As the proto-summer blockbuster, “Jaws” (1975) gets everything right. Part horror movie, part suspense-thriller, part swashbuckling adventure, it’s also chock-full of subversive social commentary. Steven Spielberg’s breakout hit delivers most of its real bite beneath the dazzle of Great White teeth. Replace the shark with COVID-19 and see if you don’t find the same foibles exhibited all over again nearly 50 years later.
Of course, it’s the comradery on the boat that secures the film’s place in our hearts. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss are all first-rate, as is John Williams’ music, in this, one of the must-see films of the 1970s. Would that someone could make a movie like this again, in any genre.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. “Jaws” puts the bite on our ass, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Your comments are on the menu. We’ll count you among our friends, even as we make you our chum, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!
Happy Canada Day! Let us honor the classical music heritage of the Canadian national anthem.
The music was composed by Calixa Lavallée, a French-Canadian, who had been a Union band musician with the Fourth Rhode Island Regiment during the American Civil War. Lavallée was commissioned to write the piece in 1880 by Théodore Robitaille, then Lieutenant Governor of Québec, in anticipation of that year’s Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations.
The words (in French) were added later, by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The first English translation was published in 1906. Two years later, an official translation, by Robert Stanley Weir, appeared. “O Canada” served as the country’s de facto national anthem beginning in 1939. It was officially adopted only in 1980!
Last year, musicologist Ross Duffin put forth that “O Canada” was not an original composition at all, but rather a patchwork of preexisting melodies from the classical repertoire. To which I say, what took him so long? Anyone with a passing knowledge of “The Magic Flute” knows that. Also, as far back as 2008, a listener wrote to inquire of me what was the name of the Franz Liszt composition I played that sounded so much like “O Canada?” All is revealed here, with musical examples below:
One of its sources, from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”:
Variations on the theme from a Piano Sonata in F major by Anton Reicha:
Listen for a familiar, repeated interlude in Liszt’s symphonic poem “Festklänge” (“Festive Sounds”), in this performance from across Lake Michigan:
“Wach’ auf” from Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger”
Finally, Matthias Keller’s “The American Hymn.” I confess, this one is new to me. For its discovery, I must tip my hat to Professor Duffin.
It’s not inconceivable that Lavallée would have fulfilled his commission with a pastiche, a common enough practice among band musicians of the day. This is not to take anything away from the Canadian national anthem. As you may know, the melody for “The Star Spangled Banner” was appropriated from a British drinking song!
At last, an article about John Williams’ music for “Jaws” that looks beyond the shark theme. (Follow the link below.)
Granted, that two-note motive is destined for immortality, memorable in a way few other movie themes are, and will likely outlive anything else the composer ever wrote – even “Star Wars,” if you can get your head around that – but there is so much more to this masterful score.
The determined “shark cage” fugue, the high-spirited nautical theme, the neo-Baroque tourist music, all serve to elevate “Jaws” and lend it dimension. In other hands, this might have played as a straightforward horror film. Spielberg’s suspense-thriller is transformed in large part through its music into an exhilarating summer entertainment – a genuine good time at the movies.
Roy and I will discuss this seminal summer blockbuster, to kick off the Fourth of July weekend, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, livestreamed on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT.
Be forewarned: the article at the link contains spoilers, and so will our show. (Also, it is advisable to avoid all sequels!)
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He was irascible, outspoken, and, for those unaccustomed to his quirks, probably a trial to be around. Of course, he was also usually right. Was Bernard Herrmann America’s greatest film composer? When I listen for pleasure, his scores are not always the first that I turn to, but I can’t think of anyone else who so perfectly understood the most effective use of music in film.
This interview – conducted in a noisy cocktail lounge at New York’s Regency Hotel (home of Maxfield Parrish’s Old King Cole mural) – does a pretty good job of conveying the composer in all his ill-humored glory. Herrmann has no hesitation in telling us exactly what he thinks.
At least he has good things to say (after his fashion) about Copland and Korngold. A shame the “Citizen Kane” record with Orson Welles and Joan Sutherland never came to fruition. Also, the idea of a Ravel “Salome” is fascinating.
