A to Z Challenge: E (John Williams’ film scores)

*Read John Williams’ biography here

Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 coming-of-age World War II film based on a semi-autobiographical novel (of the same name). Directed by Steven Spielberg it stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Nigel Havers. The movie is about a young boy, Jim, who lives with his wealthy British family in Shanghai, but becomes separated from them and ends up a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp.

An Empire of the Sun album was released which contains nearly an hour of selected music from the movie. While nominated for a number of awards it won only a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music. The other nominations were an Academy Award for Best Original Score, Golden Globe for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, which were all won by The Last Emperor.

This is another movie I haven’t seen, however I love this song. I think it is really pretty. It has classical overtones and an almost hymn like quality and unlike many of John Williams’ scores this one has vocals (sung by a choir). Is this song to your taste?


9 comments on “A to Z Challenge: E (John Williams’ film scores)

  1. I haven’t seen any of these movies so far. I really need to get out more.

  2. Giggling Fattie

    April 5, 2019 at 11:50 pm

    Ooo this is from the year I was born! Obviously, I’m going to say its amazing even though I haven’t started listening to it yet haha

    • Giggling Fattie

      April 5, 2019 at 11:55 pm

      Not good for writing lol I had to stop listening in the middle of the “Alleluia’s” haha it was too much for my half-awake brain this morning.

      • there may be a couple of others that do that. But then there are some I bet you’ll listen to again.

  3. I think I saw this one. Maybe. I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to many movies in my childhood (although this came out in my teen years). So, I may have seen it. It sounds vaguely familiar. But I don’t remember anything about it.

    • I grew up in a town without a movie cinema – the next town had a drive-in so we went there occasionally – but it meant we didn’t see any movies until they came out on video, which was a good year or so later in those days. It meant we missed a lot of movies.

  4. Beautiful! I haven’t seen this film, but what a shame it didn’t win that Oscar. Still, if it only got one award, nice to know it was for the music!

    • It is beautiful, Sue. I have listened to this piece so many times since I discovered it.

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