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Empire Of The Sun - La-La Land 2CD


Jay

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Hi all,

Yes, that one you posted, Jason, is a great cue, and it will be fantastic to hear it in its isolated glory! I am very much looking forward to this release -- it was one I hoped for after the announcement for the 90th anniversary of Warner Brothers studio. My only regret is that it will apparently not have the "ribbon" design given to the Matrix Reloaded and Wyatt Earp releases!

Best wishes,

AIFan

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Think I'd rather have a Hershey's bar than the complete score. As I recall, the album had most of the best parts.

Aw, who am I kidding, I'll probably buy it and never listen to the unreleased music ever again like 1941.

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This is great. I'll definitely be picking this up. As big a fan as I am of the score and the movie I don't actually own either.

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"Remastered" ... sounds scary ... better skip this one ...

Yeah, it's a worry.

Only for a serious audiophile. I have not found anything to complain about with the previous LLL releases that were remastered.

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That music is already on the OST, in the track "The Cadillac of the Skies"

Are you confusing the OST track "The Cadillac of the Skies" with the concert arrangement version found on "The Spielberg / Williams Collaboration" (and also found on "John Williams Greatest Hits 1969-1999")?

Cause that one sounds like this

And is assembled by bookending the climax of Cadillac of the Skies with music similar to the OST track "Toy Planes"

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I wonder if this will include the concert arrangement of Cadillac that Jason mentioned.

And the concert arrangement of Jim's New Life (found on Williams on Williams).

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I wonder if this will include the concert arrangement of Cadillac that Jason mentioned.

And the concert arrangement of Jim's New Life (found on Williams on Williams).

Somehow I doubt it. Has any previous Williams expanded release included a recording from the Williams/Spielberg collaboration albums?

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And the concert arrangement of Jim's New Life (found on Williams on Williams).

That piece could really use a re-recording at a faster tempo

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And the concert arrangement of Jim's New Life (found on Williams on Williams).

That piece could really use a re-recording at a faster tempo

It is strange that JW himself conducted it with that lethargic tempo. I guess he preferred it that way in the concert setting but anyone who has ever heard the original will find that arrangement sluggish.

I wonder if this will include the concert arrangement of Cadillac that Jason mentioned.

And the concert arrangement of Jim's New Life (found on Williams on Williams).

Somehow I doubt it. Has any previous Williams expanded release included a recording from the Williams/Spielberg collaboration albums?

I very highly doubt it. And no, not a single one of those Boston Pops performances has ever appeared on any of these expanded albums. As nice as it would be to have everything ever recorded from the score in one set it would make it look like some fan made bootleg with everything crammed together for convenience's and completeness' sake.

The old footwarmers of many scores included everything possible ever recorded from these scores, entirely separate concert arrangements included, and it led to much confusion concerning which stuff was actual film score alternates and what later re-recordings of the same themes. E.g. The Witches of Eastwick footwarmer had the Boston Pops album Salute to Hollywood versions of Devil's Dance and The Balloon Scene tacked at the end which led some people to think them as genuine alternates.

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I don't fucking know. The similarity with later dramatic scoring is kinda like how many of his lighter music and fantasy scores since the late 80s have sounded like Witches of Eastwick and SpaceCamp.

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Well, unless Jay is saying Disk 2 is not the OST presentation

Hopefully Williams composed a bunch of his classic majestic cues for this film and Spielberg told him to tone it down

I don't think Spielberg told anyone to tone it down on Empire of the Sun. Everything goes to 11 on that film.

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Well, the visuals and the music had to do all the talking and, indeed, they were given lots of room to do just that. Spielberg, modest as he is, blames himself for the failing of Empire Of The Sun: "I was a visual opportunist. I just feel there was a patent lack of story and relationship."


Alex

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All I want is "No Road Home" split from "Seeing The Bomb". And the bit where Jim goes back to Mrs. Victor. And the bit with the Japanese soldiers (the "don't run" sequence). Oh, and all the other stuff. I read this thread on Thursday, and I haven't stopped creaming my jeans, yet.

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

How is it sugarcoated and do you really think this is the reason for its failure? I wonder if the book isn't written from an "adult remembering his childhood" point of view rather than the child's-eye view of war that Spielberg gave us. The film is still one of the bleakest movies Spielberg ever made, that is, if you realize that what we're seeing is only Jim's distorted view and not Spielberg's schmaltz. Those who enjoy visual storytelling revel about the film.

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

He did keep the part where the little boy sees evidence of his Mother's rape, which also has some of Williams' eeriest music.

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

He did keep the part where the little boy sees evidence of his Mother's rape, which also has some of Williams' eeriest music.

Which scene was that? Memories a bit fuzzy.

