Next in my series is another JW masterpiece, based on LLL's wonderful new expansion, which revealed lots of previously unknown unused tracks, alternates, and filled in major gaps in the soundtrack album as well as restoring the proper order of cues revealing a structure of a wide range of seemingly disconnected musical elements converging and coming together satisfyingly, mirroring the movie's theme of distant cultures growing to understand each other. As usual I will explain the cues' film usage where it's fitting.
The spotting is certainly not wall to wall, though since I didn't restore even the source music found on the LLL set, let alone all the "needledrop" recordings used in the film, it's a tiny bit misleading if we'd want to look at purely music, not score:
The state court scenes are mostly left unscored, but nearly all of the final 40 minutes are scored all the way through.
Starting with this project, I'm doing something some previous ones like Presumed Innocent could've benefited from: burning subtitles into the video to help with cues for dialogue-heavy scenes where the sync points aren't necessarily for shot changes or physical actions but for a specific line that changes the tone or topic, of which there are several in this movie.
Syncing up cues helped me appreciate many cues in a new light or a deeper way - like Discovering the Bible, really seeing how the initially 2 disparate textures start melding and come together by the end; or Adams' Address to the Court, where I was initially confused by the usage of obvious synth voices in this fantastically varied choir-heavy score - the first one scores Isabella's complaint letters about American courts, probably illustrating her "unnatural" views of courts as mechanical toys to play with, to do as she says, instead of idealistic independent entities, the second, darker one scoring Adams reading aloud the article about how slavery is the natural order of things, hopefully no need here to describe why the usage of "unnatural" synth voices instead of a real choir could be appropriate.
Thanks to @Jay for helping with the selection and answering some background information questions!
Introduction is actually a wild vocal take the music people used here, but I included it because why not.
Retribution is fully unused, and to be honest I can see why, even if it's a great piece. If synced up to the final film footage (the opening may have been extended), the percussion and flute scores Cinque's struggle as it's starting to bear fruit, the male choir scores him lifting the nail, the choral Cinque's theme scores his newfound chance, and things start to escalate as he frees himself. The rhythm kicks up as the captain picks up his musket and Cinque approaches him, then it fades out when the new captain removes his Excalibur from the old captain's body like he removed the nail. I removed the second wild humming take that's included in the film and LLL since it would overlap with the next cue,
July 4, 1839, which is mostly unused. The dark soundscape scoring the uncertainty (unused) temporarily clears up as the helmsman states he'll head for Africa. JW's emotional shot-specific scoring for the night scene was replaced by a choral take of Cinque's theme, dropping the twinkles for the stars, its descending variant scoring the turn, and the Seven Years in Tibet/RotS strings with added choir scoring Cinque desperately taking over and correcting the course himself.
Steering East is again unused, and in my opinion should be here where the title doesn't describe it very well, for the scene of the new crew landing on what they think are African shores, gathering water and coming across a man on a proto-bicycle. (For an alternate sync idea that might actually work better, see this post.)
The Capture is mostly used, only a small portion was edited out when the ship lands (the film was edited down a bit at this point too), and the ending was replaced with one of the wild solo humming takes, removing the only musical representation of the Queen of Spain coming from JW, since the rest of her scenes contain source music at most.
Introducing John Quincy Adams is used as is.
Meeting of the Minds is a strange case - it's more like semi-wild mood music than specific scoring adhering to sync points, and it runs longer than the scene, where it's only partially used.
Counsel Meets Client, The Ship Remembers, Visiting Adams and What Is Their Story? again are used as is, but Learning To Count is the same case as Meeting of the Minds - not really specific and runs a lot longer than its scene.
Tale of the Lion's Tooth is used as is.
The Capture of Cinque and The Crossing are complicated - for this video I had to shorten the storm/birthing scene and entirely remove the feeding scene between the suicide/lashing and the mass drowning scenes. In the film, parts of Capture of Cinque are looped over these and other parts of the same track, and even mostly in place of or over The Crossing - only the opening minute and the Spanish guitar part remains from it, edited, then the ending's replaced by solo humming again.
Tales of Horror remains untouched except for a percussion overlay coming from The Ship Remembers (if you don't count that the original take's ending was replaced by the second revision, replicated here instead of sticking with the LLL edit), same with Discovering the Bible.
After a long unscored section, including the victory on state level, The Letter to Massachusetts and Cinque's Legal Mind are used as is.
The footage for African Violet had to be edited very slightly.
Adams' Address to the Court and Adams' Summation are used as is.
The Verdict is edited slightly in the film.
