Song of the Day: Jurassic Park (“Soundtrack Suite”) [YouTube link], composed by John Williams, continues our two-day celebration of the maestro’s 90th birthday. Williams remains the most-Oscar nominated film score composer in history. His 52 Oscar nominations in total, put him second only to Walt Disney (with 59 nominations) in the history of the Academy Awards. This ground-breaking 1993 Spielberg-directed film set off a dynamic dino franchise and the score’s themes have become iconic.
Postscript: In the Facebook discussion that followed, a commentator expressed their distaste with the film, “Jurassic Park”, and I added this comment:
The Film Music February Festival is not a festival of films, per se, but of film scores. That said, I did enjoy this film—and have enjoyed virtually all the films in this festival, even if not every one of them is in my All-Time Top Favorite Film List.Still, I very much enjoyed “Jurassic Park” and in the franchise that followed, I most enjoyed “Jurassic World”, and am looking forward to the finale in the second trilogy of films. “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” were my least favorite of the other films, while “Jurassic Park III” was a fun popcorn film.That said, what I most enjoyed about the original “Jurassic Park”—which, when I saw it on its first day of release was an eye-popping event, to say the least—was its updating of the old “Frankenstein” film theme, how Man Playing God can lead to unintended consequences. When John Hammond remarks that “creation is an act of sheer will,” Ian Malcolm responds: “Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, well, there it is. … Life will find a way.” Can’t think of a nicer testament to spontaneous order in nature.
In any event, the score, with its iconic themes, is wonderful, and I’m happy to have featured it back-to-back in my celebration of John Williams’s 90th birthday! But there’s really nothing wrong with sitting in a theater with some popcorn to go on a rollercoaster ride of thrills and chills and enjoy a film for what it is. Yes, there are some good themes that I pointed out, but ultimately, these films were of the summer blockbuster variety, and I have enjoyed them (especially the two noted above).
