Titanic

James Horner utilized four main themes in the scoring of Titanic. The Titanic theme, played by French horns, and the Southampton theme, a vocal yet wordless melody, express the majesty of the “ship of dreams.” The Rose theme is also a sung melody without words that has an Irish/Enya-esque quality to it. The Love theme is more orchestral, and at the end of the movie becomes “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and is firmly rooted in everyone’s mind as the theme song of the movie.

The third class/steerage on the Titanic was made up of mostly poor Irish looking for opportunity in America. Horner stays true to history when creating the musical contrast between the first class and the third class. The music in the first class is all classical music played by a string orchestra and a piano lending a very formal air. The party scene in the third class is vastly different. The music (played by one of my favorite bands, Gaelic Storm) is made up of a reel followed by the tune “Hills of Connemara” (which is also a reel) and is played by traditional Irish instruments such as the bodhran and uilleann pipes. Lively dancing accompanies the music further contrasting the reserved manner of the first class.

The Color Purple

There is a wide variety of music featured in The Color Purple. The movie started off silently during the opening credits and then very lyrical music played while scenes of a meadow were shown. This lyrical music was mostly strings and woodwinds and sounded very airy. Most of the first part of the movie was underscored with this music and some playful/mischevious sounding tunes that played when Celie's step children were shown. Different places had thier own music. During farmhouse scenes the music displayed a Southern influence with some banjos and harmonicas. Church scenes featured southern gospel music while the jukebox club played jazzy, caberet-ish blues. Scenes of Africa were accompanied by tribal music. In one montage of scenes showing Celie about to shave Albert but contemplating killing him, and two children in Africa about to be cut with a knife, the tribal music spills over into both locations enabling it to build tension in both scenes.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

The music in E.T is reflective of the Postmodern Era in film music during which film composers went back to the Classic Hollywood roots of film music. John Williams created a score that utilizes a full orchestra and underscores the emotion of the film. The majority of the music is composed of one main theme (or variations of the theme) that grows in strength from being played by a single flute at the beginning of Elliot and E.T.'s relationship to a full orchestra during the second flying bike scene. Though there is one dominating theme, it mirrors/complements the emotions the characters on screen. For instance a derivation of theme plays while Elliot is at school and E.T. is left home alone. He does a lot of messy exploration of the house and the music complements his humorous antics. The music does not always follow the theme however. When the alien investigative agents from the government are shown, the music becomes dark and dissonant, utlizing a lot more brass than strings.