: (John Williams) The period of the middle
to late 1970's ushered in a heightened popularity for religious,
paranormal, and telekinetic horror films. It was perhaps the natural
progression away from Irwin Allen's straight forward natural disaster
epics, which were on a steep decline by the end of the decade. After the
immensely popular, sequel-spawning classics of
. The plot of John
Farris' self-adapted story continued the fad of these kinds of
supernatural tales down the path of absurdity, as the concepts continued
to stretch all reasonable lines of logic in search of renewed audience
acceptance.
in particular represented nearly the end of
this genre at the time, proving that despite an impressive cast of young
and old stars, audiences had seen enough people tortured by the mental
will of another person. That said, few viewers can deny that the
classic, conclusive scene of the film, in which Amy Irving uses her
supernatural abilities to literally blow up John Cassavetes from the
inside, isn't at least morbidly entertaining. At a time when pop culture
action flicks made a habit of showing the same buildings and vehicles
explode over and over again from ten different angles, the idea of using
that technique for a nasty, not-so-spontaneous human combustion,
complete with gallons of fake blood and a head that pops up like a cork,
yielded a fittingly ridiculous conclusion to the movie. DePalma himself
had directed the Hitchcock-inspired film
a few years
earlier and had the pleasure of employing the great Bernard Herrmann for
the project's score. While Herrmann's talents would have been perfect
for
, he had unfortunately just passed away at the time,
leaving a void in the composing industry for a new master horror artist
to fill. In between his assignments to
from the previous year, John Williams enjoyed some lucky
coincidences which ultimately led to a very emphatic offer from DePalma
for his involvement in the film. Both men realized that the score would
exist in the shadow of Herrmann's ghostly presence, especially with
DePalma's insistence that the former maestro's style be explicitly
integrated into Williams' music for the picture.
Williams responded by composing a remarkable score for
The Fury with elements from his own thematic tendencies and
motifs that are clearly direct tributes to, if not extensions of,
Herrmann's body of work. Some film music historians argue that the
period of 1977 to 1982 represented the best years of Williams' career, a
time when the composer was at his highest level of motivation and
talent. Indeed,
The Fury reinforces that point of view, proving
to be very effective and riveting both in the film and decades later on
album. Nothing was spared in the scope of the score for
The Fury.
Williams' music is guided by a horrifying title theme, heavy on brass
and very weighty in its brutal structural repetitions during the
supernatural acts in the film. The waltz format of this theme, best
heard in "Main Title" and "Gillian's Vision," is driven by both its
elegantly swaying progressions on floating woodwinds and emphasized
pounding of the theme's key by bass elements in a fashion that would
gain more recognition in
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The three or
four full, rolling outbursts of this theme in the score represent some
of the composer's most engaging material of the era, foreshadowing the
harrowing tone of
A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The lighter
performances of this idea, as well as secondary themes, highlight tender
moments between main characters, but even this material never entirely
escapes the tense brass undertones. The main character idea, heard in
full in the lovely "For Gillian," is a flighty and delightful
combination of Williams' 1970's mannerisms and mysterious fantasy tones
that would later inform his
Harry Potter scores significantly,
another ode by the composer to youthful innocence just waiting to be
shattered by the paranormal. For fans of those moments when Williams
unleashes ungodly noise and ruckus, however,
The Fury offers over
twenty combined minutes of horror music that will shake your room and
cause your neighbors to call the police. Unlike Herrmann's often
shrieking horror cues (when sustained), Williams refuses to approach the
same level of challenging dissonance for long periods in the work. His
emphasis on strong melodrama of character heart and personal struggle
cause even the most horrifying cues in
The Fury to have a
bittersweet beauty to them. In these regards, his tribute to Herrmann's
cascading woodwinds (and even an octave-alternating theremin in the
explosive climax) becomes almost an improvement upon Herrmann's
legacy.
