Home Alone In Concert (Revisit 2023)

 

One of my favorite concert experiences, is to see a film I love, with the score delivered by an orchestra. Earlier this year I had the chance to see "Star Wars" in Concert with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. I suspect that the music director of the symphony is a fan of composer John Williams (of course who isn't?), because this week, for the second time this year, a score featuring the music of Williams was featured accompanied by the film, in this case it was the holiday film "Home Alone". 

I was confident that I had written a post on this film before. I thought I might have seen it in a Fathom Event screening, so it would have been on my list of films I have covered. When I looked however, I found no record of having covered the movie before, so it turns out this will be a first time as well. "Home Alone" was the most successful film of 1990, and it shared end of the year financial records with "Dances with Wolves".  The Kevin Costner film ended up with all of the end of the year honors, but this John Hughes written, Christopher Columbus directed film ended up as the box office champ. So Kevin McCallister turned out to be the top Kevin of the year, at least when it came to money. The two Academy Award nominations that "Home Alone" did receive however, both went to John Williams, one for the song he wrote which Leslie Bricusse did the lyrics for, and a second for the score of the film.

Before I get to the music, a little at least about the film. Certainly, almost anyone reading this will have seen "Home Alone", it has become a Christmas Classic. It was the first 20th Century Fox film to be released to the sell through market on VHS, and became, along with E.T. the Extraterrestrial, the biggest selling video of the era. This movie has been in the heads of families for more than thirty years, and it has been parodied relentlessly as well as making a star out of Macaulay Culkin. The plot has been described by some as "Die Hard" with a kid.  Young Kevin, having been accidentally left behind by his family, defends the homestead from burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Amazingly, Pesci was also in the very different role of  Tommy DeVito, a murderous Mafioso, in theaters just a few weeks before this comic role. The combination of the two may have been the reason that his performance in "Goodfellas" was the sole Academy Award win for that film. 

Director Chris Columbus was responsible for adding the character of the neighbor, suspected of being a shovel killer, Mr. Marley. The character played so effectively by Roberts Blossom, is one of the things that raises the film from a slapstick farce to a more touching human comedy. The movie features several sequences where eight year old Kevin, speaks quite wisely, but still like a kid, and most of that works pretty well. His encounters with the checkout girl at the grocery store, and the Santa finishing his shift, let us believe a lot more in the final conversation with Marley in the church. Of course there is plenty of eye poking, three stooges type humor when the home invasion starts, so you can laugh and cringe simultaneously.  

The audience for the concert was wired for this experience from the very start. There was a noticeable amount of applause and cheering for the 20th Century Fox logo at the start of the film. Maybe some of the audience was like me, nostalgic for a classic film studio that no longer exists. The theme music plays throughout the picture, but it is in the last half of the film that the music soars, in part because of the chorale music and singing that occurs around the time Marley and Kevin have their conversation. In the concert hall, this was accompanied by a 70 person chorale of high school singers who came in and sat in front of the orchestra, after an intermission, which is invented by the event and not part of the original film. 

I have said it before to others when talking about this movie, it is so much better than it has a right to be and than you remember. I took my kids to see the film when they were four and two, neither remembers the experience but I do. We went with my best friend's family, they had two children the same age as ours, and we all enjoyed the movie as best as young kids could. It became a favorite of James, my friend's son. Three years later I lost my friend to cancer and his family dropped out of our lives, but I always think of them when I see this movie. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.

Star Wars in Concert

 

Whenever you can listen to a live orchestra play a film score, go. When the film is included, question your sanity if you skip it, because these are great experiences. If you are dealing with a John Williams score and the film is "Star Wars" you can just pencil me in and meet me at the door. I love film music and scores. I enjoy classical music although I am not an aficionado. So this was an event that was easy for me to book and look forward to all summer.

The first time I saw Star Wars, at the Chinese theater in Hollywood, on opening day, I was awed by the sound of the film and the music. The score reminded me of the music from the 1930s and 40s. Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner were my training ground for what film music should sound like. I was a big fan of Jerry Goldsmith's Patton Score and this horn and string dominated score reminded me of some of the same heroic themes and triumphs of that film. 

The title sequence of course is legendary as the opening scroll moves up the screen and then the music transitions to the action of the attack by the Empire's cruiser. When Darth Vader appears on the screen we get a villain's cue and the music again clues us in as to who the good guys and the bad guys are. When we get to Tatooine, we start to get the recurring themes that will come up for the rest of the film.  Luke is on a heroes journey and there were a some great scenes with his theme. The dual sunset is one of those moments and the discovery of his Aunt and Uncle's burned bodies is another. 

Leia has a theme as well and both themes will be used for the subsequent films. Ben Kenobi's sacrificial death also is an iconic music moment and it pushes Like's desire to succeed even further. This is a film, much like "Jaws" that gets half of it's emotional energy from the score. When played by a live orchestra the music is even more stirring.  By the time we get to the throne room medal ceremony, we have had a succession of great music highlighting terrific action scenes and character points. 

