Adam
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Posts posted by Adam
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I've been trying to figure out what the music's from that plays when Ray's going to the intersection.
You're probably thinking of the first section of track 13, maybe the first 2 or 3 minutes or so. Then there's a short section of track 13 that plays after the intersection scene when he's returning home and looking at himself in the mirror.
As far as unreleased music goes, I've seen the film twice and the section that most made an impression was a cue that had a style that was similar to the beginning of 11 but much more developed and reminded me of an unreleased cue from Empire of the Sun with the two string parts weaving in and out with eachother. But I already forgot what it played over, maybe the scene that has been mentioned - I can't remember.
- Adam
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Justin is bothered that it doesn’t have themes AND for sounding like other scores and, yet, its absense of themes is the first time he’s ever done that in the history of his writing film scores that I’m aware of. So that makes it unique right there.
His decision to not use themes seems to stem from both the subject matter and more crucially Spielberg’s use of a realistic palette. Speilberg uses lots of hand-held cameras and wants the movie to feel closer to a documentary at least as compared to your normal cinema experience. So in light of that, JW’s decision makes a lot of sense in terms of not detracting from the realism and, again, its nice to have one out of his 80-some (?) scores have a different approach like that. And even aside from that it feels quite unique, especially compared to Harry Potter or The Patriot, but perceptions differ.
- Adam
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Its hard to give Hedwig's theme an exact label. Sometimes it feels connected to Harry although quite often it just feels like a theme for the overall experience - something kind of spooky and magical connecting the characters to the new Hogwarts world.
Connecting the characters or the audience? I think it's an overal main theme for "the Harry Potter world", written for an easier, simpler connection with the audience.
All film music is meant to connect to the audience so we’re not disagreeing there. I’m thinking of times when the theme reacts through the characters’ perceptions but there are times when it doesn’t so in that sense your way of looking at it is correct also. But my main point was that it takes on many different forms. For example, there are times when its heard up high on celeste where it feels strongly connected to Harry and his journey.
- Adam
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Its hard to give Hedwig's theme an exact label. Sometimes it feels connected to Harry although quite often it just feels like a theme for the overall experience - something kind of spooky and magical connecting the characters to the new Hogwarts world.
With the discussion about CoS, I’m more positive about the themes though the score has plenty of frustrations.
With Fawkes, I think he had to score the character how he’s supposed to be in terms of what the movie is going for. It wouldn’t be for him to say, wow Fawkes really sucks - I need to write something to fit the bad special effects. He was supposed to be a sentimental, heroic bird and that comes through in the theme. If anything, he’s put into a position of having to compensate for an otherwise unmagical creature.
Stone motif is overused and less than ideal but actually fits the movie well in that the theme communicates danger and mystery. But the chamber theme would have been preferable since it communicates these things as well as giving a sense of this being a new adventure.
Dobby is a tough one because the theme is barely used so in that case I think he did almost write the theme as much for the album as anything. But it does kind of feel like a scheming and sympathetic elf so it seems fine though I’m not really remembering the nature of the scenes where it briefly appears.
Lockhart theme is aristorcratic and pompous and works fine in the movie I thought.
The concert arrangements are overemphasized, especially compared to his more recent approach of not really expanding much on his underscore. But I think he still based these themes on seeing the movie first since even with JFK he saw some of the movie before coming up with his pre-written themes and that was an unusual experiment.
- Adam
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In response to Sturgis : Yeah, that's a good example of what I'm thinking of. The theme is usually only heard in the context of something in the romanticism of either the direction or the way others are reacting to her.
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I kind of agree with what Roman said though I tend to think that there's something more universal about tonality and melody that connects more widely not just with children. But one thing that is good about WotW is that it could easily be tempting for a comoser to think, summer blockbuster, Spielberg, War of the Worlds - I've got to write something big that everyone will remember. But, JW, to his credit doesn't seem to approach his assignments with these kinds of preconceived ideas, preferring to react completely to what the film suggests. So he did something that is impressive and different but probably less accessible unless one has cultivated a particular taste in that direction, although much of the action music is certainly very visceral.
- Adam
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A few that come to mind though there are too many others to name
ET finale, last 5 minutes or last 15 minues for that matter
Born on the Fourth of July baseball sequence
I agree about Accidental Tourist finale
Joseph’s Dream from Far and Away
Letters from Stanly and Iris
- Adam
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Difficult to say but based on the album, I’ll vote for WotW. Even though WotW is a difficult listen in places, I like that it carves out a unique place in the Williams canon. RotS has a lot of repetition and feels less fresh in virtue of the fact that its his 3rd prequel and 6th Star Wars movie. WotW has a lot of compelling action music and different types of underscore. Its a more interesting score for me and even the most difficult parts of the score can usually be appreciated on a cerebral, damn-he’s-good level. So I feel more affection for WotW though I can’t deny that after an hour of it, I’m ready for something more tonal and soothing.
