Adam S.
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Posts posted by Adam S.
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There's a couple of tracks that have nothing but celestial harp music which, come to think of it, are probably the sleepiest things he's ever written. Overall, a very good score though for a movie where Speilberg leaned less on music than usual. A very nice love theme and a great finale.
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I was wondering a little about the nature of "fanboyism," if you like. Whether it's an essentially selfish endeavor ("mine, mine, mine"), or whether the accompanying hero worship ultimately engenders a sense that one is merely part of a larger "cause," so to speak. I also wondered about views of individual human worth and the extent to which comparisons are apropos -- do Williams's accomplishments and abilities make his life more valuable than my own? How important is one man's music to the world? And, in the larger scheme of things, just how important is music, for that matter?
Those are big subjects but, to take one, I do find the importance of music to human beings very interesting. Taking a step back, its just noise organized in a certain way, entering our ears and its sort of intangible and hard to describe what it is we gain from it when we hear it. But we spend tons of money on it, can spend hours listening it, replaying certain moments, etc. I'm not religious but there's no way to really describe music other than as something kind of spiritual - it feeds the soul so to speak. Its a huge source of sustenance and the need for musical expression and musical appreciation seems to be something univerally human, though we don't really understand it in any scientific sense.
The most hopeful way of looking at it is that past musical achievements get incorporated and lives on through other composers so we're not relying on any one person to stick around. In the past this has sort of happened, where we can trace how orchestral music has grown up and of course JW has incorporated that history into his own voice. Ideally that would just continue though there's probably certain limits that are being reached and that's why lots of music and art for that matter, has gone in the direction of being more and more experimental and esoteric. Film music is a medium that kind of keeps the earlier tradition alive in a way that connects to the public, not just to trained musicians or people of a strange musical bent. Anyway, my 2 cents.
- Adam
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I seem to enjoy JW's recent stuff just as much as his music from the so-called glory days. The quality of the movies does make a difference on the score, I agree with Bowie, though its very much a generalization as it depends on lots of other things as well, most notably the quality of opportunity musically. But if a film is badly edited, it will be harder to score in a cohesive way, just to take one example. I think JW commented that editing is a very musical process.
- Adam
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In the case of The Hunt, I do remember coming to the conclusion that the scene was re-edited because I think I tried to sync up the original cue and couldn't get it to work. One of the better tracks, IMO, and a good example of how, in this score, he tried incorporating Latin-type of rhythms into his more traditional action writing sound.
- Adam
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Fame winning seems like the most blatant snub, especially when one sonsiders that the Academy was almost surely voting for Fame on the basis of the songs. In other words, they couldn't even grasp the conept of what a score is. Combine that with the fact that Empire Stikes Back is so good and that seems like the worst to me although there's some other winners that I'm not familiar with.
Chariots of Fire was enormously popular so it doesn't surprise me.
Brokeback I wasn't surprised because it kind of fits with the zeitgeist among a lot of the artistic community to have scores that don't say anything because we're such sophisticated viewers that we don't want to be told how to react to something. But the score still feels arty and important somehow which people pick up on.
- Adam
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I'd be hard-pressed to find anything wrong with any of these scores in terms of serving the movie. About the only thing that could be said in favor of the first 3 movies is that music was probably more important to the success of the films than with Schindler's List. If you take out the scores to the first 3 movies you get dramtically worse movies and with Schindler's List that would be less the case, though music was still very important, particularly in the last hour or so and its a beautifully moving score. I can't really vote.
- Adam
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I voted for Revenge of the Sith though Phantom seems much more cohesive in comparison. But based on all the unreleased music, Revenge of the Sith has the strongest individual moments for me and I seem to prefer the darker territory musically, especially as compared to, say, Jar jar music of Phantom to pick a randomly unfair example.
- Adam
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I like ET a lot more as an adult than I did as a ch ild. Having said that, I would still call it a children's movie, regardless of how it was marketed. Its a fairy tale told from the perspecitve of children. Its just so well done that a lot of adults were able to tap into their inner-child so to speak. My second time seeing it as a young adult was a revelation. It was still new enough to sneak up on me a little bit and I fell victim to every moment of melodrama. I completely bought into the story in a way that I didn't 10 years earlier for whatever reason.
Home Alone is definitely supposed to be a comedy though generally a lot less funny to adults from what I've seen. But I've been amazed to see how hysterical kids can get watching the slapstick. I think that parents liked the movie but related to it more as a nice Christmas story, which of course it has that element as well. Critics pretty much hated it which was interesting to me given how popular the film was.
- Adam
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This one is the earlier Rose Bowl one. I don't have a recording of the World Series version but it seems like it was harmonically even more experimental and written for a smaller ensemble. At least that's how I remember it.
- Adam
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I might say the 3 Stone films as well if that were an option. But the Indiana Jones scores would have to be my choice from above. Three top notch scores where each score has differences and advantages over the other ones but where they all equal out with eachother pretty closely in the end. Hopefully that will continue with the next score.
- Adam
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As much as I like the score to Lost, they've never been great album experiences stretched out over one long disc so two discs is really surprising to me. I've tended to have a handful of tracks that I revisit a lot from each season with a lot of the music being more interesting in the context of the story than on its own, IMO. Still, its good to have more to choose from and Season 3 does have a lot of good stuff from what I remember. I hope it has Giacchino's orchestral version of the radio song from when they're driving around the island.
I'm anxious to have Speed Racer as well. His film scores seem to have that extra level of care and detail - no doubt because the television series has such a ridiculously tight schedule where he's scoring an entire episode in a few days.
