Please share your thoughts on these films and their scores. Are these two historically based films amongst your favorite Spielberg/Williams collaborations?
Please share your thoughts on these films and their scores. Are these two historically based films amongst your favorite Spielberg/Williams collaborations?
Yes indeed , they are. Would love to see expansions on both. Have no idea on how much is missing from the original CD's.
AMISTAD has got some fine moments, but the sequencing of the CD can be a bit repetitive, with the atmospheric, ambient style for the slaves and their ocean crossing bundled together, followed by endless Americana pieces (gorgeous though they are) filling out the second half of the disc. The African choral song is great. It's a score with many superb moments, that needed some whittle and switch for me to maximise my enjoyment. LINCOLN is brilliant from beginning to end. Nice placement of source cues to offset any repetition. I've played that disc (and the FYC version) to death. I think there's more music on the LINCOLN CD than there is in the film. Both films, I saw...at the cinema. Admired them, but could never sit through them again.
LOVED both of these scores, in their respective films (which I also enjoyed). I'll be honest I haven't explored Lincoln on album yet because I'm hoping for a complete release some day (I realize some folks have combined the FYC and OST for a superior expanded program).
Amistad was fine on album but not as good as I remembered for the film. So I'd probably be interested in a complete release which I could trim down myself as I saw fit...
Both films are terrible. Lincoln is just 'regular bad'... Amistad is in maybe a two-way tie for Worst Film Ever Made.*
Can't remember the score to Lincoln. The great JW was in the rearview by then.
But Amistad on CD is actually pretty good.
*the scene in Amistad where slaves find the love of Jesus via a Bible none of them can read is perhaps the single worst two minutes in entertainment history. It's more offensive to any double digit IQ than any novelty 7" single you can remember.
Ooh, that scene does sound cringey. I admit I haven't seen Amistad since I was a teenager. My main takeaway from it besides the Williams score was liking some of the performances.
Both films are beautiful to look at. Almost like paintings or works of art that come alive. Love Williams' scores for both.
As for LINCOLN, I think the brilliance of Daniel Day Lewis' performance helped make it easier to watch. The film seemed to drag and go on and on if he wasn't in a scene. Williams' "With Malice Toward None" Theme is my favorite. It is beautiful and heartbreaking. In AMISTAD, I enjoyed watching Anthony Hopkins having a ball playing John Quincy Adams with all his "Wizard of Oz" like touches. I personally loved his extended speech at the end scored wall to wall by the maestro. Williams' Theme for Adams as well as the rest of the score I thought was very appropriate and beautiful music and the DRY YOUR TEARS Theme was wonderfully heroic and grand.
