A Score/Sound Approach to Jurassic Park (1993)
[Contains spoilers]
Jurassic Park (1993) – Score/Sound
Last week I took an unexpected week off. I was in London for a personal trip to be with loved ones at both difficult and joyful times in their lives, and we were all set to come home on Monday morning, but the Northeast US was rudely in the midst of a blizzard. Because it was a personal trip, I didn’t have my laptop, so I couldn’t share with you all what I am about to share in this review: while we were in London, we got to see Jurassic Park (1993) at the Prince Charles Cinema (my favorite cinema) and it was extraordinary.
Spoiler: I wasn’t going to write about Jurassic Park for Review Roulette so I didn’t spin the wheel before seeing it. But, in the conversations I had afterwards with the friends we saw it with, I realized I wanted to write about the sounds in the film. I know I did this recently for The Defiant Ones (1958), but bear with me.
So, if you’re a consistent reader, you know that I really love a good cinema-going experience, not only for the popcorn, but the popcorn plays a big role. I love experiencing a film with strangers and sometimes even step out of the cinematic immersion to observe my fellow viewers. That happened several times in Jurassic Park because there was a child in front of me who, in my opinion and likely theirs, was too young to be watching Jurassic Park. This poor little cherub was terrified and kept turning to their parents saying it was time to go, they wanted out of this experience.
Now, I was never a parent of a young child, and I am not criticizing these parents. They stayed until the end and the kid was never screaming in terror like the piercing scream of Richard Attenborough’s granddaughter in the film, they were just asking to leave. And seeing it through the eyes of a child – or trying to – made me watch and listen to the film in a new way. I think the Jurassic Park score is going to stick with that kid for life in a way that it doesn’t for me because of that fear.
When I hear the Jurassic Park theme, I think of my best friend from first grad school because of an inside joke about the theme. It’s funny and playful and I fully forgot Jurassic Park is supposed to be scary because of the association I have with the music.
This might not be interesting to anyone else, but I find this fascinating: I am not a horror person. I hate being scared, I don’t understand why anyone would welcome the feeling of unpredictable terror, but that’s one for my therapist. But seeing that child react to Jurassic Park, I realized I’ve never seen that movie as a potential vehicle for terror until that point. That’s the magic of a cinema-going experience: you’re welcomed into the perspectives of others in a meta way you weren’t expecting when you walked in.
So, let’s talk about this a little. This might be a controversial thing to say, but I think that without the John Williams score and sound design, Jurassic Park is a bog standard action/thriller. I think the score and sound editing elevate this film significantly into the excellent film that it is. It’s difficult to imagine a film without a score, especially one as famous as John Williams’s here, but try to picture the scene of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum seeing the dinosaurs for the first time without the music building gently into a beautiful, epic, swelling of emotions. It can’t possibly work with any other music, and the internet has tried.
(I am, admittedly, a huge John Williams fan, but I do think that Jurassic Park is one of his most successful scores that dramatically elevates the film it is attached to, as is his job. I mean, look at Jaws (1975). That man is just a genius.)
For sound design, Ben pointed out that the climax of the film only works because of careful misdirection with sound. When Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and the kids are surrounded by velociraptors and all hope seems lost, the T-Rex suddenly crashes through the wall like the prehistoric Kool-Aid Man and oh yeahs all the velociraptors. Throughout the whole movie, whenever the T-Rex is coming, the film draws suspense. We see ripples in water glasses and puddles, the immense form of the T-Rex causing mini-earthquakes with each step. The soft thud of its foot meeting the ground heard in the distance starts to grow louder as it nears the camera, echoing in the silence demanded of fear. (Coincidentally, this suspense in the sound design around the T-Rex was one of the points the small child in front of me wanted to nope out of the theatre). We’re always made aware of the T-Rex’s approach, and crucially, with no music, just roars and fear.
Until we’re not. I can’t go back to see if there are ripples in glasses or listen for a tremor in the earth because I saw Jurassic Park in a cinema. I can’t rewind because my reaction in the moment was the intended reaction for a person seated in a theatre with only one chance at a time to view the film. And when it came to that climactic moment, I was fully immersed in the scene, allowing the music and fear and tension to guide my attention, narrow my senses, and pull me into the film, momentarily thinking, “how do they get out of this?” even though I know it’s the T-Rex. But because of all of this impressive sound design and the score, my emotional response took over my logical thoughts, and because we had been guided the whole film to know exactly when a T-Rex was coming, due to that same sound design, the appearance of the T-Rex is a genuine shock, even when you know it’s coming on subsequent viewings. That’s the magic of cinema right there, and, specifically, the magic of sound design.
I think the kid in front of me ultimately enjoyed the film, they left smiling after the credits started to roll, hopefully having reached a healthy level of fear with parents they feel comfortable and safe with. And I appreciated the opportunity to watch the film through their eyes, not my nostalgic glow for inside jokes and jump scares that have been diluted by the presence of Jeff Goldblum and the weight of his delightful public persona in the decades since. It’s easy and normal to watch a film with all the complexities of us layered over the film-watching experience, but it’s really nice to be surprised sometimes and taken out of the film momentarily so you can re-immerse yourself with a renewed perspective.
Anyway, the score and sound design are brilliant. Jurassic Park still slaps. Cinemas rock. If you have the time and the money and the desire, I hope you can treat yourself to a nice cinema-going experience sometime soon. Hopefully with an old classic being freshly shown to a new generation who are 100% not ready for it but end up smiling anyway as John Williams’s score ushers them from the theatre.
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