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Tag: John Williams

Airport Movie Music on “Picture Perfect” Radio

This week on “Picture Perfect,” get ready to take flight, with music from movies about airports and airplanes.

In the original “Airport” (1970), producer Irwin Allen established the prototype for disaster movies of all stripes by placing an all-star, aging cast in spectacular peril. Burt Lancaster! Dean Martin! George Kennedy! Jean Seberg! Jacqueline Bisset! Helen Hayes! The list goes on and on, longer than the longest runway. The bongo-laden theme is by veteran film composer Alfred Newman,” from the last of his over 200 scores.

Another movie with something of the same feel is “The V.I.P.s” (1963), allegedly inspired by the real-life love-triangle of Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Finch. The story is set at London Heathrow Airport, where flights are delayed because of a dense fog. The film was written by Terrence Rattigan and the parts cast from another laundry list of stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, and Orson Welles, with Margaret Rutherford in an Academy Award-winning performance. The music is by Miklós Rózsa.

By contrast, Steven Spielberg’s “The Terminal” (2004) is an (intentionally) comic take on the predicament of a hapless Eastern European who finds himself in a kind limbo, trapped in an international arrivals terminal in New York, after his country erupts into civil war, so that his passport and other documentation are no longer valid. His plight mirrors that of real-life Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who lived for 17 years in a terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Tom Hanks plays the unfortunate traveler, who makes the terminal his home, and Catherine Zeta-Jones the airline attendant with whom he strikes up a relationship. The music is by regular Spielberg collaborator John Williams, and I think you’ll find it quite different from the Williams known for his work on “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.”

Finally, we’ll turn to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest” (1959), a film in which Cary Grant encounters love and danger in, on, and from a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles. Planes are particularly significant. During the course of the film, it’s revealed that the title is in reference to a Northwest Airlines flight; Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) must do all she can to avoid getting on a plane with Phillip Vandamm (James Mason); and of course, Roger Thornhill (Grant) flees from a strafing crop duster. Bernard Herrmann’s opening fandango propels us into the adventure.

Rush more to Rushmore. Departure time below, for “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

September 22, 2023
John Williams’ Genius Beyond the Screen

I’m a little late in sharing this – the article ran yesterday – but I couldn’t agree more with the premise. Anyone who sneers at John Williams’ indelible themes doesn’t understand the full extent of his artistry, and those who continue to approach film music as mere grist for pops concerts (especially in “pops” arrangements) is doing film music at its best a serious disservice. I wish someone would have the guts to present extended passages from these scores without the images, so that listeners can appreciate more fully what the composer has achieved. Yeah, they’re not symphonies, but it takes a special kind of talent to make this type of music work as often as John Williams has. If there’s anyone else alive that can maintain this balancing act between the dramatically appropriate and musically satisfying as well as he does, I don’t know of it.

The article is written by Frank Lehman, Associate Professor of Music at Tufts University. It’s refreshing to see an appreciation piece written by someone who understands the inner workings of the music and can actually express himself in musical terms. Too often, these kinds of articles are written by well-meaning fans, who don’t really possess a larger perspective or the necessary tools to communicate musically. Not to trash the fans. Williams is who he is he is, in large part, because of them. But if his music is to be taken seriously, we need people like Lehman.

The article is interactive, with plenty of film and sound clips to illustrate the writer’s points. I wouldn’t want all newspaper articles to be done like this, but for a music piece, especially one about how music works with the movies, this was very well done. Great job, and a fun read, @[100059174186752:2048:The New York Times]!

July 8, 2023
John Williams Film Music Lion

He’s a reminder of what film music could be if only composers would be allowed to do their thing, instead of churning out yet another non-descript, inexpensive moan-and-groan that’s convenient to edit right up until the final print is struck. Somebody have the courage to let composers get back to composing, already. Maybe your movies will have more soul. For now, John Williams is the last of the lions.

June 24, 2023
Indy 5 Soundtrack Delay Disney Fails Fans

What?????????????

The soundtrack to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” will not be released until AUGUST 9????????????? The film opens nationwide on June 30!

This is flabbergasting, for a Lucasfilm juggernaut, especially one that has George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as executive producers. What’s John Williams got to do, anyway, to have his music for a 300 MILLION DOLLAR GUARANTEED BLOCKBUSTER released in a timely fashion?

