Tag: Film Music

This finally arrived in the mail last week. Does anyone who’s seen the movie even remember it at this point? The quality of the film aside, I am always thankful for more John Williams, especially when he’s not squandering his talent on the diminishing returns of “Star Wars” or Indiana Jones.

What’s remarkable, Williams having written and recorded this at the ages of 93 and 94, is how good it is. This is not one of his scores in “heroic blockbuster” mode. The car chase cue is one of the least remarkable tracks on the album. The train scene everyone raves about, for some reason (it makes no sense), is presented in the film without music. Rather, it is the emotional moments and the moments of wonder (in the music, if not the film) that resonate and remind one of what the movie is so sorely lacking.

The film opened on June 12. I ordered the CD from Waxwork Records on June 18. The soundtrack was shipped exactly one month later. This should not be construed as a slam against Waxwork. It’s just the way things are now, and I can’t see how it helps sales. If the product is not available for purchase by your average, moderately-interested person on the street, either immediately in a brick-and-mortar shop or for two-day delivery from an online retailer, how can you expect more than a few thousand sales, mostly to hardcore John Williams fans and die-hard film score collectors? I guarantee Williams’ name alone would generate many times that amount, if only they would make it easier for people to buy it. As it is, it’s not even available on Amazon, save as a digital download.

Quality-wise, I have no qualms. This is a polished product of the sort that used to be put out by the major labels. The sound is immediate, without seeming to be right in your face; the choral contributions and electronic elements blend well with the acoustic instruments. I must say, the bass is quite striking, to a degree I haven’t really noticed in previous orchestral soundtrack releases – although I confess my consumption of newer movie music has diminished, most of my purchases tending toward music of decades past. Considerably past, in terms of most of the classical stuff. If you want to really feel the lower registers – the cellos, double basses, and percussion – “Disclosure Day” has a unique, appealing sound. More important is the content, and there’s plenty here, in terms of emotion and lyricism, for me to enjoy.

Alas, physical media are not the priority they once were. I miss the days of just being able to walk into a record store and buy a soundtrack when it arrived a week or two before a film’s release. Now, if you want the CD, you have to do your research, find out who is distributing it, and jump through the hoops of preorder and postal delivery. The digital downloads for “Disclosure Day” weren’t even available until the day of the film’s release. I really don’t understand this strategy. A successful soundtrack album has always been one more tool with which to sell a film. How many repeat viewings has Williams’ music inspired? But all that is peanuts, I suppose, in a world in which a movie has to make $300 million in order to turn a profit.

When I called Waxwork to request a few tracks to air on one of my radio shows in advance of the official soundtrack release, I was told it wouldn’t be possible; there would be a rights issues, and I would have to contact Universal directly. Everything has become such a corporate labyrinth over the past decades, it’s like trying to infiltrate the Illuminati to get permission from a studio. Don’t even get me started on Disney. At least at Waxwork someone actually answered the phone, and he was normal and pleasant, competent and human and real, the way people used to be. The prospect of having to deal with Universal was not appealing. In the end, I decided to wait the extra week and just air some tracks from the digital download. So yeah, I bought the soundtrack twice.

All this jealously-guarded secrecy surrounding every aspect of the film, and the final trailer basically gives away the entire movie…

My summation is spoiler-free: I can describe my viewing experience as one of anger, at the start, softening, by the end, to disappointment. At least Emily Blunt and John Williams were good, though I have to admit, in the scenes where Spielberg tries to be more contemporary and dystopian, the score does seem a bit out of place. As I say, Williams does emotion and wonder very well. Watching “Disclosure Day” was a reminder of how much those two qualities are lacking in movies today. Even Spielberg movies, apparently.

I can’t believe I am living in a world where you can’t get a CD of a John Williams soundtrack. The guy who broke all records for soundtrack sales and singlehandedly revived the orchestral film score with such verve that it carried into the 21st century. His appeal transcends the collectors’ market, or at least it did. But since everyone’s awareness about anything, beyond what they are fed on social media, seems to have diminished, you have to be 50 years old to remember a better world.

Disney has to be the biggest group of idiots, judging from its handling of Williams’ last soundtrack, for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” – a far less interesting score, save for the delectable “Helen’s Theme,” which is pure golden age, though evidently not appreciated by everyone. As has been the case with the current score, clearly different people expect different things from John Williams. If it doesn’t possess “Jurassic Park” bombast, they’re incapable of recognizing or remembering a theme, apparently. At its best, the music for “Disclosure Day” is gorgeous. I’ve already commented on how the opening track, “Listen,” taps into the spiritual world of Vaughan Williams’ “Tallis Fantasia.” Already, right there, I am sold.

Others have pointed out a kinship between one of the tracks and Williams’ music for Spielberg’s “A.I.,” which, by the way, is easily my most-hated Spielberg film. And while I’m at it, he really missed the boat on creating a prescient sci-fi classic about honest-to-goodness, now-in-the-headlines, anxiety-provoking A.I.! While “Disclosure Day” doesn’t make me violently angry the way “A.I.” did, both movies make me question why I ever liked Spielberg to begin with. But then I remember “Jaws,” “Raiders,” “CE3K,” “E.T.,” and a few others.

“Disclosure Day” is no “Close Encounters,” for as much as it wants to be, and it is certainly no “E.T.” Say what you want about Spielberg’s remake of “War of the Worlds,” at least it was coherent. In 2 ½ hours, “Disclosure Day” has plenty of time to tell its story. But the ideas the screenplay seems to think are the most profound don’t cut very deep, at least in the way they are handled, and plot holes so glaring a ten-year-old child would recognize them are brushed off with a single line of dialogue, if that.

Despite some nice visual touches and some potentially interesting, sadly underdeveloped ideas, there’s more talk than show in what is, after all, a visual medium, and one this director has always exploited better than just about everyone else.

“Disclosure Day” often doesn’t make sense, and I couldn’t understand what any of the critics saw in it, until I realized we have very few actual critics who understand movies anymore, or even basic storytelling. The film proves that, if Spielberg wants to speak to the heart, if he wants empathy and wants us to “listen,” then John Williams is indispensable.

This soundtrack gives me a lot of pleasure, and moves me in a way the movie most definitely did not.