- Adam
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The concert version of Leia’s theme is incredible and I’m glad he wrote it but nothing about her character builds to that kind of drama. The theme is used mostly in the first half of the movie and kind of reflects the aura around her that is projected through the other characters. So the theme makes more sense if I think of it as capturing some of the romanticism of the picture that is seen through her character. The full-blown concert arrangment actually has more logic after the way RotS ends which was a nice coincidence since he surely didn’t plan that initially.
- Adam
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The changes I noticed is :
5. Ray and Rachel comes in soon after the floating bodies. Its sort of mislabeled but plays over the scene of all three of them in the car after Robbie tries to leave with the army
13. shows up in a few places and is kind of split up I think. For example there’s a section of it after the Intersection music when he’s looking in the mirror I'm pretty sure.
9. I don’t think this track is in the film though it was probably meant to appear as the title says.
The piano portion of Track 10 is maybe tracked in for the finale, splitting up track 14 and it was probably written to appear earlier, unless that’s a rewrite that he stuck on another track, which is possible, given the similarity in the piano parts and the way it ends.
A fair amount of music didn’t make it because I assume the movie might have got cut down later and in a couple places music was left out or maybe even rescored.
There’s a little more unreleased music than I initially thought - probably 5 or 6 cues though I don’t feel too deprived given the type of underscore that it is.
- Adam
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The combination of the film’s realism and the fact that its basically a movie that tries to scare you for a couple hours, made for an interesting score. On one hand there’s a lot of atonality but it ends up being pretty accesssible in some ways - particularly the action cues - because he went for something so primal and aggressive. Feels like action music reduced to the rawest elements of terror and fear. And he avoided some of the cinematic cliches like comfortable themes which helps reinforce Spielberg’s more realistic style of direction. And even the emotional side of the score is more restrained in keeping with the tone of the movie. Yet another great example of his ability and willingness to subordinate his music to the demands of the film.
Overall, I'm enjoying the album a lot and its nice to have something that's different and more challenging in some ways.
There's a couple unreleased cues, maybe more but that's what I remember. As usual, it would be nice to have that but the album seems pretty representative and, if anything, there's more music in the album not in the film but seeing it a second time would help.
- Adam
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One thing I better appreciate after seeing Batman Begins is the art of sound effects and score paying attention to one another. This is something that JW does quite well but in Batman Begins I often had the feeling that the music and the sound effects were blasting away obliviuous to one another. And that's just one example of part of a larger problem of a lack of subtlety. Part of the brilliance of WotW and JW in general is that even his loud, powerful music has a subtlety in terms of how it relates to the movie with all of the details of sound, dialog, etc. So, anyway, powerful isn't necessarily better though in this case I would tend to think WotW wins out regardless.
- Adam
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What music plays in the End Credits?
K.M.
End Credits starts with the action from Escape from the City and then goes into the epilogue. Part of the epilogue music was (presumably) tracked into the part where he sees the crash.
- Adam
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I see how the connection is made but I wouldn't say its the same. The two examples seem to have different notes. It seems like more of a technique in his writing and orchestration that is very similar and happens to appear these two times. Kind of like the eerie, lonely trumpet that appears in both films without necessarily quoting the same notes. It gives the same or very similar dramatic effect without rising to the level of some sort of thematic significance. But that’s just my 2 cents - others can draw their own conclusions.
- Adam
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I wouldn’t have thought that this would ever make it to DVD. But I think Heartbeeps may have a cult following so maybe they’re right to think they can make money on this. I think its one of those films that is so bad it attracts a small, devoted audience of the alienated who identify with and find perverse pleasure in its warped campiness.
- Adam
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Marcus? That's interesting. I liked the Last Crusade, but it felt like Marcus's IQ dropped 100 points from the Raiders movie.
Indiana 4 is one of those films that seems like a really bad idea that will have a lot more potential problems to avoid then the average film and I'm not sure how they're going to pull it off. It could happen, though. Hopefully, its not just the studio's dollar signs and Harrison's declining career that are pushing this idea.
- Adam
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People who like that kind of music. Actually I revisited it again and it is kind of a one-note score
as Stefancos said but its still very good music. I don’t listen to it a lot but if I want to hear something that’s sort of meditative and very pretty in a subtle kind of way, I think its very good. But its boring from the point of view of his more visceral, extroverted type of scores. So I can understand both reactions.
