FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW

Review of The Paper Chase (John Williams)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... for its charming but somewhat anonymous love theme, which dominates the short score in John Williams' comfortable, early 1970's methodology.

Avoid it... if you strive to hear satisfying substance in the suspense and comedy portions of the score, these passages losing their battle with surrounding source music.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Paper Chase: (John Williams) Among the countless stories feeding off the angst of college students in challenging Ivy League programs, the 1971 novel "The Paper Chase" is among the better remembered. Adapted into a 1973 movie and two later television series of the same name, the concept's highlight was veteran actor John Houseman as an impressively daunting Harvard Law School professor, a character and performance that earned Houseman an Oscar and carried over to the television series. The plot of the movie follows a group of male students who band together in an all-but-doomed study group to help them survive their year in the school, and the personality quirks between them lead to countless struggles. The heart of the story of The Paper Chase, however, is that the lead student falls in love with a woman who is eventually revealed to be the married daughter of professor. As the two youngsters navigate that relationship, the student must choose between his attraction to the woman and desire to impress her father. Copulating in the professor's home isn't exactly a good decision, but such shenanigans help provide the comedy of the tale. Because of the story's era, there is a carefree element of indifference by the end, the counterculture aspect of society definitely pulling at the edges. Ultimately, though, it's Houseman's performance as Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. that wins the day, and the film was further buoyed by widespread praise for its script. Still, while critically acclaimed, The Paper Chase was never particularly popular, and the project fit into a period of time when composer John Williams was content writing intimate character scores for films of this stature. There isn't a significant amount of original music in the movie, with a handful of source pieces and a fair amount of silence used to accompany the plot. The opening of the movie and most of the classroom-related sequences were left unscored. For the studying scenes, Williams applies rather routine, stuffy classical source recordings from Bach and Telemann as a sophisticated counter to the wilder jazz material he coined for one of the more comedic students in the study group, their preparation sessions juxtaposing the two sounds for humor. With the entirety of the score for The Paper Chase amounting to about 31 minutes when including the various source materials, there isn't much depth to the remainder. Williams divides his actual score compositions between three modes: the love theme, a stature motif, and frazzled comedy.

The three musical modes in The Paper Chase don't entirely work all that well together stylistically, but they do manage to very clearly convey a common Williams aesthetic that allows them to inhabit the same film without too much friction. The ensemble is balanced by the composer's usual, light romance instrumentation for piano, strings, and jazz group on one side and a more traditional classical, orchestral approach for the other two modes. A harpsichord is applied as the most notable soloist, a clear representation of the professor and his Harvard formality. The use of contemporary 1970's elements in the jazz source music is particularly intriguing in that it proved that Williams was perfectly comfortable in that domain, but it doesn't fit much with the rest of the score. The classical pieces are somewhat hindered by the limited ensemble size, but they function on the intimate level the movie required. Far and away the highlight of the work is Williams' love theme, which is reprised extensively throughout the score once the professor's daughter's identity is revealed. Summarized in the unused (and likely album-specific) "Love Theme From The Paper Chase" and pervasive in the film cues "Be Irrational," "Thinking of Susan," "Real Identity/Into the Sea," and "End Title," this idea is one of Williams' more attractive. A song variant was recorded at the time but has never been combined with the score on album. The second portion of the score is dedicated to the austere, almost mysterious mystique of the school and professor, explored with its own horn motif and sensitive, suspenseful atmospheres with a slight electronic touch in "The Passing of Wisdom" and "Kingsfield's Study/The Empty Classroom." These passages are interesting but not substantial. The same can be said of the comedic chasing as an extension of the classical material in "Hart in a Hurry" and "To the Hotel," which are really too short and out of place to fit well with the rest of the score. The entirety relies upon the romantic, jazzy pop-inspired theme to yield an unassuming, genuinely enjoyable and relaxing tone. Its eclectic personality begs for the love theme to be separated into its own extended suite of 10+ minutes. The score has only been released once. Paired with The Poseidon Adventure and the essential opening music from Conrack, The Paper Chase was presented on an early Film Score Monthly entry in 1998 in varied sound quality. Only some of the classically-inclined cues are in stereo while all of the love theme renderings are in mono. This limited and rare album, despite presenting the music out of film order, is wholly sufficient as a representation of this charming but ultimately somewhat anonymous score, and Williams' music didn't survive to inform the subsequent television series.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 31:14

• 1. Love Theme from The Paper Chase** (2:37) • 2. The Passing of Wisdom*** (3:06) • 3. Bach: "Little Fugue" in G minor*** (2:05) • 4. Be Irrational* (2:55) • 5. Kevin's House (source) (2:32) • 6. Hart in a Hurry (1:16) • 7. Thinking of Susan/Kingsfield's Study/The Empty Classroom (3:12) • 8. Kevin's Tutor (source)(3:36) • 9. To the Hotel*** (2:02) • 10. Telemann: Concerto in D Major (Allegro) **/*** (1:39) • 11. Real Identity/Into the Sea* (3:35) • 12. End Title* (2:38)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes detailed analysis about the score and film.

Copyright © 2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Paper Chase are Copyright © 1998, Film Score Monthly and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/22/24 (and not updated significantly since).