Most importantly, Williams extends these classic
Herrmann sounds into a brutal, menacing realm that actually makes it
more accessible for modern listeners in
The Fury. The "Gillian's
Power" cue, with that memorable theremin employment (which is among the
few elements of the ensemble to really stand out in that noisy scene in
the film), is the culmination of all the Herrmann techniques employed in
the score. But after Cassavetes has exploded and DePalma dwells on the
final shot of his head bouncing off the floor, Williams shifts into
accelerating, bass region ensemble strikes that are not only pure
Williams in style, but would eventually evolve further during a
climactic moment of
Jurassic Park. It's arguably the most
powerful moment of the entire score, and it's interestingly one true to
Williams' own style. So influential a score had Williams created that
bits of ideas in
The Fury would turn up over the next twenty
years in other supernatural or sci-fi thrillers. The title theme, in its
ominously fluttering and steady eloquence, is a clear predecessor for
Williams' own wondrous Hogwarts castle theme for his three
Harry
Potter scores. The quick, consecutive brass blasts in the bass
region, meant to emphasize the beginning of a measure of music with the
most powerful note possible, would show up again extensively in James
Horner's
Brainstorm and Christopher Young's
Hellraiser II.
Wavering, tense, and harsh brass tones, slowly alternating between two
octaves of quivering notes, would serve as a foundation for Don Davis'
elusive theme for
The Matrix. Williams' insertion of carnival
music, synthesizers for added mystery, the theremin, and the abnormally
strong use of bassoons are all elements that were used in similar ways
by other composers for years to come, including Jerry Goldsmith, who
Williams even (likely unintentionally) emulates in brief flashes in this
score. There are weaknesses in the music for
The Fury, the openly
carnival version of the "Death on the Carousel" cue among the most
obvious; the re-worked recording of the cue that resulted from
post-production tinkering is a painful and unnecessary revision to a
scene that Williams had jokingly referred to as "Flying Arabs" in his
cue sheets. On top of that, some listeners may be overwhelmed by the
sheer quantity of Herrmann references and/or the music's tendency to
emphasize over-wrought melodramatic agony rather than purely ballsy
horror. The need to address the teenage romance element of the story
does limit the horror material's frequency, but its punch is
unquestioned when it is allowed to flourish.
On album,
The Fury has existed in several forms.
Williams re-recorded the score with the London Symphony Orchestra for
the contemporary LP album (eventually copied onto a 1990 CD) in the same
sessions with
Superman, and this recording remains superior in
his altered arrangements and sonic depth to the actual, film version
recorded in Los Angeles. The original score as heard in context was
first released in 2002 as part of the limited Varèse Sarabande
Club, with only 3,000 copies available. That limited album, however,
also included an incredible remastering of the LSO recording as well,
making for a fantastic set. The London remastering featured with this
popular Varèse product indeed sounds spectacular, with all the
vibrant clarity of a digital recording of the 2000's. The original score
includes some more precise performances in certain parts, and is an
equally interesting experience, especially with the proper addition of
the theremin for devious flavor. After the 2002 product sold out within
a few years, demand continued for this powerful Williams work, and La-La
Land Records returned it to circulation in 2013 with a 3,500-copy
edition that once again remastered the sound quality using newer
technology and this time added several source recordings and small
snippets of score material that had been excluded from the prior limited
release. The difference in the quality of the sound on the 2013 album
isn't as noticeable as the improvement that was obvious when
transitioning from the 1990 to 2002 CDs, though the London version still
remains significantly superior to the Los Angeles original. The
additional music available on the 2013 set is mostly a continuing
reminder of why music from the 1970's is derided so thoroughly in
retrospect. These pop-influenced song and score cues are seemingly
intentionally recorded and mixed with background placement in mind,
their tone ambient and presence a bit wetter and removed compared to the
main score. The short "Bed Scene" orchestral bonus contains an ominous
fragment of the main theme. Otherwise, the newly included music on the
2013 may be rather uninteresting to the causal listener, and with the
sound quality not radically improved over the 2002 product, the La-La
Land set's primary purpose, and a noble one at that, is to make this
entertaining score available and affordable another time. Overall, no
dedicated Williams or Herrmann collector should be without this demonic
score, the two limited albums well worth their price for especially the
London re-recording of the score's highlights. Then all you'd need is a
creepy mannequin, a few dozen gallons of fake blood, a stick of
dynamite, and forgiving neighbors.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Score as Written for the Film: ****
- Score as Heard on the 1990 Varèse album: ***
- Score as Heard on the 2002 and 2013 Limited Sets: *****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.68
(in 91 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.54
(in 363,495 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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