A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (John Williams)
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This is, simply put, my favourite score since the millennium turnover. And possibly also favourite film. I’m thrilled that both film and score (but especially film) are finally getting the the recognition they deserve, especially among cineastes. I’ve been defending it ever since I walked shaken and stirred out of the cinema in 2001. A few years ago, I wrote an article on it here on the site. In Norwegian, but here’s a google-translated version which goes into more detail than I can rattle off in a messageboard post.
Any other fans?
Not near a keyboard, so it’s short ’cause I type this from a phone:
A.I. – Artificial Intelligence has always been a problematic movie for me. From the day I originally saw it (big screen on its original theatrical run), I wished I could like it more than I do, because parts of it are so great. I’ve seen it twice more, once on DVD and once on Bluray. It features some of the greatest and some of the worst scenes in a Spielberg movie I have ever seen.
John Williams music is one of the finest of his career though.Maybe I need to see it again, but that ending (not the time jump or robots, but the contrivance of the scenario) soured me on what already felt like a peripatetic and unfocused film. I’m also not sure minimalism, which I love, and John Williams are the best fit. I owned the expansion and the ost, and found both of them a chore. It’s just not my favorite all around, I’m sorry to say.
I’ve seen the film in its entirety once and random scenes here and there over the years. I guess I should revisit it as a whole again at some point. But the score! Yum! Paraphrasing from a “musical memory” post I made on Facebook many years ago…
Summer 2001. I’ve arrived in Los Angeles late one afternoon, ultimately heading to Rancho Cucamonga for a multi-day computer forensics class. I go to pick up my rental car at LAX. They offer me a Mustang convertible at no extra cost so I say, why not?! I hit the road on my way to the hotel, and with the evening temps being pleasantly cool for summer, I ride with the top down.
Knowing that I’d be relatively close to Anaheim (a.k.a, Disneyland) and would have an extra day to burn before the class started, I had asked my parents to send me one of the complimentary tickets that my dad received each year through his employment at Walt Disney World. I had been to Disneyland once before thanks to one of my dad’s passes, but as luck would have it, California Adventure had opened just a few months prior to my arrival that summer, and I was anxious to ride the Jerry Goldsmith-scored attraction “Soarin’ Over California”.
So I drive to Anaheim the next day, and head first to the entrance of California Adventure where I spend the first part of the day, riding “Soarin’ Over California” several times as well as catching the Bruce Broughton-scored film “Seasons of the Vine”. I then head over to Disneyland, intent on closing it down that evening.
Before I know it, closing time arrives and I head to the parking lot and my Mustang convertible for the evening ride back to Rancho Cucamonga. I put the top down again, and choose one of the CDs I brought with me – John Williams’ score for the then recently-released Spielberg film, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) – to accompany me on my ride back to the hotel.
With the wonderful memories of the day fresh in my mind, Williams’ melodic, emotional score serves as the perfect accompaniment to my open-air, solitary drive through the unfamiliar landscape. I find one particular track incredibly moving (“Stored Memories/Monica’s Theme”), with its wordless female vocals, and put the track on repeat for a majority of the drive. To this day, when I listen to this cue, I am reminded of those feelings of excitement, discovery, and nostalgia that came from visiting the parks, and that bittersweet ride back to the hotel in a convertible Mustang.
In hindsight, this memory is even more poignant as it happened just a few months before the horrible events of 9/11.
We saw this film on release, and found it hard to sit through. At the time our kids were very young and Mrs TG found it especially challenging when David was abandoned in the woods. I’m sure most parents of young children would feel the same.
We’ve watched it once or twice since then, and I do like it, both for the film and the score, but it’s not one we regularly return to. I have no problem with the ambitious ending.
I at least saw it once and while I liked it in general it was never a real favorite. Same with the score. I like Williams channelling minimal music one/or the first time but overall it. The original album also misses a deal of the score. The promo flows better in that regard. But frankly it’s been some time I listened to it (well, I saw that 95% every time ;-). I don’t know the expanded Lalal one.
To this day, when I listen to this cue, I am reminded of those feelings of excitement, discovery, and nostalgia that came from visiting the parks, and that bittersweet ride back to the hotel in a convertible Mustang.
What a lovely story, thx99, exactly the type of thing we were talking about in this thread.
As I noted, I’ve seen A.I. – Artificial Intelligence three times so far, once in its original theatrical run, once on DVD, once on Bluray. I do have my issues with the movie, but it’s also a tremendously interesting film. I wish I would be able to enjoy it more than I do.