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

How is it sugarcoated and do you really think this is the reason for its failure? I wonder if the book isn't written from an "adult remembering his childhood" point of view rather than the child's-eye view of war that Spielberg gave us. The film is still one of the bleakest movies Spielberg ever made, that is, if you realize that what we're seeing is only Jim's distorted view and not Spielberg's schmaltz. Those who enjoy visual storytelling revel about the film.

I have no opinion on it since i haven't read it. A friend directed me to some reviews that allude to this, i. e. the Washington Post review.

"Spielberg is a virtuoso performer, and virtuosity can't be dismissed. But what "Empire of the Sun" proves is that it can have its limitations. It would be too glib to suggest that Spielberg is a victim of his own gifts. But too much of the film has been conceived as a showcase for his brilliance. It's overburdened with epiphanies.

Though "Empire of the Sun" is a profoundly perplexing, frustrating object, there are things in it to marvel at and enjoy. And there are smaller moments -- like the scene in the camp hospital in which a young woman dies, and then, momentarily, seems to come back to life and stare Jim right in the eyes -- that are as complex as any Spielberg has ever directed.

Still, though Spielberg is trying to push beyond his limitations, to enlarge his world, his imagination appears to be as bundled up in Hollywood dream visions as ever. The symbolic meaning of Jim's saga may have hit especially close to home for the director: Fundamentally, the story is a tragedy about the end of childhood. And for Spielberg, this may be the essential theme, the essential tragedy.

Ballard's original was a pretty tough piece of work. But Spielberg has neither the inclination nor the stomach to merge with Ballard's vision of starvation and rotting death. It's as if he looked into the heart of his grown-up material and flinched.

In telling the story, Spielberg has revealed more about his own deep-seated ambivalence over leaving his childhood world behind than he may have realized. It's a film about the moviemaker's anxiety over growing up. In "Empire" and his other films too, adults carry a kind of taint: They're outside the hallowed circle of innocence. And with this picture, Spielberg signals his realization that to grow as an artist he must venture outside that circle as well. But the movie is also a symbol of his reluctance; it leaves him caught between the two worlds, with one foot in the circle and one foot out."

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

He did keep the part where the little boy sees evidence of his Mother's rape, which also has some of Williams' eeriest music.

Which scene was that? Memories a bit fuzzy.

When he goes back to his house after being separated from his parents. Upstairs in the bedroom, he sees footprints on the floor in a bunch of talcum powder that got spilled.

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He sugarcoated the book as it seems. It's a much more bleak telling of Jim's life or so i've read.

How is it sugarcoated and do you really think this is the reason for its failure? I wonder if the book isn't written from an "adult remembering his childhood" point of view rather than the child's-eye view of war that Spielberg gave us. The film is still one of the bleakest movies Spielberg ever made, that is, if you realize that what we're seeing is only Jim's distorted view and not Spielberg's schmaltz. Those who enjoy visual storytelling revel about the film.

I have no opinion on it since i haven't read it. A friend directed me to some reviews that allude to this, i. e. the Washington Post review.

"Spielberg is a virtuoso performer, and virtuosity can't be dismissed. But what "Empire of the Sun" proves is that it can have its limitations. It would be too glib to suggest that Spielberg is a victim of his own gifts. But too much of the film has been conceived as a showcase for his brilliance. It's overburdened with epiphanies.

Though "Empire of the Sun" is a profoundly perplexing, frustrating object, there are things in it to marvel at and enjoy. And there are smaller moments -- like the scene in the camp hospital in which a young woman dies, and then, momentarily, seems to come back to life and stare Jim right in the eyes -- that are as complex as any Spielberg has ever directed.

Still, though Spielberg is trying to push beyond his limitations, to enlarge his world, his imagination appears to be as bundled up in Hollywood dream visions as ever. The symbolic meaning of Jim's saga may have hit especially close to home for the director: Fundamentally, the story is a tragedy about the end of childhood. And for Spielberg, this may be the essential theme, the essential tragedy.

Ballard's original was a pretty tough piece of work. But Spielberg has neither the inclination nor the stomach to merge with Ballard's vision of starvation and rotting death. It's as if he looked into the heart of his grown-up material and flinched.

In telling the story, Spielberg has revealed more about his own deep-seated ambivalence over leaving his childhood world behind than he may have realized. It's a film about the moviemaker's anxiety over growing up. In "Empire" and his other films too, adults carry a kind of taint: They're outside the hallowed circle of innocence. And with this picture, Spielberg signals his realization that to grow as an artist he must venture outside that circle as well. But the movie is also a symbol of his reluctance; it leaves him caught between the two worlds, with one foot in the circle and one foot out."

