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There are multiple levels of genre; we often talk about the semantic (what the film looks and sounds like) and the syntactic (how it actually works). Sometimes this is relatively clear — both Alien and Aliens are semantically science fiction, but are mostly syntactically horror and war, respectively. That doesn't mean that they don't have elements of both; much of what makes Alien so effective is its use of sci-fi tropes in context of a horror story, but it does mean that trying to strictly classify them strictly as one or the other becomes problematic.
Part of the problem with this discussion of genre is that we're touching on an entire branch of study here. Whole books are written on what it is, how it works, and how rigid and fuzzy it can be at the same time.
I do agree with Thor that much of the way Dracula 1979 really works is as a Gothic romance with horror elements. But I would also say that Dracula is a film about a shape-shifting vampire, which firmly places it the Venn diagram within the genre of horror, in addition to what other genre elements it may lean on.
I have seen the vampire concept done as hard sci-fi here and there, but the archetype doesn't seem as much fun without the supernatural element. Don't know why.
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Indeed, I would say most movies are not "pure" in that they are one and only one genre. ALIEN is science-fiction in my book, DRACULA is horror, and BREAKHEART PASS is a western. Yet Alien contains horror elements, Dracula a romance story, and Breakheart Pass is a mystery thriller.
It is easy to belong into more than just one genre, there are no clear cut borders. And yes, I would even include Dracula: Dead And Loving it among the horror genre, not, because it is scary (it is obviously not), but because it parodies the tropes of that very genre and thereby belongs to it.
James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN for example is a prototypical example of a movie that belongs BOTH fully to the horror genre AND fully to the science-fiction genre. Not comprehensive movie list of either genre would leave this one out.
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Sometimes enjoy eating the hot dog and ignore how it's made.
MV
a 40€ hot dog
Thank you!
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John Williams, the elusive, unapproachable and, (probably), most esteemed of living film composers has been, and always will be, too busy to actually care about an old cd release of his. However, I wonder if he's even aware that his long, long, sought-after score with all the missing pieces has been found, re-assembled and is due for release sometime this week of the 5th of November? I wonder if Varese went to him for his thoughts on any of this? I also wonder what he originally thought of, (or thinks now), of this score?
Here is some massive Gibberish.
How someone can create bs gibberish off some sound bites..including fail..Thor.
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John Williams, the elusive, unapproachable and, (probably), most esteemed of living film composers has been, and always will be, too busy to actually care about an old cd release of his. However, I wonder if he's even aware that his long, long, sought-after score with all the missing pieces has been found, re-assembled and is due for release sometime this week of the 5th of November? I wonder if Varese went to him for his thoughts on any of this? I also wonder what he originally thought of, (or thinks now), of this score?
First, You could have continued in the same breadth of the Varese Dracual thread  . Secondly, from what I know that it was Williams who requested Mike Matessino to go and look for and un-earth Dracula from his crypt in the Universal archives. The search led him back to Varese where the 1/2 inch stereo stereo tapes were lying right under their nose and right into the mis labeled mono tapes box. The rest is legend...
Oh and yes, Everything gets approved by Williams in the end. His management even requested that something special be done with this release's packaging notes etc.
Even in interviews with Mike..Mike has said that John Williams will make a special request, or suggest something be done with the sound editing...it is not like Williams never knows..
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What?! I did not write that.
townerbarry, please let me have some of what you're smoking.
As has been pointed out several times by now, it was Williams' wish that Matessino researched the possibility to find this in better condition. And although he had nothing to do with the production of the album, he nonetheless had to sign off on the finished product.
Yes you did..last week..you put ur input on a 3 minute sound bite. Thor..something about quality of the sound. Again..have you listened to the newly expanded score of Dracula???
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Yes you did..last week..you put ur input on a 3 minute sound bite. Thor..something about quality of the sound. Again..have you listened to the newly expanded score of Dracula???
Ha, ha....now you're just pulling my leg. See other thread.
Yes, I've heard the newly expanded score of DRACULA. I've had it for two weeks.
