John Williams: Raider of the Lost Art
Any one of the soundtracks to a Spielberg film could be the topic of this piece, but after a recent viewing of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark it felt appropriate to at least begin a discussion of the genius behind them: John Williams, one of the most popular and successful film composers in the history of Hollywood film making. Born in New York, Williams and his family relocated to Los Angeles in 1948 where he would attend UCLA and study composition. He would later return to New York and study piano at Juilliard, finding work in the local jazz scene and session recordings. Williams returned to Los Angeles where his career in film music would take flight, composing for television in the 1960s. It was in Los Angeles where Williams would meet his long time friend and collaborator, director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg had been an admirer of John's all of his life and was keenly interested in collaborating. Their professional relationship bloomed on Sugarland (1974) and it was then that Steven realized he wanted Williams to score all of his films. Their partnership would deliver beloved hits such as Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me if You Can (2003) and of course Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a story written by famed Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Williams’ Raiders score provides twenty-one musical pieces collectively occupying just over eighty minutes of screen time. For Spielberg, the music was an integral element to his narrative and the large portion of music in the final cut was a conscious decision by both director and composer.
The music is a wonderful complement to what Lucas and Spielberg were attempting to convey stylistically with Raiders of the Lost Ark. The two movie-magic makers were very much inspired by the film serials of the 1940s and 1950s, and wanted to reintroduce the genre with the film. Having lived through those decades, John Williams was hugely inspired by the noir films and film composers of the era such as Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman. As a result, through his long career in film scoring he has carried with him a traditional process and sound that has endured, keeping the spirit of those composers alive. This much is evident in his score for Raiders, as much of the music throughout the film possesses qualities of noir and epic scores like those of Miklos Rozsa.
While John Williams is, of course, more than capable of stylistic variation and by now has proved that time and again with jazzy scores such as Catch Me If You Can or his more eclectic palettes like Amistad (1997) or Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), the traditional orchestral influence of the 1940s and 1950s is prevalent throughout Raiders of the Lost Ark. Take the opening scene, for example. Here, Williams sets a tense and mysterious tone that effectively portrays the languor of the South American jungle, using an unsettling bassoon melody over thrums of low orchestra (i.e. cellos, contrabasses, etc.) with an underlying dark, dissonant harmony while Indiana and his partners trek through the hot jungle in search of the golden idol. Williams implements specific instrumentation to compliment the narrative and transport viewers to the exotic world on screen: a wood block can be heard tapping away behind the orchestra, and an obscure form of ethnic drum (possibly taiko) that is not typical of the Western orchestra can be heard thudding out rhythms.
Williams' score for Raiders of the Lost Ark possesses a handful of themes that are loved by millions of people the world over. Two in particular are the most memorable: Indiana Jones' theme, and what can easily be described as the love theme. Indie's theme, undoubtedly the most identifiable, is the musical embodiment of his ambition, heroism, triumph and grit. Trumpets victoriously state the theme in march tempo before it bursts into the orchestra when Jones springs into action, for instance narrowly escaping a back full of arrows at the hands of the South American indigenous peoples as he swings from a vine into the river where his associate awaits with a plane to fly them to safety.
Next, Williams felt that there was certainly a connection between the two characters of the film, Indiana and Marion, and wanted to convey that with a warm, lyrical theme for orchestra. The love theme is introduced in the film at the first mention of Marion's name. It is sounded by a lonesome, solo trumpet as he pauses to think of her and can later be heard beautifully set for solo flute and orchestra, flooding intimate scenes with its powerful, sweeping melody. These two primary themes play a vital role in musically representing the essence of adventure and romance in the film.
John Williams also uses some unusual features in his score throughout Raiders. During the first scene when Indie and his associate are exploring caves, Williams utilizes an extraordinarily contemporary (and creepy) passage of pizzicato in the violin section, sounding as if the players are plucking strings at random in an agitated manner to depict the tarantulas clinging to Indie's back. Another instance is the unique and effective use of a waterphone or water drum while Indiana and Sallah approach the altar where the ark of the covenant is placed. With its moaning wail, the waterphone portrays a haunting, otherworldly quality which easily weds the on-screen altar of the ark. These techniques add a level of contemporary sophistication to the otherwise traditional influence of his predecessors from the 1940s and 1950s.
It’s films and scores like these that give life to and sustain the longstanding tradition of the symphonic orchestra. Amid an era of so many emerging genres threatening to leave the orchestra behind in the pit, Williams, with his music for films like Indiana Jones and Star Wars (1977), truly could be understood as the modern saviour of orchestral film scoring, a raider of the lost art.
Works cited:
"John Williams Scoring Session: Indiana Jones." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THMZl5OfCHQ.
"John Williams Speaks About the Music in Jaws." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yh5Ezao8Ls.
"Steven Speilberg On Making Indiana Jones." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNBLMSZamF8.
"The John Williams Web Pages: Biography." The John Williams Web Pages. http://www.johnwilliams.org/reference/biography.html.