- Adam
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An interesting arrangement to an anthem that I've never liked that much. I like it better than the Boston Red Sox version JW wrote from what I remember of that. Strangely, the only time I've liked the anthem is when I heard the Dixie Chicks sing it (or lip-sync it probably) at the 2003 Super Bowl. I'm not sure who wrote the arrangment but its a rare case where the change in harmonics completely transformed the song in a good way, not just in an interesting or experimental way. Its probably on youtube somewhere.
- Adam
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That's why we shouldn't even be talking about 12 seconds it seems since that was a false hint. The actual scene he scored was longer and I recall nobody had difficulty talking up the 30 seconds of unreleased music in ROTJ where Luke and Vader fight. Its an issue of quality more than quantity. The main difference is that we haven't heard the AOTC clip which gives a strong element of curiosity on top of the premonition that it is quite good given that it was a climatic scene and the fact that the the small snippet of a few seconds teases us with the kind of all-out orchestral take that he gave it.
- Adam
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Well it definitely depends on how the term is looked at. The way I look at it, we all share an interest in the music of an old man who is barely known to the rest of the world. Most of us have spent lots and lots of money pursuing this highly unusual interest. So either we’re all fanboys and we should embrace the term in the spirit of a community of people who have discovered a person of incredible talent and artistry, recognizing that we all pursue our interest in our own unique ways. Or if the term is too insulting we should just leave the term alone to avoid hypocrisy. After all, what reason, other than to strike poses of superiority, is there to mock people interested in hearing a snippet of JW music that they have reason to believe is compelling?
- Adam
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The suspense music of Munich is JFKish at times but not so much related directly to The Consprirators; more some of the other suspense music of JFK which stillhas that kind of underground, subversive feel to it.
- Adam
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I only had one opportunity to meet him and he ended up sneaking out before I could do so. I was planning on just saying something to him but, in retrospect, its just as well it didn't work out as I really didn't know what to say beyond the obvious that he hears all the time. Autographs and such aren't my thing. If I somehow had the opportunity to really talk to him and pick his brain, that would probably be the only context for wanting to meet him. But that's just me and that's not an opportunity that is likely to happen.
- Adam
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I meet enough criteria that I ban myself from calling other people fanboys as to avoid the obvious hypocricy. We're all on extremely weak ground to be throwing the term around at others.
- Adam
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Oh please, you guys have got 1000 times more John Williams music than 99.99999% of the human race and you post religiously at JWfan.net and than have the hypocricy to sneer down at the "fanboys" who don't have your restraint. Although I do like that people can get excited and curious about something that they haven't heard and have reason to be is very good (yes, JW has written short snippets of music that are good before) and that actually bothers people. No faulty priorities there of course.
- Adam
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I spent some time looking for the lyrics and even that's not available unless I've been looking in the wrong places. I'm not so sure there's an official piano version either. I didn't see anything listed. I just play on the piano what I remember by ear but I don't remember the entire orchestral piece.
- Adam
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But we also know that JW doesn't necessarily put top priority to thematic unity. Could be that an army of clones suggested the same kind of music to him as an army of robots so he just went with the same militaristic kind of sound that the picture suggested.
Even with first Star Wars, there was evidence that JW was a lot less "pure" in his desire for musical tidyness in terms of themes and so on as compared to his fans. In the liner notes to Star Wars he comments about using Leia's theme when Ben dies because he wanted something that had the right sweep to it. So he seems to approach things more of a mind of solving the particular problem that the movie presents, mapping out his themes as best as possible, but not letting them tie his hands completely. And with the sequels and prequels especially, he wasn't in a position to plan out the thematic content over the range of the 6 movies obviously or the 3 movies for that matter so thematic unity becomes all the more problematic for somebody like JW who is such a slave to the film and isn't the type to come in with preconceived ideas of where the music needs to go. That's my interpretation though I've had the same quibbles as everyone else at times about some of the choices he makes.
- Adam
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This is the holy grail of unreleased JW music for me because what little there is seems so good AND I've never heard it. Unreleased music that I've heard is often a let down by the time I finally get it on CD because I'm already so familiar with it from seeing the movie too many times. It doesn't live up to expectations.
- Adam
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Although, if I remember correctly, its made to sound like mall muzak so its less jarring than if it were used, not as source music, but as part of the soundtrack. I can see how, though, they probably wanted to allude to the two characters - such as the line, "after the same rainbow's end". I don't think it was a random choice. In fact, there's a lot of allusions and symbolic choices in the movie - all the references to eyes and seeing, for example.
- Adam
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I really wish JW had recorded this song. I had a copy of a Boston Pops performance but I assume there must be a version with lyrics that I've never heard. I still like to play a dumbed down version on piano - its a very catchy tune. That's of course no help at all but I share an interest in having this piece become more available, whatever the format.
- Adam
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It sounded familiar to me and the scene that comes to mind is in Minority Report when Cruise is going to have his eye taken out. I think there's some unreleased music there that this person uses and loops it a couple times, maybe mixing it with something else, I don't know. I could check the DVD again but its not worth the trouble. Has all the signs of a fake regardless.
- Adam
What is the most asoundingly magical moment of JW writing ever?
in JOHN WILLIAMS
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Its too hard to pick one. There's hit you over the head type of magical like ET at the end which is great. But I also like the subtler moments like the blue fairy theme in AI playing underneath the dialog of the little boy and the alien to name one that comes to mind for some reason. Difficult question though.
- Adam