Liberation of Lomboko is used as is, Going Home starts with the choir only mix, the soloist only comes in starting with the Civil War shots. The film starts the credits with a third solo humming take, then used Dry Your Tears, Afrika as is on the LLL, with more obvious Lomboko tracking edit points and the ending cut short - if we use only it and The Long Road to Justice like I did here, they fit the credits' length well.
The Capture (alternate) is basically a different mix of the main program version.
The Ship Remembers (alternate) is a slightly different take with different percussion overlay usage.
What Is Their Story (alternate) is the original take, featuring another Adams rendition in place of the revision's DYTA.
The Crossing (alternate) was written for an even shorter cut, I couldn't really come up with a good way to edit it down.
Tales of Horror had an original take with Cinque's theme scoring his outburst, more as a low moment where he can't hold in his despair any longer - I had to shorten this footage for this original ending. The first revision doubles down on this idea and utilises the longer edit to add in another statement that helps the theme climax, still scoring Cinque's despair. The second revision, ultimately used in the film, takes the first revision's structure but pulls Dry Your Tears, Afrika onto it, making it a moment of uplifting triumph, where Cinque stands up for himself and demands the justice he'll ultimately receive. The third revision keeps the DYTA idea, but tones it down significantly, more as a quiet release than a triumphant climax.
Discovering the Bible (alternate) is a different original approach - while the revised film version starts with representing the Africans with percussion, the Bible discussion with harp and Cinque on flute, and the church scenes with semi-religioso strings and brass, and eventually starts melding them, moving Cinque to different instruments and stops changing styles with the latter back and forth cuts, this version represents the Africans with sad strings (probably coming off of one of the Cinque versions of Tales of Horror), the Bible scenes, while still prominent in harp, are also scored with strings and multiple kinds of woodwinds while the church is mostly brass-based - they still meld but the cutting back and forth is not so obvious. I had to extend the ending a bit so Cinque's theme entering would sync up with the cut back to the jail.
Cinque's Memories of Home, a revision of Cinque's Legal Mind, sets the "communication" theme on cello, solo vocal humming and percussion - IMO moving the material a bit too far to the east from the US, possibly why it wasn't used.
Going Home (alternate) is the choir take without the solo vocal, as it is partially used in the film.
And finally, an idea by @BrotherSound: Cinque's Theme (solo flute) is also 2:06 long, like Going Home, why not try to see if it fits. In my opinion, it kind of does, many of the percussion hits and phrase borders match with shot changes.
I know these have been shared on other threads, but I thought I'd put them all together in one post.
Here is the complete series for the LLL Goldsmith at 20th (so far).
You have almost 50 years worth of fanfares, marches and brilliant overtures he wrote for the movies, including quite a few for Spielberg. In this case, it was not the right approach. It's a very personal and intimate project for the director, and Williams agreed that the film needed only a few cues and that the vernacular had to be restrained. He wanted to be respectful because the story is about Steven's family so I can imagine he didn't want to intrude too much.
I’ve really been enjoying this since it arrived last week and I agree that the overall sound is even better than the 2016 release. I love the new Jim Titus packaging too, it really is stunning.
The biggest surprise for me though is how much I've been enjoying the remastered OST on disc 2 which I bought on cassette in 1993 and later on CD but hadn't ever listened to since getting the 2016 release. ‘Incident at Isla Nublar’ in particular is such a great combination of three separate cues that creates one thrilling narrative; it works really well musically and I’m glad to have it in such good quality. ‘Hatching Baby Raptor’, ‘My Friend, the Brachiosaurus’, and ‘Eye to Eye’ also work really well. I understand some people’s problems with the OST sequencing but I think the actual cue combinations work brilliantly.
I’ve really been enjoying this since it arrived last week and I agree that the overall sound is even better than the 2016 release. I love the new Jim Titus packaging too, it really is stunning.
The biggest surprise for me though is how much I've been enjoying the remastered OST on disc 2 which I bought on cassette in 1993 and later on CD but hadn't ever listened to since getting the 2016 release. ‘Incident at Isla Nublar’ in particular is such a great combination of three separate cues that creates one thrilling narrative; it works really well musically and I’m glad to have it in such good quality. ‘Hatching Baby Raptor’, ‘My Friend, the Brachiosaurus’, and ‘Eye to Eye’ also work really well. I understand some people’s problems with the OST sequencing but I think the actual cue combinations work brilliantly.
Michael Fremer. Click the link at the bottom of my post - it’s a fascinating interview. Part 1 is here - https://www.analogplanet.com/content/movie-music-recording-king-part-i-0
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