The NY Philharmonic Performs John Williams' "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in Concert at David Geffen Hall
Last year, The Late Show host Steven Colbert did an interview with director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams from Spielberg's office in L.A., where they reflected on their more-than five decade collaboration.
Colbert: “Is there a favorite score that you’ve done for Steven?”
Williams: “Probably E.T., at least in totality.”
Colbert: “Is there a reason why that one has a special place in your heart?”
Williams: “I think it's the development of the music in structure with the story. If you remember the scene when the bicycles take off, prior to that you would hear two or three notes of the theme, and that’s all. And the next time you may hear three or four notes, and it’s beginning to form in your memory. And then as the bicycles take off, you hear all twelve notes of the theme, and the melody is realized and finished...Something has been made aurally that has created that very moment (of resolution).”
Sound familiar?
When I first saw E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) in the movie theater, I was about the same age as Elliott, the film's red-hoodied protagonist (played by Henry Thomas). As such, it was hard not to feel personally connected to the story of a boy who befriends a stranded alien and helps him return home. But when the film reached its highly-emotional climax, I remember being surprised by my uncontrollable crying, a waterworks unlike any I'd ever experienced at the movies. I couldn't understand why this simple, almost silly sci-fi story had gotten so under my skin.
In that same interview with Colbert, Spielberg explained what we now all know to be the case. "I've always said: I can get the audience to the brink of crying, but Johnny's music makes the tears fall. He takes it the rest of the way."
Over the past 42 years, I've caught bits and pieces of E.T. when it happened to be rebroadcast on TV, but I've never sat down and watched the entire film again. Which is why I was so eager to make my way to David Geffen Hall last night to hear the NY Philharmonic perform the score live while the movie played overhead. Conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos, who I saw conduct Williams' Jurassic Park with the Philadelphia Orchestra last summer, this was the last of the Phil's Art of the Score series this season, following Spielberg's West Side Story, Black Panther and Vertigo. Say what you will about the aesthetic value of one of the world's leading orchestras performing movie music: from the look of the packed hall last night, the series has been highly successful not just in terms of selling tickets, but in broadening the Phil's audience. To wit: I saw lots of young children with their parents last night, eager to introduce them to the film they fell in love with when they were kids.
But, Williams' music isn't just kids stuff, as his recent appearances with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics have demonstrated. When Williams wrote the score for E.T., which won him one of his five Oscars, he was in the middle of a stretch without equal in the history of film music. Between 1977 and 1984, Williams wrote the music for all three original Star Wars films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, alongside another dozen film scores, fanfares, overtures and other music.
E.T. might be the best of the lot. Combining the haunting dissonances of Close Encounters with the cosmic grandeur of Star Wars, Williams' music elevates this suburban tale to something of a mythic bildungsroman: a hero's tale of transition into adulthood, helped along by a "higher intelligence." The Phil handled Williams' challenging score with all their usual virtuosity and seriousness, even if most of the audience's attention lay elsewhere. (Although several principal players skipped last night's performance, I did spot Principal violist Cynthia Phelps and Principal Percussionist Christopher Lamb, among others.)
There is much to appreciate throughout E.T.'s two hours - extended harp solos, delicate piano and celesta passages - but it is the film's final 15 minutes which sticks with you: from the chase scene of flying bikes, to E.T.'s final departure. The music, which Williams worked painstakingly with Spielberg to match the film's complicated series of cues, is thrilling, majestic, heartwrenching, and ultimately triumphant, punctuated by one of the most penetrating horn blasts you'll ever hear. The final tableau of the spaceship's rainbow chemtrail as it races to the heavens at first feels unredeemably cheesy, until you realize that it bears an uncanny resemblance to another mystic rainbow of transition. And you thought this was just another movie.
Tickets, including a limited number of $35 standing room seats for the two remaining performances tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 2pm, are available at the box office and online.
The Phil's Art of the Score series returns next season with four more films, including another two Williams classics: Spielberg's Jaws (September 26-28) and The Empire Strikes Back (June 11-14).
More pics on the photo page.