: (John Williams) The first film directed
and produced by Steven Spielberg for Walt Disney Pictures, 2016's
represents the second time Roald Dahl's beloved 1982 novel of
the same name has been adapted to the screen. Following a 1989
television animation version, this live-action extravaganza from
Spielberg strips away many of the story's more sinister elements to
yield a rather fluffy, positively imaginative view of the concept. Its
plot postulates that there exists a fantastic land of giants who collect
dreams and nightmares for delivery to the children of England as they
sleep. When a young girl in a London orphanage witnesses one of the more
awkwardly nerdy giants using his trumpet to supply a dream to another
child one night, he takes her back to Giant Country while deciding how
to handle her discovery of their existence. During her stay, she learns
about the nastier variety of giants (which, conveniently, eat children)
and assists her friendly giant in overcoming his own insecurities and
shortcomings. Eventually the story turns to the involvement of the Queen
of the United Kingdom in dispatching the British army to help corral the
evil giants and, frankly, the entire affair devolves into utterly
ridiculous, stately fantasy all around. No doubt due to Spielberg's
tremendous abilities in visual storytelling,
excelled
with critics, the John Williams score for the picture enjoying many
positive references from major writers. With audiences, however,
(with an acronym that was ridiculed in several unflattering
ways, mainly with the "F" portion) was a monumental flop, competing
poorly against
(terrible timing there, Disney) and
finding no relief in international markets. Struggling to gross even
half of its budget,
further strikes at Spielberg's
already diminished reputation in the children's genre, and perhaps it is
no surprise that a film that failed to really connect with audiences was
bolstered by a Williams score that equally suffered in its mainstream
relatability. After a scheduling conflict with
As has become customary in all of the reviews of John
Williams' new scores of the 2010's, the mere persistence of superior
music for the screen from a man in his mid-80's remains a primary point
of commendation right off the bat. Regardless of how much of a personal
connection you find between your own musical tastes and Williams'
prancing children's mode of writing in
The BFG, there must endure
admiration for his continued use of pencil and paper to crank out these
ambitious scores. In the case of
The BFG, the maestro's own care
for complex orchestrations is on full display, the work demanding some
of the most difficult woodwind performances ever heard in his career. It
should serve as inspiration to every young composer to witness Williams
at his age, sitting at a piano with a pencil, without the aid of common
composition software and a team of ghostwriting arrangers, conjuring
music of more intricately crafted orchestral colors than anyone with the
aid of the modern tools of ease. To compare
The BFG to any
contemporary competition from younger composers is, perhaps, unfair,
because Williams' writing style is so singular and reminiscent of
arguably better days for film music in general. But more interesting is
the difficulty that even his collectors may have in nailing down a
precise point of comparison for this score in Williams own career. Some
listeners have mentioned the
Harry Potter scores,
Home
Alone,
Hook,
The Adventures of Tintin, and, most
obviously,
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in the description of the
loftier, fanciful side of
The BFG, while astute ears with a
preference for the maestro's more devious side will hear hints of
The
Witches of Eastwick,
A.I. Artificial Intelligence,
Dracula, and
The Fury in the score's darker passages.
While all of these comparisons are apt, the intriguing aspect of
The
BFG is that it really doesn't reflect much of any single Williams
score of the past in its entirety, instead serving as a survey of the
composer's sensitive children's motifs and waltz-inspired rhythmic
formations in a more general sense. Perhaps no other score in Williams'
career better falls into the innocent whimsy of the "children's genre"
than this one. As such,
The BFG is something of a hit or miss
prospect for listeners expecting more overtly accessible gravitas from
the composer.
