A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 1977 Arista Records Pros:  Interesting mix of atonal post-modern styles and more traditional Romantic melodic material Cons:  The cut-paste presentation of cues. When I first heard the opening bar of the  Main Title and Mountain Visions  from  Close Encounters of the Third Kind  in the late summer of 1978, I didn't know what to make of it. I hadn't seen Steven Spielberg's classic film about mankind's first peaceful contact with another spacefaring civilization (having spent much of my movie allowance on multiple screenings of  Star Wars ), so for me the music was mysterious, strangely atonal, and even ominous. It had none of the 19th Century Romantic era stylings of Williams' music for  Star Wars ; there wasn't a grand overture or march-like opening and there were very few repeated themes or leitmotivs. Indeed, some of the very early tracks on the  Close Encounters,  when heard without the context of Spielberg's movie, sound as though th

In 1991, Sony Classical released The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration, a 13-track album that features music composed by John Williams for the movies by director Steven Spielberg. Those compositions - marches, main title themes, and scene-specific cues - covered the first 15 years or so of what is one of the longest artistic partnerships in film history. As  Variety's film music writer Jon Burlingame states in the liner notes to Sony Classical's John Williams/Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection that there have been other famous director-composer duos: "Film historians often cite Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, for example, or Federico Fellini and Nino Rota; others might name Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, or Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini." But, as Burlingame points out: None, however, have been as long or as fruitful as the forty-three-year collaboration of Steven Spielberg and John Williams. None have encompassed such a wide range of subje

To me, one of the best things about the movies is the vast variety of themes that composers have created over the years. From Max Steiner’s “ Tara Theme” of Gone with the Wind to “ The Flying Theme” from E.T. , composer/conductor John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra take us on a musical journey spanning nearly four decades in Aisle Seat.  Of the 10 themes presented in this Philips CD, three were composed by Williams. Two are famous in the Williams repertoire -- “The Flying Theme” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark March” -- but they were still relatively new when this album was first released 21 years ago.  The third Williams composition is “If We Were In Love,” a romantic theme from Yes, Giorgio , a forgotten (and forgettable) movie starring Luciano Pavarotti. No matter…even if the movie flopped, the theme survived. It’s sweet and sweeping, almost operatic, yet you can hum it -- if nothing else, great movie music often is catchy and easy on the ears.  The other c