Superman and current scoring ideologies

[David Coscina 3]

Due to the upcoming excitement of Superman Returns, I've been pouring over Williams' original and good golly and jee wiz, there's a lot of great material on the Rhino release. I do wish Williams could re-record his wonderful score preserving the tempi and arrangements but with better recording standards as some of the material on the Rhino release is pretty compressed or otherwise grainy sounding.

But having seen a few Superman Returns scenes (accompanied by with Ottman's score), I have become all the more troubled by the disparity in scoring approaches, and this doesn't just include Ottman. The scene where Kent is out on the street ripping open his shirt/tie to reveal the "S" demands that heroic fanfare, or the famous ostinato or else those quick 16th note fluroushes that Williams penned so fittingly for the original.

It's not just the film scoring has become all atmosphere and little musical substance, but that I do find that is the case most of the time. And it's not the activity in the music that's the problem, more over how the music nowadays is non-specific rhythmic motives or small cells. Listening to Growing Up from the original, one can hear very distinct musical phrases. First it's the pizz. strings, then the horns, the arco strings playing quick repeating figures, and so on. It's all very melodic and thematically salient.

I had the chance to buy the Superman Returns Audio Book on CD since I had a lot of car travelling to do this week and found myself "listening" to Williams' score underneath the narration even though no music was present. That's how strong the associations with Superman Williams' music is.

I'm glad Singer had the sense to incorporate Williams' original material, but I fear the huge chasm that separates the original score with Ottman's will bring this particular listener/film goer out of the movie and create a schizoid listening experience.

I wonder if anyone else feels this way....

[Marcus 385]

Thank you for addressing this! I feel exactly the same way...

[Romão 1,931]

One has to wonder what if Williams did score SR.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

I do wish Williams could re-record his wonderful score preserving the tempi and arrangements but with better recording standards as some of the material on the Rhino release is pretty compressed or otherwise grainy sounding.

Isnt there already the Debney recording which tries as hard as it can to stay true to the original tempos and arrangements? IINM the original score is lost and they had to reconstruct it by ear for the Debney rerecording

[Henry B 49]

But having seen a few Superman Returns scenes (accompanied by with Ottman's score), I have become all the more troubled by the disparity in scoring approaches, and this doesn't just include Ottman. The scene where Kent is out on the street ripping open his shirt/tie to reveal the "S" demands that heroic fanfare, or the famous ostinato or else those quick 16th note fluroushes that Williams penned so fittingly for the original.

Isn't that exactly what we hear?

I'm glad Singer had the sense to incorporate Williams' original material, but I fear the huge chasm that separates the original score with Ottman's will bring this particular listener/film goer out of the movie and create a schizoid listening experience.

I wonder if anyone else feels this way....

I don't. I'm glad that Singer and Ottman decided on a score with original (if unexceptional) elements, rather than a clone of the original score. Why make a new score, or a film, if nothing distinguishes it from the original?

[Jeshopk 8]

I do wish Williams could re-record his wonderful score preserving the tempi and arrangements but with better recording standards as some of the material on the Rhino release is pretty compressed or otherwise grainy sounding.

Isnt there already the Debney recording which tries as hard as it can to stay true to the original tempos and arrangements? IINM the original score is lost and they had to reconstruct it by ear for the Debney rerecording

Williams' own scores were re-used for the recording. Though there were some errors in copying, like in the destruction of krypton. A few notes were off.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

I do wish Williams could re-record his wonderful score preserving the tempi and arrangements but with better recording standards as some of the material on the Rhino release is pretty compressed or otherwise grainy sounding.

It doesn't need a re-recording. The original masters were used for the isolated score on the DVD and it sounds like it was recorded yesterday. They need only release a full and uncut version of that on CD.

[TownerFan 4,548]

It's not just the film scoring has become all atmosphere and little musical substance, but that I do find that is the case most of the time.  And it's not the activity in the music that's the problem, more over how the music nowadays is non-specific rhythmic motives or small cells.  Listening to Growing Up from the original, one can hear very distinct musical phrases.  First it's the pizz. strings, then the horns, the arco strings playing quick repeating figures, and so on.  It's all very melodic and thematically salient.  

(...)

I wonder if anyone else feels this way....

I think you put it very well, Fiery Angel. Of course, I'll reserve the very final judgement on Ottman's score after I will have seen the movie, but on a purely listening experience, the thing that struck me the most was an impression very similar to yours: film scoring aesthetics - particulary for the epic blockbuster movies like Superman Returns - have changed a lot since 1978. It's a pretty obvious statement, I know. But it's very striking to hear the enormous change that occurred in 27 years.

Williams scored Superman: The Movie with a flamboyant, old-fashioned, unabashedly romantic and gorgeous musical approach. The very formal direction and writing of the film gave Williams the opportunity to build a sort of symphonic poem, with specific identity for every set-piece. This approach gave to the movie an enormous sense of epic wonder. This also gave the movie a timeless quality that many similar movies of the era don't have.

Ottman seems to have answered to a very different vision. Of course, every movie has a unique musical need, so it should have been inappropriate to use the same exact approach used by Williams. But the Superman Returns score doesn't have the same epic edge that one could expect. Yes, there are a lot of "big" moments, but they seems to be more in line with the contemporary aesthetics of the modern blockbuster film score. The early reviews of Superman Returns talk about a very "old-fashioned, nostalgic" movie in the writing, the acting, the production design. Maybe Ottman and Singer felt that a too old-fashioned approach in the music would have been wrong for the contemporary audience, so they decided to go for a different road. It isn't a wrong approach per se, but I think that it will not give the movie the same good timeless quality of the original 1978 film.

Anyway, I'll wait to see the movie before giving a final judgement (sadly, here in Italy it won't be out before September 1st)

[gkgyver 1,638]

You know, after hearing all of X 3 and Superman Returns I thought about this alot the last few days. You're absolutely right. I don't know when it happened, but somehow somewhere someone decided a film score is good when you can squeeze as much notes and counterpoint into a bar as possible.

Don't have the time to elaborate, but I'll be back!

[David Coscina 3]

But having seen a few Superman Returns scenes (accompanied by with Ottman's score), I have become all the more troubled by the disparity in scoring approaches, and this doesn't just include Ottman. The scene where Kent is out on the street ripping open his shirt/tie to reveal the "S" demands that heroic fanfare, or the famous ostinato or else those quick 16th note fluroushes that Williams penned so fittingly for the original.

Isn't that exactly what we hear?

Actually, I find Ottman's music strangely unaffected during this sequence and his tempi and/or rhythmic figures don't well match the tempo of the editing in the scene. Perhaps this is a preview edit so I'll not be too hard on him but the big downbeat octave tonic notes isn't the same as Williams' harried string figures when Superman is searching for Lex Luthor's lair in the original. That's just my impression though.