Mastery of orchestration is certainly the main
attraction in Williams' work for
The BFG. The woodwind
performances required by the composition are exquisite, and the flute in
particular is the representing instrument of dreams throughout the
story. Trombones and bassoons, meanwhile, represent the frightful
elements of nightmares and evil giants. The piano, expectedly, conveys
the heart of the main character, Sophie. Stately strings and French
horns respectfully carry the concept of the monarchy in conservative
fashion. But it's the flute that steals the show in
The BFG, the
"Dream Jars" cue alone serving as inspiration for any ambitious flutist
as multiples of the instrument flutter effortlessly in seemingly
disparate but extraordinarily effective lines of performance. Williams
approached the score as if it were a musical of sorts, his dance
sequences often making use of waltz rhythms and the instruments intended
to convey a sense of physical movement in their inflection. Therein lies
both the success of
The BFG and the reason why it fails to
connect with some casual listeners. Its defining airiness, yielding
themes of fanciful aloofness that never touch the ground with their
feet, may defy, for some listeners, the fact that the score is immensely
tuneful. Williams wrote seemingly countless major themes and minor
motifs for the picture, and yet don't be surprised if most of them go
completely unnoticed by typical moviegoers. The main theme for Sophie is
present throughout the score, heard first 12 seconds into the "Overture"
and receiving the usual Williams string and horn treatment around wild
flute lines. The repetition of the theme's initial six note-phrase is
key to allowing the composer to reference just this portion of the theme
in several cues as a quick reprise of identity. Introducing this theme
in "Overture" and "Sophie and the BFG" is the flute and harp-aided motif
for the fantasy of the concept as a whole, developing in "Dream
Country," "Dream Jars," and "Blowing Dreams" into a very elusive idea
for the dreams themselves. Conversely, the nightmare theme is quite
memorable (this is perhaps Williams making the point that we remember
our nightmares far more readily than our dreams), and expect this
highlight of the score to snatch your attention at 0:47 (and thereafter)
into "Sophie's Nightmare" and in "The Queen's Dream." This nasty muted
trumpet idea is Williams' menacing, bass-droning application to the
work, providing the only enticingly sinister element to the
equation.
The reason Williams'
The BFG may not readily
attract listeners is because its thematic performances lack resonance.
The maestro's scores are at their most majestic when he unleashes full
ensemble tonal harmony with deep bass string, trombone, and bassoon
resonance in the bass region while other elements explore flowing
melodies on top. Such performances simply don't exist in such
extroverted fashion in
The BFG. Rather, enthusiasts of Williams'
more mysterious and elegantly dark themes are left with just the three
or four relatively short performances of the nightmare theme and a
traveling motif of sorts for the friendly giant heard best at 1:03 into
"The Giant Country" and 2:52 into "There was a Boy." These passages
represent the clearest connections to the more menacing side of the
composer's
Harry Potter scores, plucked bass strings and all.
Among other secondary ideas is one of regal importance for the element
of the monarchy, hinted in "Blowing Dreams" but foreshadowing Sophie's
destiny with clarity at 1:28 into "Sophie's Future." While this idea
sounds like a leftover from
Hook in its soft, string-led,
aspirational tone, it transforms into a rather stuffy element of the
throne in "Meeting the Queen." It should be noted that some of this
material for the Queen by Williams was replaced by Spielberg with
traditional source music. A theme for the evil giants is potentially a
comical misstep by Williams, taking trombones into tuba territory during
"Fleshlumpeater" for another seeming pull of style from
Hook and
Home Alone. Most of these themes are presented in Williams' end
title piece, "Sophie and the BFG," a satisfying progression from
Sophie's theme to the traveling theme, the dream theme, the monarchy
theme, the nightmare theme, and a fuller rendition of Sophie's theme and
its secondary passages, all in that order. On the whole,
The BFG
is an exemplary exhibition of fluttering orchestration and rhythmic
prancing, almost all of it rooted solely in Williams' best trademark
styles. There are short sequences when he lifts prior works seemingly
wholesale, including
The Fury at 0:56 into "The Witching Hour"
and
A.I. at 0:52 into "Dream Country" (the latter followed at
1:12 by a passage seemingly perfect for an Elmer Bernstein ondes
martenot performance), but these are rare. It's easy to understand why
The BFG will leave some listeners cold, because it lacks the
sections of elongated tonal resonance and powerful bass region presence
that grace the maestro's best works. But it functions with masterful
ambient precision for the occasion and is, at the very least, another
reminder of Williams' immense technical superiority.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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(in 75 reviews)
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