Re: Superman (1978) John Williams' score

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Throughout June, TCM was playing various movies to celebrate the scores
of Hollywood's best-known composers. To honor John Williams, they chose
to play Superman. In the host's comments, it was new information to me
that Jerry Goldsmith had turned the movie down as he was scoring
something else, although you'd think the guy who scored Chinatown over a
weekend after the earlier composer was fired would been able to do it,
just by never sleeping for two months.

It's a great score, but it's always always always annoyed me that you
cannot hear the score properly over the opening titles because of all
the whooshing noises as each title flies by. I've always hated that.
Salkind hired the guy who had just received an Oscar for Jaws, so I
think the audience really wants to hear the music.

Yes, I know the main theme is derivative (of previous works of his own,
plus the usual romantic composers that movie music is supposed to sound
like), but the first four notes of that one major theme in the music
conveys such a sense of joy and optimism, it's just perfect.

So much of the criticism many film composers have of "being derivative"
is wholly undeserved. Almost every time it's done specifically and
intentionally by the composer on orders from the director.

For example, the opening scene of STAR WARS, with the huge Imperial Star
Destroyer rumbling in overhead, almost endlessly. People say Williams
just lifted that part of the score from Holst's "Mars" from "The
Planets", but the reality is that Lucas actually temp-tracked that scene
with Mars and when Williams came in to score it, Lucas kept sending him
notes saying, "Make it sound more like Mars. I really like the sound of
Mars there." So Williams basically mimicked Holst's piece as close as he
could without risking a copyright violation.

So now all these years later, we have lackbrains like Hutt claiming
Williams all but plagiarized Mars in STAR WARS.

The same is true for so many composers whose creativity is leashed by
whatever the director wants, not what they can actually produce.

But from what I've read about Spielberg, he loved movie scores and as a
surrogate audience member, he knew what movie soundtracks were supposed
to sound like.

Even if derivative, Williams's job was to make it sound right and work
incidentally to the scene. Generally, he succeeds enormously.

One of the pieces I really like is "Welcome to Krypton" (I really have
no idea what it's called), slightly reminiscent of Aaron Copland and
early Charles Ives.

1M1 Prelude / 1M1A The Planet Krypton

Fair enough; nice nostalgic American music works great

Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor isn't the way I ever pictured Lex Luthor but
he made it work. Of course it would have been better to create an all-new
character for the movie. Why was Valerie Perrine a henchwoman? Yes, she
got to distract Major Nelson in that one scene

Which doesn't age well, as a bunch of soldiers surround a pretty girl
passed out on the side of the road and instead of summoning medical
help, they all giggle and start planning on how they're going to
sexually assault her.

Was much of the movie's broader humor funny at the time? Lex's crimes were
pretty damn horrific, intending to kill 10s of millions. I suppose he's
killed more than that at other times. Do we need a scene to lighten the
moment to use a sexy female "victim" to distract idiot naval officers and
sailors mismanaging their duties? Or the gag with Otis failing to input
the coordinates Lex gave him?

The subtler humor worked. I remember the audience's laughter when Clark
couldn't find a phone booth to change into costume in.

Explain that gag to kids today. What's a phone booth? What's a pay
phone? What's a phone?