, partly no time and partly the dynamics of having three kids (see "no time") that may watch these films and I avoid the occasion because I won't have a proper experience, and then never get around to my own viewing... that happened with Tintin. The other day the wife took all three kids to see E.T. at a repertory theatre and I actually wasn't able to go and was almost upset they were being introduced without me there.

 

23 hours ago, Josh500 said:

On 10/17/2018 at 8:22 AM, Thor said:

I'm too young for that, but I've had the Varese CD since the late 90s.

 

Bought it when it came out?

 

Earthquake, CE3K, Jaws 2 and Dracula (can't remember what others in the series) all came out in 1990 on VS when I was working in a record store (different one than where I met JW). While I was thrilled at first, even then the releases were underwhelming in terms of sound quality and annotation and I could never have dreamed of what MM/LLL were going to be putting out in the 2010s (not to mention more recent FSM before that and Intrada).

 

That Airport music is quite frenetic, almost something that belongs in an earlier stage of the narrative not the climax. Ouch, that line about Lincoln freeing the slaves again.

Jaws definitely has its Korngold moments, its Debussy moments and its Stravinsky moments - both Le Sacre but also Pulcinella - otherwise there's more Herrmann in its sound than anything else. The ability to put those all together and make it cohesive is pure Williams, but there are also fully-formed Williams-isms here and there.
 

Compare the first 12 seconds above with the first 25-30 seconds below - or play/repeat them simultaneously for that long. Same gesture, same key, and almost blend as one sound... from two completely different and differently sized orchestras! The technique may be late Romantic but the stamp is all his. It also just struck me now (though I must have always known) that the melody at the beginning of Ben Gardner's Boat is later the permutation of Yoda's Theme heard in his death scene in ROTJ, and also very, very similar to Seven Years in Tibet with both the melody and the descending parallel minor chord; same descending chord is in the Kamino music from AOTC... and what else? Anyway, we could make a whole other thread about that as an extension of his obsession with the added sixth minor chord, but to me it's evidence of the mature, dyed-in-the-wool Williams in Jaws.