Why does this suddenly feel like an echo chamber?
But for someone like Thor..to bark about expanded scores..when in the past here..complains about expanded scores..and why he doesn’t buy or listen..is in expanded score threads.
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But for someone like Thor..to bark about expanded scores..when in the past here..complains about expanded scores..and why he doesn’t buy or listen..is in expanded score threads.
Actually, this it the thread about John Williams' thoughts on DRACULA and how movie genres blur. The expanded Dracula score thread is just about next door, not far away down the hall. Glad I could help. :-)
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Any chance he is working on a memoir?
There has been a slew of rock n roll memoirs in recent years.
It would be a shame if we didn't get one from The Man!
Brm
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Any chance he is working on a memoir?
There has been a slew of rock n roll memoirs in recent years.
It would be a shame if we didn't get one from The Man!
Brm
Are you inquiring about a memoir from Dracula, John Williams, or townerbarry?
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Posted: |
Nov 5, 2018 - 1:39 PM
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By: |
bagby
(Member)
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Issue # 36 of Little Shoppe of Horrors, Dick Klemensen's invaluable fanzine, is completely devoted to the Langella Dracula. In it on pp. 86-87 is a transcripted interview conducted by Laurent Bouzereau, though no date is given for the interview itself. Williams tells us exactly what he thought of it: challenging but interesting and enjoyable to do.
Laurent Bouzereau: Talking to John Badham and Walter Mirisch, they told me that you had never seen a vampire movie until they showed you their version of Dracula. But, I'm wondering if you had, indeed, never seen a vampire movie?
John Williams: I think I must have seen some vampire movies when I was a kid. I saw most of the fare that came along in those years, although I can't remember exactly. But it is a particular genre that I like, in the sense that the music is typically associated with that particular type of Gothic orchestration that is powerful and strong. And I always think the master of that, in my mind, is Bernard Herrmann, who used to write these Gothic, austere passages that were so spine-chilling. And it's always slightly with tongue in cheek a little bit, you know. There's a little humor to it also. So this was a very enjoyable thing to do. I also did a film called The Fury, which was in a similar vein. I enjoyed both of them very much.
Bouzereau: Personally, I love your score to The Fury as well. The thing that was interesting about Dracula specifically, is that it was not trying to be a gross-out kind of movie. It was not as graphic as most of the Dracula films had been. It was a romantic version of the story. And I think your score definitely reflects that. I’m wondering if you were attracted to doing the score because it wasn’t your typical horror movie?
Williams: Well, I always felt that Dracula was a very erotic story. Certainly, the way John Badham directed it I felt that was so. And the scenes that I remember are these beautiful flying scenes and dream scenes that are very romantic really. In a kind of chilling way. It's a wonderful subject for music really. For the sweep and arc of a kind of romance in areas that we're uncertain about and in odd worlds that we're attracted to but we may be a little bit afraid of at the same time. The magnetism of the un known mixed with the erotic aspects of the story made it, for me, a very romantic piece in many ways.
Bouzereau: And there are also some scary moments in the movie. I remember there is a cue that makes me jump even each time I listen to the CD. Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of the placement of music in accentuating a moment in a horror film?
Williams: I think in any of these films, a horror film may be, in the sense of timing of events, not dissimilar to comedy. In comedy, we have to deliver the joke exactly at the right time or deliver the musical accent just when we expect it or not. I think in a horror movie it's very similar, in the sense that the basic idea of the importance of timing is illustrated very, very sharply. We, as composers, are helped by the editing of the film, of course, and there will be a quick cut of some action or something that's been prepared where we're lulled in our responses and suddenly we're attacked. We have to deliver the attack both editorially and musically just at the right moment. If it comes a little too late, we're asleep. If it comes too soon, we're not quite enough. So, it is an art of sleight of hand really... Of magic. And, timing and all of these things is an essential ingredient. And, certainly, in all of music. I mean, people will say when we study Beethoven, it isn’t so much that the next idea that comes is so wonderful. What’s wonderful about it is the moment he presents it. If it will come a minute later or 30 seconds early, it wouldn't be so wonderful. But it's the kind of preparation that ultimately the moment that's selected for this introduction of something new. A new key, a new register, a new instrument and so on. That surprises us and carries us along. Dracula certainly is a good illustration of that, and the genre a very good illustration of the importance of timing in these things.
