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Posted: |
Feb 9, 2019 - 10:42 AM
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By: |
afn
(Member)
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I recently started a personal 70s disaster movie retrospective (AIRPORT (x4), POSEIDON, SWARM, CASSANDRA CROSSING, THE BIG BUS, EARTHQUAKE etc.), and "towering" among them of course THE TOWERING INFERNO, a film I hadn't seen in decades - until last night.
The most unnerving and gut-wrenching scene (for me) is when Paul Newman climbs through a pipe shaft, seen from above, which goes down 130 stories into a black and gaping nothingness.
We truly look into the abyss here.
I guess imagining falling down that shaft to your unavoidable death but not even knowing or seeing when you'll hit the ground is even more horrifying than standing on a ledge and "just" jumping down to the pavement. (Let's hope we'll never have to find out)
Now: What does maestro Williams do with that brief scene? He writes not some screeching strings or standard orchestral "danger" cue as you'd probably expect, no, this hair-raising moment of absolute terror is accompanied by some quiet, low, almost electronic sounding notes and sounds swirling around you, which just NAIL the feeling of being somewhere in limbo in an unimaginably terrifying and lethal situation - almost as if this situation is only possible in a different world, not on earth.
I was really almost awestruck by the sheer genius of handling this scene musically. Hats off, Mr. Williams.
(The next time I was this fascinated by a cue so different from what you'd expect was the short Main Title to E.T., a quietly wavering cloud of musical mist that tells you you're about to enter a world where the normal laws of the possibility of things you're accustomed to no longer apply.)
I only own the original LP and can't recall hearing that cue anywhere on the 1974 LP program (which I also have to revisit). Is this cue on the (from what I read) really collectible and ultra-rare FSM version?
And man, those 70s movies. What sheer visual fun to watch them: Glorious Panavision, those sharp edges and saturated colors (and Charlton Heston's plaid suit in AIRPORT '75)! How did they achieve that visual look anyway? It got totally lost in the early 80s somehow where, even with remastered versions, the picture is often somewhat "washed-out" and "milky" (don't know how else to put it ).
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I only own the original LP and can't recall hearing that cue anywhere on the 1974 LP program (which I also have to revisit). Is this cue on the (from what I read) really collectible and ultra-rare FSM version?
Nope, it's not on the FSM CD. I wonder if it was done by Williams at all... It sounds more like sound design than music.
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The same effect he used in Jaws! Always loved that effect!
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I think that scene was used in an old BBC documentary about JW... Can't remember offhand the exact title of it. It struck me back then that it was an odd choice to highlight his effectiveness, particularly because this was a programme for the great unwashed, and I would have expected something more in yer face. But now everything on the telly is so in yer face that it seems like a brilliant, audacious choice. If it was that scene, which it might not have been.
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Actually, it is. Cue #15, "Down the Pipes/The Door Opens" starting at the 00:22 mark, running about 23 seconds long. And I believe that effect is created by rubbing a superball across a gong.
Well, shit. Thanks! 
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But it is the perfect sound for the sequence - it grates and draws attention to the "cliff edge" spectacle it undoubtedly announces to draw the audience into the heat of the moment. 
