Adam

The scene was shameless but it worked for me. No Spielberg movie is more sentimental than ET and that worked for me and pretty much the whole world. So one shouldn't criticize Spielberg's sentimentalism but, rather, the way he does it. There are movies where he tries for something and it feels out of place, or it doesn't work, or whatever but I didn't necessarily think this scene was one of them. If anything, Amistad suffered from a lot of stuffy dialog which this scene provided a welcome relief from. But we're talking personal reactions here. To each his or her own. - Adam

Han and Leia's Theme - TESB - Adam

I was disappointed by the performances and not just the trumpet guy messing up. The version of Jaws that was played might have been an arrangement from Jaws 3 or 4 - it was really bad. Poor Williams, he was probably wondering if the tribute was some kind of sick joke when he first heard this. The other selections were less tampered with but seemed incomplete as though a good portion of the orchestra wasn't there. It makes you realize how important the orchestra and the conductor can be to make everything come off right. But, as stated, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves. Luckily, they aren't pedantic fanatics like many of us. Actually, I'm used to being disappointed by other conductor's and orchestra's performances. Something about JW's music - I don't think its just me - there's a small margin for error. The music can be so good and then so bad if the balance in the orchestra isn't right, its too slow, too fast, etc. etc. I understand why its so important to JW to conduct his own music. - Adam, who considers HPCOS one of the few exceptions to this (though I suspect I higher degree of oversight by JW than usual)

Family Plot - Adam, who appreciates the prize of respect but is still gearing for something more tangible

My entire quote (the next sentence you left out) more or less acknowledges JW's importance in helping these films be successful. "he obviously deserves credit for writing music that conjures up the spirit of the films so accurately." He's written many great scores that are not well known because the films have been less successful. Therefore, my point still holds. Furthermore, we don't know how these films would have done without JW. I think all of them would have been less successful to varying degrees. But it would obviously depend on who composed the scores. James Horner? Tangerine Dream? Quincy Jones? You get the picture. - Adam

Yeah, those scenes had affected me, too. In my mind, its powerful in an opposite fashion as the scene I'm referring to. The scene you mention gives a powerful sense of the depths to which human beings can sink and the other gives a powerful sense of the heights with which the human spirit can soar. - Adam

I've played Hedwig's Theme on the piano in public places and I do notice a certain recognition from people that I would usually only get from Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Superman - music from an earlier era. Like the themes just mentioned, he benefits from the phenomenon of the movies themselves which penetrate the culture in a way most of his films don't. But, also, he obviously deserves credit for writing music that conjures up the spirit of the films so accurately. - Adam

Speaking of Amistad and misty-eyed... There's a wonderful moment in the movie at the end when Hopkins is delivering his final speech. He gives a kind-of wayward glance and tears up as if the weight of the moment has hit him. The music in that scene is just one of thousands of examples that show why no one is better than JW, IMO. Its an unrealeased cue but it uses choir very effectively and hauntingly. Like always, he's somehow able to explain the moment musically in a way that helps us feel what the characters are feeling. The scene that tears me up is when Cinque is calling in the court room, "Give me free!" and the worldless choir rises up behind. Its a very Spielberg kind of scene which could easily seem ridiculous in the hands of a lesser composer, but with the two on the same page, its the most powerful scene in the movie. - Adam

It wasn't that long ago he was associated with more money making films than any person in Hollywood, composer, actor, director or otherwise. Its probably still the case. So from that point of view, he deserves a huge salary and a hefty % of the cut. Not that he can take credit for it completely but if he were making only a million, that would be a huge bargain for any studio, particularly for a big-budget release where they seemingly are willing to spend a million dollars on a 3 second shot of 15 cars exploding into a building or something like that. - Adam

1. The Reivers, Luscious First Drive 2. Saving Private Ryan, High School Teacher 3. Jurassic Park, Journey to the Island 4. Schindler's List, Immolation Please tell me there is a prize involved. Rare bootleg? Cash payment? Anything to keep me from pondering the implications of my sitting down on my keyboard and hashing out those notes and then recalling vaguely where it is on the soundtrack, checking real quick with the soundtrack, taking the time to write down the track name, retrieving my lost password, signing in several times because of the curse of the messed up log in function and then typing all of this TWICE. Please tell me there is a higher purpose. - Adam - Adam

