From the John Willaims score to
Superman, here is "Leaving Home". The eerie music at the beginning comes just after Pa Kent's funeral, when young Clark Kent finds the remnants of his ship from Krypton hidden in the barn cellar; this is followed by some of the most gorgeous Americana Williams ever wrote as Clark bids farewell to Ma Kent before heading north. Williams's gift for melody in this phase of his career was so prolific that the wonderful theme that dominates the second half of this cue is heard in this one scene, and this one scene
only.
It's funny... I always liked Superman: The Movie, but the older I get, the more I appreciate it and its score. I think both of them, while popular enough in the day, were somehow overshadowed by all the other genre stuff going on in the late 70s, most of which Williams was scoring, but now hindsight reveals them to be simply magnificent. The sort of thing that looks so easy, so obvious, that it can't have been that big of a deal, right? Yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteI simply can't imagine the upcoming Man of Steel will surpass it.