Originally posted at Edward Copeland on Film, 05/26/2010.
I was 4, and visiting The Dalles, Oregon, during the first Christmas I can consciously remember. My uncle, who had a satellite dish and a 21 inch TV, had bought this VCR for his family. One of those Ford Granada-sized top loading behemoths that were a sign that one had made it in this world. And along with the VCR, he had obtained a copy of a movie I hadn’t yet heard about. A movie called Star Wars.
I was 4. I didn’t understand half of what was flying off the 21 inch screen. I was 3 feet in front of it, close enough to be lost in the scan lines. I don’t remember much, but I remember that I was remembering everything. I was committing it all to memory. It was weird, realizing I was recording these memories as they happened; half toddler/half computer, clad in corduroy and orange, staring at walking carpets and drowning in the wonderful combination of strings and drums and wrenches on guy-wires and gargoyle scuba tanks, the beautiful cacophony spilling from 3 inch speakers on either side of that 21 inch TV.
I remember the hamburger ship. I remember the one-eyed garbage monster. I remember the X ships blowing up the O base and the football player teasing the hell out of the blond dude in the bathrobe. I remember the giant dog with the diagonal belt yelling in time with the drums and the trumpets as they all won Olympic medals for blowing up big gray basketballs. I remember that, and the view out the window.
I was 4, and just behind this strange, beautiful mish-mash of visuals was the window, and porch light nearby illuminated every single fat snowflake descending from the clouds. And to my 4 year old mind, watching this movie with a hamburger ship speeding through Mylar tunnels in something called “hyperspace,” the snow wasn’t falling; The house was flying. And as the Falcon blasted toward Yavin, I fully believed my uncle’s house was ascending towards the cosmos, the Christmas lights bouncing off the white walls, softened by the shaggy brown carpet I was laying on, blending with the light diffusing through the window and melting into the sounds and images vibrating off the TV.
It is my birthday. I am 7 years old. It is December and I’ve spent the last month and a half circling Star Wars toys in the Sears catalogue. Return of the Jedi has been out for about a year and a half, and I still haven’t seen it. I’ve checked out the read-along book from the Marion County bookmobile whenever it is available. I’ve deprived so many kids of their visits to that galaxy far, far way. I read along, I listen along, at least once every day. I color over the read-along book. I fall asleep with the cassette playing on my Fisher-Price tape-deck. The film has just moved to the Star Cinema in Stayton, Ore., December 1984. It is a surprise birthday present from my parents, after constant nagging to do things like tape making-of specials off Channel 6, and buy me action figures they couldn’t afford. December 16th rolls around. My dad shows me the movie listings in the newspaper. My eyes zero in on the Star Wars logo. I look up at him, unblinking, unbelieving. He smiles back.
I’m in the car. I’m in the theater. I’m cracking up my parents because months and months of falling asleep to the read-along has me humming themes as they spill out of the speakers. Tiny hands conducting the London Symphony Orchestra from thousands of miles away, years in the future. I’m saying the lines a second before the actors can recite them. I’m a 7 year old affecting a shit British accent and stepping on Ian McDiarmid’s dialogue. “So be it…Jedi.”
This is the first time I’ve ever been inside a movie theater, and it is everything all at once and I love it.
We’re going home. Amazingly, the AM station segues from some lite rock into, of all things, the Star Wars theme. Snow is blowing across the windshield. It looks like hyperspace. I fall asleep in the backseat, John Williams in my ears. And that’s why, whenever it snows outside, I put in the soundtrack. The one that comes in the plain black cover with the plain white letters that say Star Wars on it. I let Williams play full blast. And I imagine my car is chasing after my Uncle’s house. And if I catch that house, inside there is a 4 year old in corduroy and orange, resting his head on his hands, elbows dug into a shaggy carpet, awakening to the concept of imagination, and realizing the majesty in it.
The visuals of my childhood may look like Jim Henson. But the audio? It’s all John Williams.
I like your good dreams.
First of all, I love it when anyone uses the word cacaphony. Second, Williams is a pretty cool soundtrack for anything, especially a snow storm. Wonderful image, thanks.
My music collection — if we’re talking about legitimate music in the form of CDs and whatnot, rather than stuff rented from The Pirate Bay — has way more John Williams than anything else. I’ve got everything from ’60s scores nobody should ever hear (“John Goldfarb, Please Come Home,” anybody…? No…?) to his masterpieces.
Having been born in 1974, I got to grow up on Williams. Because of that, maybe my opinions are overly biased, but I don’t think there has ever been another composer in Hollywood who was as great as often. I can name some who were as good on occasion, or who were good — just not AS good — for many decades. I love Goldsmith and Barry and Herrmann and Horner and Poledouris and Elfman, etc., and each of those guys wrote a few scores I love as much as much as I love lot of Williams’ stuff.
But pound for pound, there’s nobody who can touch the guy. Good lord, just look at what he did during the ten years from 1975-1984: Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, AND the iconic music for the 1984 Summer Olympics (the theme of which is as good as as his best film themes).
And that’s just the cream of the crop from that period. During the same time, he also had Dracula, The Fury, Family Plot, 1941 (that one’s a personal fave), Heartbeeps, The River, and Jaws 2, amongst others.
And that’s just one decade’s worth of work!
The dude was an absolute beast during this period of time. And it’s not like the rest of his career is too shabby, either.
Sadly, there’s just nobody out there right now who’s operating at anywhere near the same level of excellence in that particular field. I recognize that Hans Zimmer is maybe the closest thing to a modern Williams, and I’ve loved what he’s done with Christopher Nolan … but it’s not on the same level, not so far as I’m concerned. Giacchino has done some great stuff, too, and I hope to see Bear McCreary get a big-ticket job one of these days so that he can get a chance to explode onto that next level.
But all things considered, we’re unlikely to ever see another like Williams. Hopefully, when Tintin and War Horse come out later this year, we’ll get some great new entries in his canon.
Revisiting my comments after Tintin and War Horse came out:
We got some great new entries in his canon. Not Raiders great or Empire great or Superman great; but pretty damn great nonetheless.
I think I was 5 or 6. It was in Kurume, Japan. Probably 1982ish. I remember how cool Han was… and my parents explaining to me how the Force wasn’t Christian.