It was a Stanley Kubrick project which Kubrick himself thought was more suitable for Spielberg. Spielberg took many things from Kubrick’s pre-production, so the idea of a Kubrick/Spielberg collaboration alone is fascinating. The concept of an “A.I.” child is an interesting one, though I wonder if it is really about “Artificial Intelligence” or rather “Artificial Emotions”, or “Programmed Emotions”, because that seems to be at the root of David’s struggle and problems… in any case, an interesting subject.
I think the setup of the movie is great, and the middle part has some of the best scenes Spielberg ever did, the scenes with Jude Law have a wonderful quality, a mix of hard science fiction and dreamlike fairy tale story telling. John Williams’ music is terrific. Yes, it obviously takes its starting points from John Adams and Philip Glass (some parts feel like almost quotes from Glass), but it’s still 100% Williams, he weaves the inspirations into a new whole, excellent score, one of his finest. (I was never happy with the original soundtrack album though, which really shortchanged Williams’ music.)
But the ending… sheesh… the ending of the film undermines so much. I don’t mind the idea of that ending, but the execution. If ever the rule “show, don’t tell” was heavy-handedly broken, it’s this. I remember the first time I saw the movie… I mean, there’s David, under the ocean in New York, before the Blue fairy statue from Coney Island… and then centuries pass by (I love those batteries these things have… Supertoys last all Summer long)… ice covers New York, and when David awakens, it’s a new world, humans are long gone, Mechas have far, far evolved and are now the dominating species… and for them, David is of course of enormous interest and value, since he springs from a time of their origin. So far so good… but then… then the talking starts… it’s Ben Kingsley’s voice, a great voice, and I really love to hear him narrate as the gentle super-Mecha, but the kind of cringy nonsense he is babbling tests my patience.
They love David, he’s so important for them, but he cannot become human, but they can reconstruct the Swinton family home from David’s memories… and then goes on, explaining they have learned to recreate humans from genetic materials, including apparently their souls, but only for one day (what kind of a weird cloning science program is that?), and once they have done this, they cannot do this ever again (WTF… why not?) and conveniently, Teddy has a strand of hair from Monica, so they can now do what they just told us they could do, and then David spends his happiest day with Monica, and as she falls asleep in the evening, Monica tells David that she has always loved him. David lies down next to her and closes his eyes as Teddy watches over them. That last image with Teddy watching is really sweet, but the entire scene before that is just awful.
I am willing to accept a lot in films, but not once did I buy anything that Ben Kingsley Mecha told David. And the movie really spreads this out and let’s the Ben Kingsley Mecha talk this nonsense for what seems like as long as David must have been under the ice. What is he saying? I mean, they can clone humans as grown adults (okay, weird, but an old sci-fi trope, so far I can go along), get the memories of these humans somewhere from outer space (what??), insert these memories into the grown clones (stop it, please!), but these clones live only for one day (say again??), and that entire procedure can only be done once(WTF??)? I really did not buy any of this… that is just suddenly a complete nonsensical magic explanation out of nowhere, it sounds completely insane. That’s so totally far fetched ridiculous, it would have been less magical fantasy if the Blue Fairy just had suddenly become real and made David a boy. That’s the issue I have with the ending, and it undermines a lot for me.
The ending fails because it strived for an emotional resolution the film’s own logic and terms didn’t earn and didn’t want.
But the rest of the movie is very good.I only watched the movie once in cinema when it came out. And during watch I was thinking what I often think, when I watch a Spielberg movie. This has some impressive even great parts and some almost bad and embarrassingly sentimental parts.
I also remember in some scenes thinking, that there is too much music in it and some scenes might have been better without the music.
And I really dislike the song “For Always”. That destroyed the soundtrack album for me a little.The expansion saved the score for me and made me love it in the meantime.
The ending with the super mechs was ok for me.
I have to admit, there was a time where I was a little annoyed about all these children in Spielberg’s movies. Why did there always have to be these kids?
I always liked his movies better which were about adults. With two exceptions: E.T. and Empire of the Sun. Both two of my favourite Spielberg movies.
And ALWAYS is a prove that Spielgerg movies about adults are generally better or even more mature.But Jurassic Park, Temple of Doom, The Lost World, Hook I liked less because of the kids in the movie. Yes, there are children in JAWS and in CE3K, too. But the movie wasn’t much about them. In the meantime my view is a little more relaxed on that aspect. And I find the parental espect of A.I. quite interesting.
Anyway, A.I. is somehow a movie that I enjoy more thinking about it than actually watching it.
What a lovely story, thx99, exactly the type of thing we were talking about in this thread.
Ah, sorry about that, Thor!
Like Doug, I have a strong affinity to the Stored Memories/Monica’s Theme track. It’s just all out emotional and gorgeous…spiritual music that sears the heart. I remember becoming quite obsessed by it and playing it a unhealthy* number of times, way back when.
