Re: Superman (1978) John Williams' score

On Wed, 26 Jun 2024 12:23:16 -0700, BTR1701 wrote:

In article<v5hksf$28sr0$1@dont-email.me>,
"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.

The ultimate derivative soundtrack is the "composer"
Tom Jonson in The Braineaters (1958). It's his only film
credit on imdb.com, listed as "music by" but on the
screen itself it says he's the composer. He managed to
compose his soundtrack to include lots of Russian
classical music, like Prokofiev's Nevsky Cantata, and others
I forget, but it's one of my favorite soundtracks!
I like tried and true classical music much better than the
freshly composed stuff that imitates classical music.

May as well mention Robot Monster (1953), one of my favorite
soundtracks, this is unique, so far as I know, by Elmer
Bernstein, and it's too bad the idea to issue a separate
soundtrack wasn't pursued so the recorded parts were thrown
in the trash. (Robot Monster was produced by a rogue's
gallery).

>
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.
>

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
>

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.