Yes, Spielberg's film is absolutely about the beauty of childhood and the "tragedy" of losing it. I guess Ballard's book was more a dry memoir of the war. It's not "sugarcoated" but a different 'focus'. While I haven't read the book either, I do know JG Ballard had this to say about film:

"Surprisingly, it was the film premiere in Hollywood, the fount of most of our planet's fantasies, that brought everything down to earth. A wonderful night for any novelist, and a reminder of the limits of the printed word. Sitting with the sober British contingent, surrounded by everyone from Dolly Parton to Sean Connery, I thought Spielberg's film would be drowned by the shimmer of mink and the diamond glitter. But once the curtains parted the audience was gripped. Chevy Chase, sitting next to me, seemed to think he was watching a newsreel, crying: "Oh, oh . . . !" and leaping out of his seat as if ready to rush the screen in defence of young Bale.

I was deeply moved by the film but, like every novelist, couldn't help feeling that my memories had been hijacked by someone else's. As the battle of Britain fighter ace Douglas Bader said when introduced to the cast of Reach for the Sky: "But they're actors."

Actors of another kind play out our memories, performing on a stage inside our heads whenever we think of childhood, our first day at school, courtship and marriage. The longer we live - and it's now 60 years since I reluctantly walked out of Lunghua camp - the more our repertory company emerges from the shadows and moves to the front of the stage. Spielberg's film seems more truthful as the years pass. Christian Bale and John Malkovich join hands by the footlights with my real parents and my younger self, with the Japanese soldiers and American pilots, as a boy runs forever across a peaceful lawn towards the coming war. But perhaps, in the end, it's all only a movie."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film

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Well the music is in any case brilliant! As I have said before it is more of a set piece score, where the leitmotivic approach usually employed by Williams shifts toward these smaller "memory painting" vignettes for the main character. There is the frail yet poignant main theme for Jim's flying dreams that comes to signify his child's spirit, which Williams employs in short flashes throughout. Curiously the Cadillac of the Skies scene is left without a rendition of it, Williams choosing to score it with another independent moment of spiritual majesty and sheer exultation that gradually turns into horrible desolate tragedy, anchored in the boyschoir, which is another central element of the score. It might be one of Williams' most psychological scores as it almost single mindedly captures and enhances Jim's personality, his memories and his point of view through the story. And that is why it constantly shifts stylistic gears, going from church boyschoir to Japanese percussion to soaring orchestral scoring to frantic and oppressive chase music to ghostly renditions of classical piano pieces. I consider it a musical collage of these various memories, which is quite masterfully done by Williams.

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I love the tone of the movie, it's kind of foggy and locked in a past you can't quite get a grip on. I like the score very much (on its own anyway) but i honestly think it's not like it is by design. They just seem to have not found a fitting main theme that could cover Jim's journey and still function like the little set pieces they (or Spielberg) wanted to have. So the music actually adds to the disjointed nature of the storytelling and essentially doubles what it could or should have clarified.

And it's the one score where i find the typically 80's Williams scherzo misplaced: i know what it wants to convey but does so in an overtly broad manner that sets its jaunty/jolly tone in a too jovial way...it's still depicting a concentration camp with often inhuman living conditions and i think it should have been a more ambivalent piece. Only because Jim is a child doesn't mean he's too dumb to realize where he is.

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And it's the one score where i find the typically 80's Williams scherzo misplaced: i know what it wants to convey but does so in an overtly broad manner that sets its jaunty/jolly tone in a too jovial way...it's still depicting a concentration camp with often inhuman living conditions and i think it should have been a more ambivalent piece. Only because Jim is a child doesn't mean he's too dumb to realize where he is.

That is exactly the opposite of what I think on Jim's New Life scene. The scherzo is preoccupied with Jim's own excitement at his duties (or imagined duties) in the camp. Ballard himself comments in the China Odyssey documentary on the making of the film on how amazing children are at surviving in the most awful conditions, perhaps due to their imagination and certain level of adjustment adults already lack. If the film is centered on Jim then I feel the chipper upbeat excitement of the music entirely justified. It is not the camp the music is scoring but the boy's inner life. And the scene is certainly not about Jim's realization of his captivity or the gruelling nature of the internment. Ballard also mentions connected to the pheasant hunt scene that the camp was actually the safe and ordered world and that Jim's excursion outside its walls wasn't liberating but scary.

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Ballard himself has said in interviews that the camp became like a home for him.

Children are actually excellent in utilizing their imagination to make things seem better.

A child's mind can create a whole world from just a few buckets of sand, some twigs and some leafs.

If there is anything that makes EOTS a stand out from other, similar films, its how Spielberg and his innate understanding of how children think, process the experiences as depicted in the film.

Only a few times do we see the unfiltered horror of whats actually going on.

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I get what you say but the music still rubs me the wrong way. It seems too superficial and ready-made for a Boston-Pops performance too really draw me into this world.

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The lack of really strong main theme is a bit of a puzzle. Were the film makers unsure of how to approach a somber drama like this? Did they just want to capture all the individual impulses of the film? Was the last spark of childhood and innocence the most meaningful thing Williams and Spielberg wanted the theme to address?

EotS is a score we don't have much information on. I can't remember Williams ever commenting on the score anywhere at any depth.

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