The film…a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Some genuinely stunning/disturbing scenes/imagery do not gel with lots of cringe-worthy terrible sequences.
I do like the score (and some of the best cues were missing from the original album) but like the film, it’s ‘fits and starts’ for me. Some deeply beautiful themes and sequences amidst long passages of…lesser material (it is John Williams, after all).*not really
Appears I’m the only one who is full-out, fullblown superfan of this film, from start to finish. That’s okay, I’m used to it. But I know that Eirik is too, so we’re at least TWO! 🙂
Ah, sorry about that, Thor!
Nothing to be sorry about. It’s just one of those things that fits in two places.
You’re right Thor – I am a full-blown superfan of this film. I am almost tempted to call it Spielberg’s greatest masterpiece – and that’s saying a lot.
I love the ending. I bawl my eyes out. I haven’t watched it after becoming a parent, but it’s a fair bet that it will hit even harder now. I don’t really care about it being scientifically correct or not – that thought never occurred to me. The ending of this film is simply one of the most beautiful, and most utterly heartbreaking things I have ever watched.
John Williams’ score for A.I. is, as far as film scores go, maybe his greatest artistic achievement – in my humble opinion. I love the minimalist stuff. Williams takes the *idea* of Philip Glass-style minimalism, yes, but Glass would not have combined that craft with the kind of otherworldly harmonic and melodic elements that Williams incorporate into this. For that reason, tracks like «Journey to Rogue City» and «The Mecha World» (Extended Version) are to me far more intriguing than anything I ever heard from Philip Glass. (That said, I owe myself to listen more to Philip Glass’ catalogue, as I am obviously a fan of his general style).
I believe no other composer than John Williams could accomplish this score, because the Glass-inspired stuff is really only a tiny part of the score, anyway. The themes and melodies play an even bigger role, and they are among Williams’ most beautiful melodies ever. The calm, lush and «held back» orchestration with strings, belltone keyboards and soft, etheral voices are my favourite thing ever. There are also soft, atonal/modernist passages that really have a «coldness» in them, especially in some of the opening scenes. You really feel Kubrick’s soul is still very much present in the way even Williams approached this. And as for the film itself, remember that Kubrick also did really unconventional time jumps and style shifts that could redefine the whole purpose of the film, completely contrary to more traditional storytelling structures – 2001 being a great example of this.
However, I agree that the original album does not really do the score justice. I *love* the «For Always» theme itself, but strongly feel that it works better in tracks like «Where Dreams Are Born», without the lyrics. The appearance of a «song» (as in: with lyrics) takes me out of this fantastic score. And there are SO many highlights from this score that simply are not included in the rather short original album. In this case, The LaLaLand 3CD C&C version is the one for me (sorry Thor!).
And there are SO many highlights from this score that simply are not included in the rather short original album. In this case, The LaLaLand 3CD C&C version is the one for me (sorry Thor!).
You were doing sooooo well up until this point! 😉
No, seriously, good post. I agree with everything else. John Adams and his “Harmonielehre” is another reference work used for those bits in A.I. (although Glass fits too), but in any case I love Williams’ interpretation of it, making it uniquely his.
John Williams score for A.I. is a very fine score, and while the score clearly takes some staring points from Adams and Glass (especially Harmonielehre and SECRET AGENT, respectively), score itself is absolutely John Williams.
While John Williams sometimes assembles some fine concurrently released soundtrack albums for the movies he scores, A.I. certainly isn’t one of them. I agree, for a score this great, the La-La Land 3CD edition is certainly the way to go. It gives considerably more depth to the music.Just came across this current article about A.I.
https://letterboxd.com/journal/ai-artificial-intelligence-steven-spielberg-anniversary-deep-impact/
Just came across this current article about A.I.
Yes, as I mentioned earlier, people are finally coming around on the film. That’s good stuff.
By the way, is there any particular recording of John Adams’ “Harmonielehre” that is worth recommending? I’m guessing there are several out there.
I was in love with this score in college, but since then, I usually gravitate towards more uplifting Williams scores. A.I. is certainly beautiful, and emotionally rich, but can also feel a bit melancholy.
Hah, the algo did suggest that to me today as well but I haven’t listened to it yet. And did it work?
I mean, I don’t like the vocals in the original. But if I did, I saw no reason not to like them here, too.
Yeah, the Vangelis bit was a stretch. But if they did a straight-up instrumental version on synths (without the vocals, and preferably with a Yamaha CS-80), the track has potential to be a bit like him. Something about the chord progression that fits in with the Greek legend.
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