The sound of a superhero: The musical evolution of Superman

There are few issues in cinema as unmistakable as John Williams’ Superman theme. Since hitting the silver display in 1978, the character had already flown via 4 a long time of comedian guide pages, animated reels, and radio waves. However in some way, with only a brass fanfare and three commanding notes, the legendary composer gave the character a voice.

Not a literal voice, after all, however a sound. A sonic identification so completely fitted it could as effectively have been stitched into the swimsuit. A melody that informed you who’s coming earlier than you see the cape. That impossibly proud leitmotif made gravity really feel just a little extra elective. It felt loud sufficient to shake heaven, but hopeful sufficient to reassure Earth. It might go on to be borrowed by composers throughout a long time, every attempting in their very own technique to contact that very same electrical optimism.

What’s usually forgotten is how laborious it’s to drag that off. Williams composed not one, however seven thematic concepts for 1978’s Superman. Nevertheless it’s the large one — the triumphant, three-note essential theme (“Sup-er-man,” if you happen to hum it proper) — that embedded itself into our cultural muscle reminiscence. Williams distilled the essence of Superman so completely into music, it nearly feels found — as if the theme had all the time existed, ready for a hero to assert it.

Earlier than Williams got here alongside, Superman had been bouncing round popular culture for many years, from comic-books to grainy tv to the Saturday matinee serials of the Forties. Sammy Timberg’s “Sup-er-man” triplet that might finally be immortalised within the Williams rating, first appeared in these early Max Fleischer cartoons. However Williams gave it bones, breath and in some way made it really feel everlasting. Like all good fable, it wanted ceremony, so he gave Superman one thing regal, declarative, and constructed from the very devices that historical past itself has used to sign kings and generals.

There’s all the time been one thing mystical about the best way Williams scores identification. His themes really feel coded into the character’s DNA. The magic right here is within the building: Copland-esque harmonies that decision again to wide-open plains and sincere labour, Sousa-like romantic rhythms that march with goal, and orchestration that lets the French horns sing like they consider in one thing. It comes as near the beliefs of “fact, justice and the ‘American Manner’” that Superman initially represented. Not the cynical, postmodern America, however the hopeful, mythic one, a rustic that wishes to consider its heroes are sort.

A nonetheless from ‘Superman’ (1978)
| Picture Credit score:
Warner Bros

That sense of musical certainty was baked into Superman itself, and a captivating younger Christopher Reeve wore that sincerity on his chest. A part of what made the mission so satisfying, Williams has stated, was how little it took itself severely, and the music mirrored that unabashed grandeur. Reeve as soon as joked that attempting to fly with out it might get you nowhere. And watching Superman as we speak, it’s laborious to not agree. 

However immortality is an advanced factor, and may turn out to be a shadow as a lot as a beacon. So when Man of Metal arrived in 2013, Hans Zimmer did what any seasoned composer would do when requested to reinvent a god and turned away from the solar.

This shift was existential, for this was not a theme you’ll whistle on the best way dwelling. In Richard Donner’s 1978 imaginative and prescient, heroism was innate, vibrant and uncomplicated. In Zack Snyder’s model, it’s fraught, burdened, and deeply ambiguous. So, naturally, the music follows swimsuit.

Zimmer introduces Superman with two nearly embryonic notes being slowly drawn like a query mark. It’s simple to overlook them at first, buried in ambient textures, however over the course of the movie, that two-note determine returns time and again, reshaped by context. On piano, it’s wistful; on strings, it’s decided; and on brass, it lastly finds its wings.

Zimmer’s rating additionally averted leitmotifs within the Wagnerian sense. There’s no tight tether between character and phrase and no musical shorthand for the viewers to cling to. As an alternative, Zimmer writes in actions of emotional environment that shift and swirl, gaining depth because the character does. His Superman rating builds, like an argument being made. It asks us to attend. To consider, maybe, in a brand new sort of saviour. Zimmer’s Superman earns his theme.

It’s lovely, in its approach. And but, there’s a way of mourning working via it like an elegy for one thing extra sure and melodic. As compelling as Zimmer’s rating is, it usually feels prefer it’s chasing one thing it refuses to call.

That one thing, after all, is John Williams. Zimmer as soon as stated he averted referencing Williams out of respect — it might have been, in his phrases, “like portray over the Mona Lisa.” And maybe he was proper. However the absence is felt. The Man of Tomorrow, it turned out, nonetheless wanted the music of yesterday.

A nonetheless from ‘Man of Metal’
| Picture Credit score:
Warner Bros

For all its remastered modernity, Zimmer’s theme does nonetheless carry that very same core thought of hope. Nonetheless, some would argue that the movie itself by no means absolutely earns the theme. The darkness of Man of Metal usually feels at odds with the sunshine Zimmer is striving to inject into its rating. The music needs you to consider, and the movie, much less so. Satirically, Zimmer’s rating usually works higher when divorced from its supply—as a sonic thought of Superman, even when the character on display appears uncertain of who he’s.

Which brings us to now. James Gunn’s Superman is already bending the arc again towards one thing nearer to the sunshine. And what are you aware, Williams is coming again with him… in spirit not less than.

Gunn, like many people, grew up worshipping that soundtrack. He’s referred to as it his favorite, saying it was the one a part of Superman he carried with him longest. When handed the keys to the DCEU and tasked with helming the brand new David Corenswet reboot, he requested composer John Murphy to return to the effectively. The unique melody seems, however on electrical guitar, twanged like one thing out of a dusty American highway journey. Then the orchestra steps in, reclaiming the theme with reverence and newness. 

Williams’ unique leitmotif was crafted like an edifice constructed to final.Tim Greiving, Williams’ biographer, put it greatest when he stated the theme feels prefer it got here with Superman from Krypton. And actually, how may it not? There’s a cause it nonetheless performs in PVR bogs practically half a century later. It’s lodged within the cultural creativeness the best way lullabies are. We hum it as a result of it tells us who Superman is, and if we’re sincere, who we need to be. 

It’s a difficult factor, writing music for somebody who can fly, however in some way, throughout a long time and discographies, the message stays the identical: Search for.

Superman is presently working in theatres