ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways that music communicates cinematic characters, action, mood, and emotion and provides a brief overview of the history of music in film. Born in New York City, Williams spent his youth in Los Angeles where he eventually attended UCLA. After serving in the Air Force, Williams returned to New York to attend The Juilliard School. Inaudible to those characters is the non-diegetic music of Williams's orchestral score. The music is irregular and peripatetic, like the chase scene it enhances. Short brass fanfares echo the children's noble desire to save Extra-Terrestrial (ET) propulsive rhythms keep the tension high. Music itself was the focus of The Jazz Singer, cinema's first feature-length talkie. The film was adapted from a successful Broadway stage show and starred the popular blackface entertainer Al Jolson. The score was a musical grab bag that included popular songs, traditional Jewish sacred melodies, and classical music.
