Post 2: a Work in Progress

I have to say that the more I read in our textbook, the more invaluable I find it. The interviews, anecdotes, images, and clear writing are priceless. (One thing on a side note that I would mention is the writer like exclamation points a little too much. His italics are much more effective and I wish he would limit himself to THOSE.) I think it is very important that the author is fascinated by his subject-and he clearly is. It makes me smile to see all the photos that are footnoted "From the author's personal collection," and I wish I could have the same collection; I especially liked his picture of John Williams (who is one of my heroes).

I must stand firm on my statement that John Williams IS "one of my heroes," even though it has now been more fully revealed to me that he stands on the shoulders of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (and Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, etc. . . . ). Are there ANY composers, film, TV, classical, or other, who have NOT begged, borrowed, or stolen from former composers, living or dead? The answer is of course, a great, resounding "NO." I can understand people discrediting Watson and Crick for their work on the helix module for DNA, because they took everyone else's research; that research was facts, and using someone else's knowledge of facts and claiming that it is YOU who discovered it is an extremely different case than reworking artistic ideas. It saddens me that film composers are not more highly regarded, and I utterly despise how some people discredit film composers specifically for the reason that they do not write "originally." My issue is whether "originality" or "creativity" is really the most important thing in art. For me, coming up with new approaches and concepts and taking previous artists' ideas in order to renew and rework them, practically recreate them, are just about equal. Often, the latter can even seem MORE impressive, since the ear and/or eye is already well-adjusted to the type of work and can more easily appreciate its changing faces.

Continuing the discussion of John Williams' music, I would say that the Star Wars main title theme is almost like a subset of Korngold's earlier fanfare. I only heard them to compare them once in class, but I got the sense that musically Star Wars seemed more compact. It is reminescent to me of James Horner's recycling of the melodic and harmonic structure that Bill Conti first explored in The Right Stuff for his score for The Rocketeer: something that becomes more solid, more memorable. I might be wrong, and I might alter this notion at a later date after comparing them at greater lengths, but at this point in my life it's how they strike me. It is probable that this is my view because of the mere number of times I have been exposed to these two themes, but I will be sure to look into it further. Of course, if it weren't for Korngold (and Steiner and Tiompkin-or however his name is spelled, forgive me), there would BE no Horner or Williams as we know them.

History is an imperfect syllogism: it brings to mind a whole sequence in the movie, which is in theaters now, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: IF this person had not done THIS at THIS precise moment, then THAT person would not have been THERE at THAT time . . . and eventually you find that if the lineup of events had not all matched in a certain way, then a certain terrible accident would have never happened. I still can't get over how dependent people in the film business-or, I guess, people in the entertainment business, period-are on "getting a break." For something that depends so much on who you know or who you can impress, it's incredible to me that we, as the listening and watching public, are fortunate enough to end up with people like John Williams, or Patrick Doyle, or Hans Zimmer-or really, any film composers-landing these jobs. When they were "lucky," so are we. Learning about the whole industry without just seeing the finished product on the screen has really opened my mind to a great many possibilities: who else might it have been? If there were a certain window of opportunity that had flown past, say, Alan Silvestri, who would have gotten there instead? I suppose it's like everything else in life-you never know what might happen.

Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood took me way back . . . I used to watch that film all the time at my grandparents' house, but hadn't remembered it too well. Astonishingly, however, there were 2 little moments in the score that I suddenly remembered. I had forgotten ALL of the main, foreground music-except for maybe 14 seconds of sound that I've had pop into my head every once in a while, making me extremely puzzled as to its origin. I'm glad to have solved part of the mystery of my life; but I confess I occasionally felt like Paul McCartney waking up that morning with "Yesterday" running through his head, being convinced that he had heard it before. Fortunately for him, he hadn't - but at least I never tried to put it "in" anything only to discover (again) that I hadn't just come up with it. I also wanted to state how very effective I found the score for The Best Years of Our Lives, particularly at the more emotional parts. The music welling up so perfectly suited the relationships on the screen, it was everything a score should be. There was a great deal of tension on the screen, obviously - the acting was very effective - but the music was, as Mendelssohn always insisted, saying what mere human words could NOT say. I think that is the true answer to a film score's identity.