I like it. It has some of the cheesy early seventies "pop" sounding stuff that you don't want to be caught listening to with anyone else in the room but, overall, its a nice score. The love theme is great. Paul Williams sings one version (he wrote the lyrics) and Toots Thielman (sp?) does several harmonica versions. It has a very soulful, melancholy character to it. There is also another song that Paul Williams sings - very bluesy. The end credits is a highlight with its New Orleans style blues riff - a bit like the Memphis track from The Reivers. - Adam

Indeed, I'd love the opportunity to pick JW's brain on all sorts of things. The questions and his answers are usually geared towards the laymen which means there is a wealth of insights we never hear. I thought the Film Score Monthly interview recently was really disappointing - a strange choice of interview questions for a magazine dedicated to film music. What a blown opportunity to get a more substanative interview. The Little Princess score does have qualities that are absent from the Harry Potter music and its partly a matter of taste what a person prefers. I do feel that, whatever one's tastes with regard to the Harry Potter music, JW basically "gets it". Again, I think JW has a very literal approach. Its almost like holding up a mirror to the visuals and direction and getting back its musical mirror image, though I exaggerate somewhat. If JW had been able to score The Little Princess, I think he would have given us something quite different than Harry Potter - something with a little more eccentricity and atmosphere, less "false, alluring sentiment", among other things. In other words, while I understand what you're hearing, and though your criticsm may be valid from the point of view of a collector of film music with your particular tastes, I'm not as convinced JW's approach failed the movie. The texture and direction called out for the kind of sentimentality that JW gave us, I think. Thanks for your response. ( : - Adam

Its hard to imagine Harry Potter movies without that music and those themes, in particular the main theme (strangely called Hedwig's Theme). And if Doyle were to adapt Williams' themes, that would be a recipe for disapointment. With the same actors by and large, with the continuing storyline... I think the film will benefit from having the continuity of JW scoring it, even aside from the fact that, as much as I like Doyle, Williams is several notches better, IMHO. And it will be fascinating to see JW adapt his music for the new director. I think his music may exhibit qualities that the first two scores didn't just because the new director is more stylish and imaginitve (perhaps, we'll see). I find myself agreeing to a certain extent about the evolution of JW's action music. Its refreshing to read criticism that is thought out and well argued, not that you need my encouragement. Its just that I've been reading a lot more of the hit and run variety lately. However, I think part of the reason for this, from what I've observed, is that action scenes themselves have become more busy, more chaotic, more of what you accurately describe in JW. The editing is generally more frantic and there is less focus on character. The scenes are less likely to propel the story forward and more likely to exist just for the simple reason of providing action. I think that, at least in part, explains the evolution and the lack of "emotional penetration". Having said that, I'm open to the notion that this is, in part, an artistic rut. Although it should be added at least a few contemporary scenes have provided opportunities for a different kind of action music, Duel of the Fates, the scene where Harry first flies, the very percussive Chess Game, etc. So he seems more than capable. I think that JW's very literal approach is the correct one. "Emotional penetration" seems like a good thing but if a scene is devoid of it, a score can ring false if it tries to bring something to a scene that isn't there. It can alienate the audience even further and, actually, Goldsmith does this to me a lot with his action music. That's my two cents, anyway. - Adam

I think Horner is one of the best in terms of being versatile and writing music that meshes well with the visuals. I give him his share of the credit for Titanic's success although I thought it had plenty of faults, also. As pure music, I agree with a lot of what Roman said. Although he's capable of quite a lot. A track like Charging Fort Wagner from Glory is extremely impressive - not only as good underscore but as a musical piece on its own. He's deserving of his place as a top tier composer. But, yes, I think he's inferior to JW which says more about JW then it does about Horner. Adam, who's not sure if this post still qualifies him for JW fanboy status

