Willie's Theme is nice enough and all*, but for me, there's really no contest. Marion's Theme just oozes class and inspiration and all things Jay Dubya.
*I like Pankot Palace and Short Round's themes more than Willie's.
Marion's theme sounds more romantic to me and Willie's more passionate and have somehow more of an 'old hollywood' sound to it, which is perfect for the more cartoonish fell of Temple.
Both are perfect IMO.Willie's theme is gorgeous in the still unreleased film version of Map and on Nocturnal Activities. Marion's is more developed and it is difficult to do a fair comparison as Willie's never received a full concert version.
I think he was going for a showgirl type of feel with the music for Willie which is a very fitting characterization as usual. From a listening point of view I'm actually drawn to Willie's theme more, particularly in the end credits presentation. Something about the melodic flow and nice chord progression that makes this kind of an underrated theme IMO.
That's actually something I'm fascinated with doing for Williams - just isolating one genre of themes like the love theme and noticing how incredibly varied they are from film to film. You can have a Stanley and Iris, Jane Eyre, Paper Chase, Han and Leia, Missouri Breaks, The River, etc., etc. and he can bring an entirely different style to each love interest depending on the movie. And even within the genre of an Indiana Jones film the love themes are very different.
That has more to do with the difficulty of giving a theme a name. It can be misleading. The theme relates to Marion and Indiana together. And even then the expansiveness of the theme doesn't really fit the relationship except when analyzed with the specific instances of the film. So you have a moment where the theme accompanies the expansiveness of the Arabian desert and that's why the theme has kind of an ethnic flavor and then another moment where it looks like she just got blown up and Indy reacts. Williams tries to find solutions to the film but whether or not that can neatly be summed up in an appropriate theme name, is another thing.
That has more to do with the difficulty of giving a theme a name. It can be misleading. The theme relates to Marion and Indiana together. And even then the expansiveness of the theme doesn't really fit the relationship except when analyzed with the specific instances of the film. So you have a moment where the theme accompanies the expansiveness of the Arabian desert and that's why the theme has kind of an ethnic flavor and then another moment where it looks like she just got blown up and Indy reacts. Williams tries to find solutions to the film but whether or not that can neatly be summed up in an appropriate theme name, is another thing.
- Adam
Very well stated. It's really a statement that expresses Indie's love for Marion. Not a theme which describes Marion herself.
While we're kind of on the subject of "Doom"... who orchestrated/arranged the "Anything Goes" section at the beginning of the film? I've always LOVED it! EDIT: Oh, and also... is that Kate Capshaw singing, or was she dubbed?
Me too, I've always assumed it was Williams. Sounds like him and the very first part of the arrangement works as underscore to the images on screen in a way that is typical for him. The energy of it, the degree of difficulty in the arrangement, the oriental colorings he uses in a tongue-in-cheek way all say Williams to me.
You learn something new every day at FSM. 