Bouzereau: One of the things that I really like also is how music conveys, as you said, the flying, and I think that's particularly true of the last cue of the film when Dracula has died, and suddenly his cape flows away in the wind. And Kate Nelligan is smiling because he's free. She's smiling because he's going to come back. I think the music conveys this very well.
Williams: To speak to the end of Dracula, it's difficult because I haven't seen it in so long. But I imagine that the music will play his theme, more or less, this sort of love theme. And, as you suggest there's ambiguity about this moment. Will I be reunited and what form and so on? And what I would speculate a little bit about is the idea -- the classic idea -- of love death. Of Liebestod in Wagner, for example. Where Romeo and Juliet were lovers are separated by, in that case, class. Or they're separated by rank. Or in this case, they're separated by the fact that Dracula's dead for 900 years and the woman is alive. It makes us reflect on the idea that eternal love is a thing that only can come after death. When, as in Romeo And Juliet, the lovers have to die together to be together.
We have this idea in our culture that love is eternal. And in the end of Dracula, we have a sense that there is love there. And perhaps the best part of it is in the afterlife, in that other world where eventually, she will go to join Dracula if she wishes to do that. I think maybe that's the suggestion of the music. I don't know if that makes it too obtuse to get one's head around it. But I think somewhere in there lies the secret of what the music is conveying. That this love thing between lovers, even if one of them dies, it's still there because they will eventually reach this place and live it out together in its eternal form. And that's the form that the music addresses.
Bouzereau: Part of the reason why you wanted to make this movie was your friendship with Walter Mirisch, of course, which had started, I think, before you ever got your first Oscar for Fiddler On The Roof. But I think you had done some work with him before. Is that correct, some television maybe?
Williams: Yes, I've known Walter Mirisch for a good many years. Of course, Fiddler On The Roof I conducted at his suggestion, and along with Norman Jewison. But I had done films for Walter before. Yes, Fitzwilly, the Dick Van Dyke comedy, A Garden Of Cucumbers was the original title of it. Midway was produced by Walter Mirisch. I think I did two or three films, perhaps a bit more for the Mirisches before Fiddler On The Roof. He's a lovely man that, as everyone interested in films knows. And he's been a good friend for a good many years. And he's still going strong, I'm happy to say.
Bouzereau: In closing about Dracula, I heard the music before I even saw the movie. Because the movie came out much later in France, and that's where I lived. But the album was available. And I knew the movie just by listening to your score. And the same thing with The Fury. I remember listening to those two scores and discovering a new side of John Williams.
Williams: The two films that I remember, The Fury and Dracula and this particular genre of the dark, Gothic subject, I think, are fairly unique in my experience. I haven't done as many of that particular kind of film as perhaps I would like to do. But the thing about film music composition -- the essential thing -- is that we have to sort of adjust and change from subject to subject, of course. The ideal world would be if we could do a love story one time. Next would be a comedy, next would be some kind of drama and so on. But it usually doesn't work that way. In the 1970s, I was doing The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake and all these disaster films because you get sort of pigeonholed or stereotyped, so to speak. And that's the nature of the way the Hollywood industry works at least. It's true that one can pick assignments, I guess. But what's truer than that is that you form relationships like mine with Steven Spielberg, and Steven comes to me sometimes with very interesting subjects that I don't expect. When I'm the happiest is when they form the greatest departure from what the last assignment has been. So, I keep moving along and trying to adjust and adapt in the best way I can to each film subject that I'm presented with the opportunity of writing music for.
Bouzereau: And, Dracula was one of them.
Williams: Dracula was one of them. I enjoyed that and would welcome another in that genre. Both Dracula and The Fury I enjoyed a lot.
You can buy it here: http://www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/LSoH36.htm
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