For Always, with lyrics, is nice little song but doesn't really fit the movie. I'm a bigger fan of the piano version in the finale and the worldless soprano version. Since I assume we're voting for the versions with lyrics I would say Gollom's song is better just because its more rooted in the movie. For Always (with lyrics) was basically written for the album and thankfully did not make an appearance in the movie. The movie version works wonderfully because it retains its character as a lullaby-like love theme for mother and son. - Adam

I think if you read your original post, Steve, you can see why you raised the ire of many of us. I think you made a legitimate point about the similarity between a few moments but then you overgeneralized and made some sweeping comments about the whole score. Its no big deal, I enjoy debating these matters, and I accept the line of reasoning in your previous post. Ray, I think you're absolutely correct about people letting their own tastes affect their judgement about a composer's ability. Its a common mistake. Its as if JW's job was to compose music for an album and not a movie. Many people are interested in film music from the point of view of a collector of music which is fine. And I have no problem if these people want to review the score from the point of view of a listening experience. But the common mistake is go a step further and denigrate the composer for lack of inspiration, lack of effort or in some way not up to par. His real crime usually is that he didn't write music like they were expecting, like their favorite scores of a generation ago, or whatever the case may be. To take one example : I don't think one person put Presumed Innocent on their top 10 list of favorite JW scores. I didn't either but I would have an extremely hard time arguing that JW was lacking in some way in that effort. He wrote a very effective score for an intimate, dialog driven movie. It so happens, its not going to stand on its own as a listening experience to the degree that many prefer but that's not his role and, thus, not the barometer with which we should judge him. That's just one example but, anyway, thanks everyone for the interesting discussion. - Adam

I'm sorry if I seemed "agressive" but here's your quote: "Then came AOTC. Amazing love theme, but then he goes and makes Harry Potter sound exactly like it ..." This indicates you were talking about the entire score not just the one scene, in which case I think your statement remains absurd. And I found this ironic given that HPCOS is, in fact, a mess musically - and its a mess because so much music sounds exactly like music from the first Harry Potter because so much of the music IS music from the first Harry Potter. The Quidditch Match of HPCOS is a perfect example of this. The whole scene has scattered snippets from the quidditch match in the first movie. We know that JW was under too much time constraint to complete the score or conduct the score which was why William Ross adapted it. If in fact your observation is correct, the answer may be explained by this fact. By the way, I'm a big supporter of overanalyzing JW's music. - Adam

The question of whether he has dropped off from his 1975-1984 period is an interesting one. I think for a lot of us who grew up with films during this era, there is a certain emotional attachment to these films and the scores, and JW did a LOT of classic movies in the action or sci-fi genre during this period that most JW fans relate to most closely. For a younger generation, Jurassic Park holds a special spot and they would no doubt take issue with the idea that he is a "mere shadow" of his former self. From a purely musical point of view, its probably the case that he is gotten better, at least from the point of view of the degree of difficulty and complexity that goes into his compositions. It may be that as a matter of taste, many people prefer his older technique but I'm not convinced that his sound is even that different. Its more polished, for one thing and others may prefer a more raw sound, for lack of a better term, but, at any rate, it doesn't represent any major shift in his ability to write great film music. The biggest difference in the two eras in my mind has to do with the scoring assignments. To be fair about the topic, we would need to look at roughly similar films from each era and see how they were scored. I hear differences in Last Crusade as compared to Raiders and Temple of Doom, but they mostly have to do with differences in the films. I definintely don't hear "a mere shadow" of his earlier self in Last Crusade which displays all the trademark Williams gifts. What could he have done for Home Alone in 1980 that he didn't do in 1990? What could he have done for Schindler's List in 1980 that he didn't do in 1993? Etc., etc ... A lot more to say about this but I'll try to restrain myself. - Adam

