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Topic: Ripping off "Gladiator" music

Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 11-12-2003 02:14 AM

quote:
Note that "originality" isn't included in your assessment.

That was the point of the whole post. Define "originality".
Where did Williams steal the Star Wars theme from?

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Christian Appelt
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 505
From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 11-12-2003 04:27 PM

quote:
All of John Williams' music is either ripped of from someone else, or completely forgettable. He is the scum on the bottom of the barrel of film composers, not just because he's often bad, but because he has no ideas. [QUOTE]

William,

I do not like John Williams` work either, but IMHO your description seems to fit Hans Zimmer much better. Reading the end credits of PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN I said to a musician friend: "I would have taken a bet that such a shitty score could only come from Hans Zimmer." He pointed to the screen where some other name appeared, but then we had a good laugh when the credit line "Music produced by Hans Zimmer" followed...

[Big Grin]

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Gracia L. Babbidge
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 709
From: Bowdoin, Maine
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 11-12-2003 10:20 PM

W. Hooper ranted:

quote:
But for John Williams, I not only dislike the junk he emits, but the lazy, dissembling mind that produces it. I don't like him. I hope he has a hard stool tomorrow morning. I hope the people in the next block hear his anguished screams.

Tsk. Tsk.
Like an artist's work or no; like the artist or no; it is wrong to wish ill on anyone. [Razz]

That which you do revisits you threefold, which is a good reason to cause no harm.

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-13-2003 05:36 AM

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note that "originality" isn't included in your assessment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was the point of the whole post

I was going to ignore the descent into puerility & ego conservation, but as long as it's deteriorated into Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, what the hey.

You have a need for your defense of Williams to define creativity in a way which excludes meaningful originality, which is what the point was - that Williams stuff is unoriginal. You can make a photocopy of a piece of sheet music, the result is a new thing, but it's not new music unless you play with words to the point of absurdity. I'm very appreciative of works which don't have to be declared completely original to have their own merit: in the big band era, bands used to have their own arrangements of hits which were themselves distinct; new classical recordings are mostly of a limited number of works. The difference is that they do not claim aspects of their work as distinctly their own, as in the composition of a new score.

quote:
Define "originality".

In this Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:
"1: the quality or state of being original. 2: freshness of aspect, design, or style 3: the power of independent thought or constructive imagination"

2 & 3 do NOT describe the work of John Williams. It describes the work of many other film composers, Waxman, Steiner, Davis, more. It is not the description of a score through all of which you hear & think "Where have I heard this before?"

quote:
Where did Williams steal the Star Wars theme from?

Steal is a word that's so ugly & legally actionable by people with boatloads of lawyers & money.

Here's a link to a CD & audio clip on Amazon of a symphonic suite arranged from Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score for King's Row
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000003TF5/qid=1068717087/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/102-5673317-8928137 ?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Well, listen to that! And it's just the walkup & the HOOK, the hardest, most significant part to write. That's all. In the Star Wars theme, what happens then? Turns the walkup around, repeats the hook, then does the whole thing over. Such a bog-standard method for writing a variation or completing a line that composers AVOID using it. The technique itself is so hoary that it is itself as recognizable as any particular line.

Williams mentioned after Star Wars (not "busted") that he was "influenced" by Korngold. That in particular, in this case! Not composed in the manner of, or with a quotation from, but via a lift. So who else would Williams have been influenced by? Steiner, Waxman, Rosza? He only sounds like them when he pulls pieces from them. It's not work in an idiom, it's like PDQ Bach without the honest, acknowledging wink. His scores are chunks from other things, with variations that are transparent enough to maintain as much as possible of the effectiveness of the originals. Waxman's scores didn't sound like Riesenfeld, they sounded like Waxman; same for Steiner, Davis, start picking some more respected, original composers. Williams' scores are salvage yard bolt & weld-ups, like the car Johnny Cash assembled in One Piece At A Time.

quote:
That which you do revisits you threefold

Ha, ha, Gracia! I eat only chocolate & no high fiber foods, & as it is written, you cannot make bricks without straw.

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 11-13-2003 03:36 PM

The excerpt from "Kings Row" is very interesting. Williams definitely was familiar with this music. What is really fascinating is that here the upbeat-rising 5th-motif occurs in a final cadenza (with a lot of chord progrssions Korngold obviously lifted from Rakhmaninov) while in Star Wars it is further developed to become an opening fanfare.
Remember that part of the stylistic challenge for this movie score was to write music in the style of the old Hollywood scores. Korngold himself was an interesting composer, but there`s nothing in his music either that you can`t see in other composers`works before. That doesn`t make him a hack either.
Try not to become too aggressive. I can see that you know a little more then most people about music. But you need to learn a whole lot more to better understand the stylistic developments that go through music history.
In the meantime, here is some other "discovery" you can impress your friends with: Beethoven was a hack too. The famous opening motif from the 5th symphony occurs in a choral work by Cherubini that Beethoven most likely knew because he was a big fan of the French revolutionary music. There is also a symphony in g minor by his contemporary Mehule which uses this upbeat motif. Shocking!

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Natasha Romel Arens
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: berkeley, ca.
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-26-2003 04:43 PM

I remember the moment I cued up two cd players to the star wars theme and Holst's Mars;Bringer of War. I laughed then did it for everyone i knew. Obviously Williams borrows, appreciates, steels whatever warms your heart but I won't say his music is a disservice to movie goers. Williams music is the biggest exposure to classical music that a lot of our patrons will have (i don't count the rape of tunes for commercials as valid exposure) Because williams uses so many references in his music i have never considered him a great composer but instead i do feel he is an accomplished arranger. It would be nice if when he receives awards if he thanked and gave notice to his sources, and maybe it would encourage some to expand their musical libraries...so please check out holst planets.

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 11-27-2003 01:36 AM

Which part of "Mars - Bringer of War" did you match up to which part of "Star Wars"? That is quite a feat, considering that the opening theme in "SW" is in 4, and "Mars" is in 5 beats throughout.
"The Planets", a marvellous orchestral showpiece and nothing but pure fun to listen to (provided the orchestra is up to the task, some of the parts are enormously difficult to play), itself "borrows" heavily from other music of the late 19th and early 20th century - Debussy, Ravel, Strauss, Stravinsky, Saint-Saens, Dukas, and others. Holst has also been accused of "stealing" from other composers. I prefer to see it as a brilliant anthology of late romantic orchestral techniques.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 11-27-2003 03:11 AM

quote:
I remember the moment I cued up two cd players to the star wars theme and Holst's Mars;Bringer of War.

Which in turn has an uncanny resemblance to the opening of the final movement of Bruckner's 8th symphony.

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Natasha Romel Arens
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: berkeley, ca.
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 11-27-2003 09:54 PM

i guess "cued up" was the wrong terminology, unfortunatly my music is in storage so when i'm settled i'll listen to mars again and compare. Mars is a great piece to play (i played the viola doo doo do do do doo do do over and over) I guess i was just trying to add to the list of "borrowed music".

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