10 Music Related Posts From the Last Ten Years

I am not a musician, unless you count two years of piano lessons when I was eight. I do however love music and I really love film music. One of the things I’ve done over the past ten years is include musical movie related material on the blog. What follows are posts that highlight a musical event more than the visual splendor of a motion picture. Travel back in time [or measure] and check out some of the posts that should strike a right chord with you.

Like everyone, I love John Williams and his music, but my favorite film composer happens to be the late Jerry Goldsmith. 

Here you will find a tribute I wrote about him, his music and a DVD Concert that I owned and shared my thoughts on.

Jerry Goldsmith-A Few Notes

Another composer that I have been aware of for fifty years, but did not appreciate as much until more recently is Paul Williams. 

The actor, singer and composer has also been President of ASCAP, and late in his career, people thought he had passed away years before. He was the the Subject os a documentary that I reviewed on the site, but before that film came out, I had a chance to experience the music from his film with Brian DePalma, and see him interviewed as well.

Paul Williams and the Phantom of the Paradise

In recent years, many orchestras have created presentations of film music by replacing the scoring track on the film with live accompaniment. Inspired by that practice, some Film Archives have made Special Presentations out of films they control with their own cultivated orchestras. "The Godfather" is one of those films, this presentation played at several venues across the country.

The Godfather Live

Of course the greatest source of these types of presentations for me will be with my hometown heroes the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For a dozen non-consecutive years, I have been a series subscriber to the L.A. Phil at Walt Disney Hall. We always tried to include a presentation like this with our subscription, but if it was not available that way, we bought stand alone tickets. 

L.A. Philharmonic West Side Story

We usually look for a special Christmas Event to share as a family each year. This sing-a-long presentation of "White Christmas " was a lot of fun but there was no orchestral accompaniment. That seemed strange but a good time was had by all. 

"White Christmas" Sing-A-Long

 The masthead on this site tells you how important the movie "Jaws" is to me. The fantastic score to that film by John Williams is famously memorable with just a couple of notes. There is of course a lot more to the music than those notes however. This time the LA Phil is in their Summer Home, the Hollywood Bowl, hallowed ground for our family, we visited eight or ten times a summer for most of the years my children were growing up. This visit is bittersweet because it was the last time I went with my wife of 38 years, just a few weeks before her passing. 

Jaws In Concert: Part 2 of the 2018 Jaws Posts

One more visit with the LA Philharmonic, this time it is mainly a concert rather than a film presentation. Oh there were film clips but we were not seeing a whole movie, rather the concert featured music that Stanley Kubrick included in his films. Some of it is very familiar but there were some esoteric choices as well. 

Stanley Kubrick's Sound Odyssey

This post is not strictly a film related post because the subject is the artist not a movie. Jeff Bridges is a fantastic actor, but he is also a talented musician and let's face it, a fan like me can't really miss an opportunity to spend some time with a film star, even when they are not acting. It was a weekend trip to Vegas and the Concert was a gas,

The Dude Abides in Vegas

The most recent of my music related posts is from earlier this year. Again, it is not strictly a film experience, but since I have seen several versions of Hamlet on screen over the years, I felt obliged to share it on this site. I think it was a One Off booking, but if it shows up anywhere near you, I think you will enjoy the effort to make it work on a limited budget.

Hamlet The Rock Musical

I had an insight on a Saturday morning a few years ago and I followed thorough with a post. There are some interesting similarities in the music of these two films and I just wanted to talk about it at the time. Maybe you will want to as well.

Random Thoughts, I Think Not: The Silence of the Dead Zone

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 40th Anniversary

In 1977, Star Wars was the big film in the science fiction genre. It dominated the Summer season and took off as a cultural artifact that continues to resonate today. The likelihood that another science fiction film would come on the scene and impress in the same ways seemed remote, but Steven Spielberg was just at the start of his career and the third major motion picture he directed was going to wow us in ways that were very similar to his pal George Lucas' little space opera. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is grounded in the everyday reality of audiences at that time. It was not set on a distant planet with space battles, it was taking place in our backyards, in Mexico, India and at a National Monument in Wyoming. The special effects were very different from "Star Wars" but equally compelling. When the Mothership shows up for the climax of the film, it almost makes you forget the space battles around the Death Star.

The film opened in December so it was a Holiday release and it did gangbusters business. It made more than a $100 million with maybe 300 screens during it's opening run. In 1977/78, that was real money. Three years later in a re-release in a "Special Edition" it added another $16 million. This week's run will add a smaller amount to the total but I think it is impressive that a 40 year old film still draws in enough customers to make a mark on the contemporary charts. The reason is simple, it was a great film in 1977 and it is still a great film, 40 years later.

