Johnny Be Bad
John Williams has made me angry. I heard excerpts from the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack and it sounds like he’s copied some notable scores from recent years. And it makes me even more upset that people have been hailing the Memoirs score. You can see why. It’s got two classical music superstars, Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. It’s got some interesting use of traditional Japanese instruments: koto, shamisen, shakuhachi, taiko.
The offenses come in primarily two instances. The first is a piece that begins with a taiko drum beat. A marimba-like cascade of pentatonic notes follow. And these two elements serve as accompaniment for our violin melody. Did you guess it? That’s right, this is exactly the same technique as the David Byrne opening credit sequence to the Last Emperor. It even sounds like the same notes. Just a little to a lot embarrassing, but it also validates all those people out there who contend that Williams is a hack. I wouldn’t go that far, but this just makes me nearly reconsider.
The other instance is the use of light drumming and whimsical flute melody. It sounds like Tan Dun’s score from Crouching Tiger (especially the scene in the tea house). What makes this worse too is that it sounds more Chinese, which Tan Dun is, rather than Japanese, which is what our story is supposed to be about. Williams’ orientalism just lumps the pentatonic together, failing to notice that the Japanese scale features prominent use of the half step not found in most pentatonic scales. On other piece, the shakuhachi does some of the Takemitsu-esque modernism that sounds appropriately Japanese.
Despite this, at least the Yo Yo Ma melody for our main character is lovely. Yet on the whole, I still feel that Hans Zimmer’s score for The Last Samurai was a better score even if it didn’t so much pandering (or perhaps because). Even Williams’ Munich score had a bit more humanity than this. But no matter what I say, people will like the Memoirs score, and I’ll try not to cringe as I hear those arguments.
March 16th, 2007 at 7:45 am
How dare you try and pick apart the work of a master! The sad truth is that with so much music created even just in our lifetime if anyone wanted to sit and pick apart every note of music, it would be easy to say it sounds like something that was created before it. Do you even have any idea the scale of the body of work that this man has given to the world? His most trivial work most likely dwarves in comparison your greatest life achievement, so with any sense you will give this man the respect that he deserves for devoting his life to his passion, and enhancing our enjoyment of movies like starwars 1-6, Indiana Jones, Braveheart, jaws, superman, 2001, and schindlers list, just to name a few. Or maybe this grand critic is ready for the torch to be passed to them so they can amaze the world with originality.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Um…John Williams is one of my favorite film composers of all time. And yes, he has been considered one of the biggest hacks in all of music history (a distinction which in mind has a great deal to do with WHY he is one of the best at what he does). And yes, even the lowliest critic is allowed to critique the mightiest artist because that’s what the artist wants…they put their work out there to be enjoyed and pondered and dissected.
The issue is not whether he has done amazing work in bringing to life the visions of filmmakers. The issue is more about originality. Please listen to the Harry Potter 3 score, which I consider one of his most original scores of recent years.
And he did not score Braveheart. That’s James Horner.