Return of the Jedi

.aa - week nine.



This post is a review of an Kathryn Kalinak's article John Williams and "The Empire" Strike Back.


Kathryn quickly makes the point that "in composing the sound to go with the future, Williams doesn't look to any of the "avant-garde" composers like Varese or Cage..." (Kalinak) in discussing his landmark usage of late-Romantic orchestration. However one point I feel she neglects to raise is that the overarching story of Star Wars is about the colonialist power, the Imperials, warring against the liberal thinking rebels. Williams choice to use a style from probably the most nationalistic period of history seems fairly easily justified in my opinion. Warfare based cinematography and Romantically composed scores go together like beer and sunshine.

I found this excerpt that presents Williams approach to the project interesting:

"Steiner never reads scripts ("I run a mile everytime I see one"), Williams avoids them also, preferring to "react to the people and places and events ... of the film itself ... Williams taps cultural associations to create … persona." (Kalinak).

Williams' method to compose for the 'people and places and events' of the film itself, and to avoid the script is intriguing - while many composers would like to be involved in the project as much as possible (ie: read the script), I can understand why this would be the case. With so many specialists and figure-heads, like actors, costume and set designers having an impact on the film, it would be important to compose with an idea of how they combine toward a final product. I suppose at the end of the day the 'people and places and events' are the only things that will make the film - any of the concept designs and scripts are just plans of how to execute these.


.sources.

Harrald, Luke. “John Williams Film Music.” Lecture of EMU Space, Adelaide University.

Kalinak, Kathryn. “John Williams and ‘The Empire’ Strike Back.” Online article, accessed 9th of October, 2008.

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