When you say that he makes HPCOS sound "exactly like" AOTC, I can only react by saying that statement is completely absurd. I don't mind criticism of JW but when it seems wildly inaccurate, its hard not to respond. The obvious criticism of HPCOS is that much of the music was written for the first HP and merely adapted for the second. I found that frustrating. Its odd that you would see AOTC as the score being ripped off when practially half of the score was LITERALLY ripped off from the first Harry Potter. I also think that criticism of the Star Wars prequel scores has to engage the question of how the music interacted with the films. The films are quite different than the original triology. How precisely does the music let the movies down? To compare the prequel scores with the original trilogy scores without taking this into consideration makes your point of view questionable. For example, I agree the prequel scores are less epic but, then, so are the movies. Therefore, what you see as a failure, I see as JW adapting to the circumstances of the movie. We don't have the simple good vs. evil storyline like the original triology. The prequels have a lot more banal dialog sequences which are going to require relatively banal underscore. If there should be more themes, inform us what aspect or character in the story would have benefited from a theme. Maybe the prequel scores are worse, but nothing you have said convinces me of this. - Adam

Either the above post is an attempt at irony or its the post of a proud contrarian. I'm more in agreement with Ebert who gave Jaws - The Revenge 0 out of 4 stars. Rotten Tomatoes scores it at 0% - yikes! Not that critics can't be wrong but I remember this movie being a painful experience for me to sit through. The score is one of the best arguments around for not having other people compose a score using JW's themes and why JW themes without musical range and a corresonding sense of dramtic sensibility and nuance is a really bad combination. Of course, when a movie is this bad, arguably, the score needs to be really bad just to fufill the creation of unintended, horrible campiness. - Adam

Its interesting that the main example given was the quidditch match in HPCOS. That scene was tracked with music from the first HP. So if there is a similarity to AOTC it has nothing to do with Williams scoring the films in close proximity. Personally, I don't hear that close of a connection and citing a few cases isn't very persuasive for two adventure oriented movies that employ LOTS of music. Depending on a person's perspective, a lot of JW's music sounds similar. Someone who hasn't heard much film music might think that HPCOS sounds like Sleepers and they could be correct depending on how wide of a lens one uses to compare the two. For that reason, I don't find these kinds of threads very enlightening. People listen to music diffently and will have different reactions as to how similar the music sounds. As somebody who has observed JW for years and years, I'm constantly struck by the differences between scores and how these differences seem determined by the requirements of the movie. I notice similarities but I'm not as quick as others to say this is a sign of lack of inspiration or blatant self-plagerism or anything like that. He's written tons of music and its not surprising that it happens - particularly when films are of a similar genre. - Adam

I can't imagine Lucas re-releasing the movies with a fixed score. Keep in mind JW fans represent a very small percentage of the Star Wars fans. A common sentiment among fans and critics was that the highligh of AOTC was the final battle. From a musical point of view, this was the worst part of the movie for most of us. The point being, the vast majority of the people who watched the movie are not aware of the butchered score so it would not be a major selling point to re-release with a "fixed" score. It would also be an admission that he screwed up the first time. Also, his attempts to "fix" the original triology made the movies less coherant musically, not better. We got the new version of the Victory Celebration but all of the other edits in the movie throw the score off with akward looping, inserting of music from other parts of the score, etc. I needn't mention Jedi Rocks. So if history is any indication, any re-release of the prequels is likely to lead to a worse score. But, we'll see. - Adam

Whoops, I'm editing my comment out because I posted it in the wrong thread. This Invalid Session thing is a bit frustrating at times.

The alternate is not only more original but I think its also more specific to the action that is taking place. The cue that was used in the movie is less nuanced, playing over the action to a greater degree, although it basically works effectively. The alternate can't be cued up perfectly with the movie but its clear that it was designed to punctuate the action a little more clearly and literally. It also would have fit better with the whole of the score - more in line with the other action sequences in the movie. - Adam

Its the original recording, I'm pretty certain. The cues on the soundtrack that are in the movie sound identical to the album as far as I could tell, except for the poor quality of the sound mix in the movie. I figure Overture and Restoration were written specifically for the album. The other cues were probably for scenes that were cut or music that got cut out of the scenes. Its only about a 90 minute movie which is very short for a story like this. It would make sense if originally it was much longer. - Adam