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Wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with one of the greatest cinematographers of all time a couple of days ago. You can read it here (skip the Norwegian intro): http://montages.no/2013/09/vi-har-mott-den-legendariske-filmfotografen-vilmos-zsigmond/ There is a strong link between Zsigmond and Williams, since he's done many of the films he has scored -- CINDERELLA LIBERTY, THE LONG GOODBYE, IMAGES, THE RIVER, WITCHES OF EASTWICK, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS. And the guitarist John Williams on THE DEER HUNTER, of course. We talk about IMAGES, SUGARLAND and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS in the interview, among other things. So lots of John Williams in Zsigmond's works.

I wish I could say that my love of Williams music alone could get me into the theater, but if it hasn't been Indy or Star Wars, the last Williams movie I felt compelled to see in the theater was... The Patriot.

Okay . . . time to break the silence on this. Like everyone else, the last six months have made it brutally difficult for me to commit extra time to this project. As the creator and "sponsor" of this thread, I carry an extra helping of the guilties over it--but what's done is done. I'm going to make a real effort to get back to this, and in a better fashion than I did before. Part of the problem was that I burned myself out a bit in attempting to clean up every article that people imported from Wikipedia (by extracting the useless templates and links that were broken in the transfer process). That was ultimately some pretty tedious and unrewarding work. It got me away from what I really enjoy doing, which is writing the articles themselves . . . and when things got busy for me, the thought of spending my free time doing more of that kind of detailed nitpicking just didn't appeal to me enough to come back to it. But I've thought about it occasionally, and regretted that we didn't get things off to a better start. And there's still nothing preventing that. A couple of (belated) responses to comments left before: A project like Scorepedia can be much more specific as Wikipedia when it comes to such specialized topics like filmmusic. Obviously this is true for every specialized wiki. If I see what trouble the La-La Land Records entry on Wikipedia got I see the value in such a project like Scorepedia. The greatest problem we have is the will and time to participate. In the last months I was unable to devote any time to the project. But this is the vital point. Having enough time and will to support this idea. So the question is: Shall we proceed with the project? Or should Scorepedia ultimately die to have an answer to the question if such a project useful? This was an excellent and necessary point. Ludwig, you were the one who wanted to add a "Style of the Score" section to the articles, a detail that would be too esoteric for Wikipedia's tastes. If you go on too long or indulge in fine-print excesses about a subject they feel only deserves a few paragraphs, the editor types get restless and start slashing prose. Scorepedia is exactly the place where that sort of information can flourish--which is precisely why there should be such a place existing independently of WP. I think people are interested in seeing this work, and I'm thinking it won't necessarily require the amount of time and will you're talking about, Marcus. Here's the thing: the vast majority of members on this board will think nothing of spending five minutes writing about how Rambo or Total Recall were composed on the Jerry Goldsmith thread, or the importance of Cocoon amongst the early elements of James Horner's repertoire, or whatever. If each of those people were to spend that same five minutes writing the same information over on Scorepedia instead of here, in a few weeks' time things would really start to take off. What we're really asking people to do is take the stuff they're BSing about here and put it to good use there, just a little at a time. Will they do it? That remains to be seen. Chances are better, though, if a few of us take the lead and set the example. This was a fantastic way to put it. We don't need to see the place explode overnight to consider it a success. It'll be much more successful in the long run if we take the time and caution to build a strong, solid foundation that'll give folks the right idea about how to approach this thing. The alternative is to rush something into place that's a mile wide and an inch deep, that outsiders will see more as just another fan site than a serious attempt to chronicle an important artistic form in its own right. So I'm back in again. I'm going to commit to spending a few minutes every day adding something to the site--whether it's a new page or a short paragraph or a bit of editing--or even cleaning up an imported article once in a while, which still needs to be done (though not for hours on end). If a few others will join me in this, we'll see some growth before too long. I remain eminently optimistic. - Uni

The Prestige This was one of the first blus that I ever bought, and I was surprised by what stuck with me as I had not watched it more than once since I initially made the purchase. I really like this film, and for a number of varying reasons, one of which is that this is 100% Nolan. As much as I love Memento, this might just be his definitive (there's that word again) film. There's a little bit of his early stuff and a little bit of his latter stuff here, or rather what one would would later see in his work. It's like a weird blend of Inception and Memento that takes place in the late 1800s. I remember lamenting that he "stole" a plot device I once came up with while planning out a script. One that I had already previously used in an uber short film I wrote in high school. Opening narration is exactly the same as the ending narration and the context makes them mean completely different things. Regardless of that little bit of jealousy I used to hold, Nolan does it so much better than I could ever do. The bits of narration throughout as Jackman and Bale read the journals echoes Memento, Bale hugging his daughter at the end and nodding at Caine is reused almost exactly in Inception. What is very identifiable to me as part of Nolan's style is his characterization. He's probably a better writer than director, but he's easily one of my favorites that's working today. Julyan's score also wonderfully supports the film and its mysterious air. Love Bowie and Serkis here too.

It's the best of the three!

Drop the EE footage (Gandalf's line 'I am Saruman, or Saruman as he should have been') and the whole thing syncs perfectly without the need for any editing. This six-minute section of the score is my favourite of the entire trilogy. I love the little moment as Gandalf realises who he is.

Which provokes me to ask, "Is Williams 'open to new ideas' and 'always inventing'?" If not, who is? Did Goldsmith give this advice to Bernstein?

Yes, wanner's whole post is pretty much conspiracy BS.

The thing I never understand is why composers don't put music in the correct order on CD's kinda drives me crazy!! lol!

I rather liked Angels and Demons more than The Da Vinci Code. It felt bolder, denser and even maybe less typically Zimmer-like.

I'm not going to argue that Zimmer's major scores in the last few years have all been very similar, and on occasion quite disappointingly similar (ie. TDK:R); however that doesn't mean that they can't be appreciated on their own merit whatsoever. Inception, to me, was a fantastic score, and was a fine development of the synth work built up in Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Dark Knight. I also cannot think of a more suitable soundtrack for the film itself - something the Filmtracks reviewer completely fails to take into account. These are film scores, written specifically for the film - and they should be reviewed as such rather than solely on their standalone worth.

His duty as a reviewer is also to try and understand the timbre and style that the composer has gone for, rather than to dismiss it because it might sound texturally similar to some of his previous scores. John Williams scores are always orchestral, in the same way that MoS, TDK, TDK:R, Inception etc have all been heavily synth based and influenced. I don't feel that the reviewers ever empathise with that, nor even attempt to appreciate the emotion and mood conveyed by that particular style.

I'm just awaiting the inevitable savaging it'll get on Filmtracks. I can't work out why all the Zimmer reviews for the past decade on there have been written by people who clearly despise him and his style of music.