Steven Spielberg is the consummate film director of the last fifty years. He may be rivaled creatively by directors such as Martin Scorsese or the Coen Brothers, but his track record of film success plus creativity is unparalleled. "Close Encounters" is entirely his baby. Although he has contributed to a few other film scripts that he directed, this is a solo credit, his only one. The inventiveness of the story and the odd way that it plays out building suspense as to what is happening to our sad hero is a testament to Spielberg's creativity with story. Of course his directorial choices are outstanding as well. From the start of the movie, when a black screen is accompanied by an otherworldly note, held for a moment but increasing in volume until a crash and then the screen fills with a desert sandstorm image, we are hooked. The mundane but complicated work of air traffic controllers, talking on a radio with the flight crews of airlines, depicted on a black and green screen as a set of numbers, comes across like a tense mystery with just enough humor to make it memorable. Finally in the opening sequence we meet the Neary family, who are like all of us. Their home is average, cluttered, and filled with loud kids and distracted parents. The floor of the boys bedroom may be one of the most accurate pieces of set design ever. At the heart of this story is Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfess, his second time in a row playing the Spielberg persona on screen in a Spielberg movie.

What happens to Roy on this night changes everything. His relationship with his wife and kids will be damaged in ways that look beyond repair, but it happens slowly. If Quint was obsessive about the Great White, well he had nothing on Roy Neary and the vague form that he keeps seeing in his food, bed and bathroom. At the start of the film he is a well meaning father who kiddingly threatens one son while trying to help the other one figure out fractions in an interesting way. He wants his kids to share the magic of his own childhood experiences and the recurring theme of Pinocchio is introduced. It is only a few days later that he indifferently trashes the house where they all live in a quest to figure out the symbol in his head. His oldest son is embarrassed and lashes out when Roy can't control his frustration and desperation. His wife, the wonderful Terri Garr, is mildly supportive but is also trying to protect him from himself. As much as there is to celebrate at the end of the film, there is plenty of tragedy to get us there. Roy's actual encounter is brilliantly shown with practical effects in the truck he drives for work and the fantastic conceptualization of the UFOs he chases that first night.  Spielberg then allows him to undercut his own experience with a clever second encounter that is not at all what it seems. This is another writers touch that is well realized by the most sympathetic of directors.

There are a few moments that will leave modern audiences a bit bewildered. Roy trying to navigate using folded maps and not GPS is a pretty good example. At a official inquiry, a newsman points out that the absence of photos of UFOs is not proof of their non-existence any more than the absence of  pictures of planes or cars crashing denies that those things happen [these days, that kind of film fills the evening news]. There is a great humorous sequence when the investigation team needs to read some map coordinates and instead of going on-line, they have to roll a giant globe from a government office to their workspace. So the technology might be dated but the story hold up well. Can we trust the government to tell us the truth? Do we know all there is to know about space? Are some crazy people maybe not crazy?  Roy gets lumped in with a guy who believes in Bigfoot and that's enough to discredit him in a lot of eyes. He does discover an ally in Jillian, who has lost her son Barry to the visitors. Barry's disappearance is one of the sequences in the film that is iconic and it was really frightening. It was a moment that made you think this film could go anywhere and any point. 

Melinda Dillon was nominated for an Oscar for her role as the distraught mother who also had the same kinds of obsessions as Roy. When the two of them finally work together as they arrive in Wyoming, you can feel the us versus them bonding between the two characters. Director François Truffaut was cast as the main scientific leader of the UFO team, and he works mostly because of his language barrier. Bob Balaban as the cartographer drafted as Truffaut's interpreter also acts as a surrogate for the audience on the inside of the plot. This dual approach to the story might give away too much but because Jillian and Roy don't connect till late in the film, and Balaban is sometimes unclear on what is happening, the suspense is maintained.

The climax of the movie is correctly remembered for the technical proficiency of the special effects and design teams and the outstanding score by John Williams. Williams has a huge number of Oscar nominations but probably fewer wins than he deserves because he was frequently matched against himself. This was one of those years. While most of the time he probably cancelled his competing nominations out, the classical score for Star Wars was not likely to ever be forgotten. His work in this film however is equally sublime and used in such a creative way in the story that maybe he should have received a co-screenwriting credit with Spielberg.   Vilmos Zsigmond won the Academy Award for the cinematography of the film, but there were several other photographic geniuses that made contributions as well including: John Alonzo (Chinatown), William Fraker (Wargames),
László Kovács (Paper Moon), Douglas Slocombe (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Allen Daviau (E.T.), and a half dozen others.

There are many themes that you can pull out of this film and all of them feel like that could be the central focus. In the first part, mystery is at hand, in the second act it is obsession and the third transfers to both paranoia and hope. I always see this as a film that is ultimately about how the world can potentially be brought together by an event of this magnitude, or conversely how it could tear us apart. That dichotomy is the script again by the director himself. There are a hundred little moments that deserve more attention, and I hope that despite the fact that this is the first time I have written about this film, it won't be the last and those moments will have some light shined on them as well. 

Addendum:

My friend Eric on the East Coast took his son to see this for the first time, while I was taking my daughter to see it today. Eric is a fine writer and he put together a nice post with a heartfelt message to Mr. Spielberg at the end. You might want to look at it here.