I was planning this to be the soundtrack of my summer. So much for the custodianship of Walt Disney. I guess Disney can wait to take my money.

Sure, the soundtrack will be available as a digital download and via streaming on the day of the film’s release, but as far as the music’s concerned, it’s doubtful they’ll make as much from blasé streamers as they will from those of us who have been riding with Indy since 1981 (when good film scores were still being written). Give us our physical media, dammit!

It’s not like I’m holding out particularly high hopes for the movie. What I really want is the music. Are the CDs being stockpiled at an undisclosed location, near the Ark of the Covenant? How many Nazis do I have to punch, how many boulders do I have to outrun, in order to savor my hard-won treasure?

Nevermind a museum; it belongs in my CD player!

https://jwfan.com/?p=14814

June 15, 2023
John Williams’ WWII Film Scores on KWAX

I won’t put too fine a point on it, because I feel it would be disrespectful to those who made the ultimate sacrifice to use Memorial Day to sharpen my bayonet. But here’s an example of programming you WON’T hear on WWFM this weekend.

You will hear it, however, on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon, where “Picture Perfect” will continue, as I prepare to produce and distribute fresh programs.

This week, we’ll revisit some of John Williams’ music for films set during World War II.

Only six months after Pearl Harbor, America struck back, devastating the Japanese fleet in a battle regarded as one of the war’s turning points. “Midway” (1976) was a belated big-screen dramatization of the event, featuring an all-star cast of war movie standbys, including Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, and Cliff Robertson.

Unfortunately, the assembly of old-timers, combined with abundant stock footage from “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and actual period newsreels, may have saddled the film with an all-too-palpable sense of been-there-done-that. Williams does his best to freshen things up with a rousing, patriotic score and a crackerjack victory march. Fun fact: “Midway” was one of only four films ever to be presented in theater-rumbling Sensurround.

Frank Sinatra starred in – and directed – “None But the Brave” (1965), the only time the Chairman of the Board sat in the director’s chair. This time, Japanese and American units are forced to coexist, and even cooperate, after they are stranded on a Pacific island. The film is also noteworthy for being the first Japanese-American co-production and bears a somewhat forward-looking anti-war message. The music is a fascinating glimpse of Williams’ work from ten years before his mega-success with “Jaws,” and “Star Wars” yet to come.

“1941” (1979) is just plain weird. Steven Spielberg’s too-big-to-fail gamble stumbles pretty badly, following his back-to-back blockbusters, “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The premise – a Japanese u-boat sighting off the coast of California triggering an overabundance of slapstick panic – posits, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad war.

“1941” employs a staggering amount of talent, from its behind-the-scenes effects artists, to screenwriters Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, to its dream cast pushing as hard as it possibly can. It also features a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Toshiro Mifune and Slim Pickens in the same scene. But for the most part, perhaps unsurprisingly, it fails to deliver the laughs. What it does deliver is the most rousing of John Williams’ neglected scores.

Spielberg actually approached John Wayne about appearing in the film. Wayne was too ill to participate, but offered the following advice: “You know, that was an important war, and you’re making fun of a war that cost thousands of lives at Pearl Harbor. Don’t joke about World War II.” Whether or not audiences agreed, they didn’t exactly queue up as they had for Spielberg’s previous successes.

We’ll strike a more reverent tone with Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Spielberg’s war-is-hell narrative yet manages to honor the sacrifice of the fighting men of World War II. The opening – a sustained “you-are-there” battle sequence on Omaha Beach – is unforgettable. Remarkably, it is presented wholly without music, Williams preferring to allow the tension of the mise-en-scène to speak for itself. Spielberg picked up his second Academy Award for Best Director. The film, however, inexplicably, lost to “Shakespeare in Love.” We’ll hear “Hymn to the Fallen,” of the hour’s selections, easily the most appropriate to Memorial Day.

Sadly, we’re not talking about “Star Wars” here, but a real war that killed tens of millions and destroyed the lives of countless others.

John Williams looks at World War II from four different angles this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening, syndicated on KWAX. Stream it at the link below.

Keep in mind, the station is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour time difference – actually rather convenient for those of us located in the vicinity of WWFM. Here are the conversions of the respective air-times:

PICTURE PERFECT – Fridays on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD – Saturdays on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: War has a way of putting one’s problems in perspective

May 26, 2023

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