Score: A Film Music Documentary Page #4

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context for the music.

There is a permanent linkage,

so when you hear it again,

the experiences you had

in the theatre are evoked.

I never even thought about whether

it could be used elsewhere.

Thank you. God bless you

and may God bless the United

States of America.

["REMEMBER THE TITANS"

THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

The phone rang.

A friend of mine said,

"I'm at the convention.

'Remember the Titans' is playing

as loud as a Kiss concert."

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

I wasn't asked, which I'm

not happy about,

but, it's quite interesting

watching it being used

for something

completely different.

[KRAFT] We live in a world

that things are underscored.

It's actually interesting

how the music

of "Remember the Titans"

evokes what Obama wanted

to be as the man walking

out as the new president.

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

[LEMONE] Whatever the audience

felt in the theatre,

it was resonant again.

The power of the score

in and of itself is amazing.

[TAN] When we're watching

a 90-minute standard film,

we make about 21,000

or more eye movements.

And even though we feel

like we have full control

and freedom of where to look,

many studies on eye tracking

have shown that actually

a film audience

is usually looking at about the same

place on a screen

at about the same time.

One way that the eye can be

directed to a specific spot

on the screen is when

there's something about the music

that matches some characteristic

on the screen.

For example, a rising pitch

with something that is rising.

And a great example

of this comes from

the "married life" montage

from the film, "Up."

The first time

that we see the balloons

that are tied to Carl's cart,

that's really important

because the balloons are going

to be an important visual motif,

an important theme

for the entire film.

We see Carl, and then we see

Ellie walking out with a parrot.

And then the balloon cart

rises and comes back down.

So it's very interesting to see

that music can be part

of the choreography of the dance

of our eye movements

during a film sequence.

It used to be

representative scoring,

where everything

you see, you hear.

Walk up the steps.

[MAKES RISING SOUND EFFECT]

Romantic kiss.

The eye's doing the same

thing the ear's doing.

There's so many decisions

to make in movies.

Hollywood was going through an odd

transition in the '60s,

especially the mid-'60s

to the early '70s.

One of the things that got

thrown out was the idea

of the old-fashioned

orchestral score.

In restless dreams

I walked alone

Now there was a movement

toward source music.

Narrow streets

of cobblestone

Folk music

["BONNIE AND CLYDE"

THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

Intimate types

of musical groupings

Take a load off, Annie

Take a load for free

it was just different.

The '60s were a lot

of composers who really

knew what they were doing,

who didn't want to do

it the old way.

["PLANET OF THE APES"

THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[KRAFT] Jerry Goldsmith was absolutely

the most innovative composer

to work on mainstream

movies on a regular basis.

What's amazing

about "Planet of the Apes"

is he's using all these

modern techniques.

He reapplied it and put

it into drama.

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

Metal mixing bowls and rubber

balls being bounced into a bowl.

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

[BATES] Just kind of screwing

with the orchestra the way he did

and just being so

ballsy in his choices

and it being so on point

for that movie.

It'll always be

one of the all-time great

science fiction scores.

["CHINATOWN" THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[JON BURLINGAME] "Chinatown"

was written in 10 days after

an earlier score had been written,

recorded, and thrown out.

And it's very interesting

that Jerry comes in

and he looks at the film,

and he immediately decides

he needs four harps, four pianos,

strings, percussion,

and a solo trumpet.

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

[RINGER ROSS] Why four pianos?

I mean, Jerry was just sort

of the godfather of all this, wasn't he?

It's such an interesting musical

choice, but that's Jerry.

You ask musicians, they might

think he is the best ever.

["THE REIVERS" THEME MUSIC]

[STEVEN SPIELBERG] When I heard

"The Reivers," I said, "My god, this guy

- "must be 80 years old." I really thought

- [WILLIAMS] Nearly!

I thought maybe here's some guy

who's 80 years old

who maybe wrote his greatest

scores of his life.

And I wanted to find

out who this guy was,

and I met this Young man named

John Williams and I was amazed.

[KRAFT] John Williams did not

start as a classical composer,

he started as a jazz pianist.

[DAVID NEWMAN] John Williams

played piano on "West Side Story."

["WEST SIDE STORY"

THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

And he played piano

on "The Apartment."

["THE APARTMENT"

THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[DAVID NEWMAN] Born

and bred in the Fox system,

him and Jerry Goldsmith,

that's where they learned.

Nobody knew that the whole

field would change.

["JAWS" THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[LEMONE]

When we saw "Jaws,"

if it didn't have

that "ba-domp ba-domp",

none of us would have

known what was happening.

Da-dun. Da-dun,

da-dun da-dun, da-dun

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

It was pretty brilliant.

And it was almost

like a crazy experiment.

He was an engine, "ba-dum,

ba-dum," accelerating.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Like a train moving forward,

this is an eating machine.

He is as simple as "I

move forward to kill."

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

That shark didn't need more.

He needed two notes.

The first day

with Steven, he said,

"What are you going to play

for Jaws?" I went

[PLAYS "JAWS" THEME]

He said, "You're kidding."

[LAUGHTER]

I said, "You're crazy,

this is a serious movie!"

I thought he was going to say,

"No, I'm only kidding."

And he was about to play this

very poetic pastoral symphony.

And John said, "No, no,

you've made a very primal movie."

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

[SPIELBERG] Part of the genius

of John Williams

is how he spots music

and how he places

music in a movie.

John did not want music

to celebrate a red herring.

He only wanted music to signal

the actual arrival of the shark.

Everybody goes, "Oh, 'Jaws, '

it's just these two notes."

It's not. There's this amazing

orchestral symphonic piece

that takes place and it's just being

triggered by these two notes.

Just artistic imagination

is phenomenal.

We are not worthy.

I said, "Oh my god.

It's a rebirth."

Film music is back, it's alive!"

["STAR WARS" THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[LEO ERDODY] "Star Wars" made such

an incredible splash when it came out.

Everything about it was so

exciting and thrilling

for an 11-year-old

growing up at that time.

Here they come.

["STAR WARS" THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[TOWNSON] And spoke to a whole

generation of people.

[HOLKENBORG] I was, I think

12 when that thing came out.

So it had a massive

impact on my youth.

[THEME MUSIC CONTINUES]

We had the theme from "Star Wars"

locked in our head as a kid,

as soon as we walked

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