The finale, the last part of track 9, jumped out at me and I was reminded how well he ends the film. That has a poignancy in the orchestration that is very beautiful, I thought.
- Adam
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Maybe you’re thinking of the part after the synth in track 8, RotS? Kind of similar but I’ll come down as a no. It seems like the JW equivalent of filler music, not really very thematic, unless there’s another connection I’m not thinking of somewhere else in the RotS.
- Adam
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Hook vs. Jaws is a good example of how (for me) a ranking can change completely just based on the criteria used. I prefer to listen to Hook on the whole and its certainly impressive for its amount melody and themes and the way all of the themes get integrated. But if you start to think about impact on cinema and pop culture and the ability of a score to transform a film for the better, then Jaws becomes one of the great scores of all time. And there’s a lot of other different criteria, too, that can change things. Usually I think rankings reflect a mix of all sorts of criteria that maybe aren’t even explicit to the person ranking them but that naturally gets weighted towards listening experience, which happens to be the most subjective aspect. So rankings can be very misleading but still interesting to get some idea where people are at.
- Adam
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With JW, in general I prefer to hear it for the first time with the movie but I rarely actually do it. Even WotW I sampled a couple of the soundclips though I might try now to wait a day and listen to the whole soundtrack after the movie. Since I usually see JW-scored films quite a few times, its nice in theory to have the first time be the experience of hearing the music fresh. I've had some good experiences that way. It would also probably help to minimize the distraction of noticing some of the edits and changes from the album.
- Adam, who might have to plan a really busy day when the WotW soundtrack is released
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First of all, its broader in the sense that its obviously not just asking Williams fans. Secondly, if its a poll of young people (and I don't know how you know this excecpt that you're reading into the results), I would expect less favorable results towards Saving Private Ryan, not more. Young people are not exactly the target demographic of the movie, much less the people I’d expect to sit back and enjoy a slow-moving, patriotic orchestral score.
You’re free to pass it off as ignorance as though the Truth of the music resides in you and maybe other like-minded people. I think there’s another explanation and that is that humans aren't robots and we’re all different. I’m happy to see different results when you ask different people. That’s how it should be, especially since rankings are highly questionalbe way of gauging a score's worth even in the best of circumstances. Its fun to do and I like to do it from time to time but its nothing to take too seriously.
- Adam
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We’re a small % of the people with interest in JW, I assume, and not necessarily representative of everyone. I doubt this top 50 poll was scientific but, then again, our polls aren’t either - maybe even less scientific if we’re reaching a smaller number of people.
Its still revealing if a section of the broader film music fan community rates Saving Private Ryan so high. And we hardly needed this poll to know that people’s tastes can differ widely. I rate
TESB very high but there are times I’d rather listen to something more quiet and cerebral like
Saving Private Ryan. Some people are maybe like that most of the time. So I don’t think the
results are necessarily that surprising though, again, its only one poll.
- Adam
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I think what Figo described puts things in the right perspecitve but I also think the situation described already exists to a substantial extent. Most people know the Star Wars music now but if a poll in the US was taken and people were asked who scored Star Wars, I’d be amazed if more than 5% of the people knew. He’s mainstream in terms of the amount of music he’s written that has penetrated pop culture, but I think he’s, relatively-speaking, invisible as a person, although Boston Pops, Olympics and stuff like that has helped a little bit.
- Adam
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That's interesting - thanks for posting that. I was just thinking how it ranked 19th best score of all time on the top 50 list that was mentioned awhile back. Its only one poll but it indicates that there’s more of an audience for that music than we would think just from following the discussion here. It was a popular film and the kind of film that kept a lot of people in the theater for the end credits thinking about what they had seen. And Hymn to the Fallen really does make a moving statement, I thought, with regards to fhe film and strikes all the right notes of solemnity, patriotism, honor, tragic sacrifice, etc. A lot of people
probably had a strong association with the music from that, I’m guessing.
- Adam
Upcoming Oliver Stone 911 film...
in General Discussion
Posted
Studios are maybe coming on to the idea of welcoming a little controversy. Money talks and with Farenheit 911 and Passion of the Christ, the controversy seemed to be a huge boost to business. Part of me thinks Spielberg is getting into the game with his next project, Vengeance (?), which has the potential to invite controversy. Oliver Stone and Sep.11 is certainly an invitation to drum up controversy.
But leaving that aside, Williams/Stone collaborations have been some of my favorites musically, even when the films have had problems. I like the idea of him being able to write music that's more serious and political but on the large canvas that an Oliver Stone movie usually provides. His collaborations so far have been rewarding for me in that way.
- Adam