Titanic

Ofcourse when one thinks of the Titanic they think of the theme song sung by Celine Dion, "my heart will go on," given the plot of the film it fits perfectly given that although Jack is dead, Rose still has faith in love. It is a song that keeps the viewers coming back and wanting to watch the hopeless love story for a second time. 

There are however, many other leitmotif's that are present in the film. The love between Rose and Jack is expressed in a leitmotif, it is softer than the other music expressed in the film and is played usually when the two are alone together. The Titanic itself also has it's own leitmotif, portraying its greatness and its magnificance considering it was to be the ship that would never sink; and then once the Titanic actually did sink, so did the leitmotif, given that it is no longer as great as it once was, and it is no longer in existance.

Along with some underscoring there is also some diegetic music being played in the film, for example when the ship is about to sink and the violinists are still playing on deck even though they know that they are about to die. Also when Rose and Jack go down to the lower deck and dance an Irish jig with the people on the 3rd class level.

The Color Purple

There is a lot of music in this film although it is not wall to wall. The music is mostly orchestra and strings. There is a lot of imitation where the music goes along with the actions of the characters in the movie. Although the theme and the mood of the characters is portrayed as sad, and lonesome the music however is playful, possibly showing that Celie's isn't always in a low state of being, but has high spirits when the time is right. There is plent of underscoring and Diagetic music is played every time they have a church scene, showing the involvement of the characters with religion. Usually you would find a movie portraying the same type of sound, or musical background but in the color purple the music varies and tends to be more diverse than other films we have watched. 

E.T.

The music in E.T. is mostly instruments that are in an orchestra, although some times the whole orchestra isn't used, the woodwinds seem to play a huge role in many of the themes. They tend to use the whole orchestra for more dramatic and overwhelming scenes, where a particualar message is trying to be conveyed. The mood of the music is more childlike and instead of using a bunch of different themes for each scene Williams does an excellent job of focusing on a single theme and using it in multiple ways, only changing it a little bit to give it it's own uniqueness. There is some Micky-mousing sound effects, for example when they are running away from each other at the beginning of the movie. There is a lot of underscoring in this movie, whether it be portrayed through the television, or a raidio it is often heard throughout the entirety of the film. There is what seems to be wall to wall music but there are scenes that do not have any music at all, and these scenes are trying to isolate a certain emotion that without music is better portrayed. For example when Elliot is sitting at the dinner table and he feels lonely because he just found out that his father had run off to mexico with another woman. With the sequencing, the underscoring, and the micky-mouse sound effects Williams work in E.T. can be comparable to the work of Steiner and the music in the film King Kong.