The plot of Seventy Years Back in Time is not complicated: Richard, a budding playwright, meets a mysterious old woman at a party who gives him a gold watch and tells him to come back to her. Eight years later, while on vacation in an old hotel, he finds an old photo of an actress, on which the heroine is so beautiful and noble. It turns out to be the same old woman who gave him the pocket watch, and she has passed away. Richard went back in time to meet her through hypnosis. The happy time they spent together was so short that Richard accidentally went back to the hotel. A distraught Richard locks himself in his hotel room and sits in a daze, still clutching the antique pocket watch in his hand.
The charm of this movie can by no means be appreciated by just looking at the plot. It is a tender and sentimental love movie with a lot of subtlety and elegance, which is a classical romantic approach that is nearly extinct in love movies. Compared with similar movies, such as "Love You Through Time", the classical atmosphere of the movie is even more obvious. The movie does not use props such as a time machine, but goes back 70 years through hypnosis. Instead of the love between two people, it is more of a wishful fantasy of this hero. This fantasy overwhelms him, and the last shot is a dreamy scene in which the heroine waits for him in front with a smile on her face. And he is deep in lost love in his hotel room. Whether it's a fantasy, or a real transcendental love affair, this obsession with love is exactly what impresses the audience. The irreparable tragedy of love puts both parties in deep mourning. What is really touching is not the miracle of their transcendence of time and space, but the courage they need to muster up to love each other y, and beauty is the motivation for the consequences of all this, and also the beginning of the tragedy. After watching the movie, it really leaves the viewer confused as to whether this is just a dream or not, but, to a certain extent, life itself is a dream.
For this movie, the first thing that has to be mentioned is the two male protagonists, for the majority of fans they are undoubtedly legendary characters: Superman - Christopher Reeve and Colonel - Christopher Plummer, each of whom has occupied an important position in the history of cinema. important place in movie history.
And the film's theme music, "Theme From Somewhere In Time," composed by John Barry, ended up becoming as much of a classic as the film, and it's one of the key souls of the production, a tender and sentimental, lingering piece for piano and orchestra. The piece was used by the director as an important musical prop, serving as a spiritual link between the hero and heroine across time and space. Another piece that has been talked about a lot is an excerpt from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, re-arranged by John Barry, which appeared a few times in the early part of the story. This piece is a piano and orchestral work completed by Russian composer Rachmaninoff in 1934, based on the theme of the 24th Violin Rhapsody of Italian violinist Paganini, which is a piece that the protagonist, Richard, likes very much, but which Rachmaninoff did not write before 70 years ago. years before Rachmaninoff had composed it, so when Richard hums it in front of Alice, although Alice knows Rachmaninoff, she doesn't recognize the piece. On a side note, this tune is so early in the movie that many people mistake Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for the theme music of the movie, but the real theme music throughout the movie would be Theme From Somewhere In Time, which is something to keep in mind.
In 1972, at Millfield University, young playwright Richard Coryell meets a mysterious, demure old woman at a party celebrating the successful premiere of his work. She puts something in Coryell's hand, whispers to him, "Come back to me!" Then she floated away. The companions asked Coryl who it was, but he didn't know. Spreading out his palm, he saw that it was a delicate pocket watch.
This is the beginning of the 1980 American romantic fantasy film "Back in Time" -- a gentle, sentimental, lingering solo fiddle melody plays and the camera switches.
The thoughtful old woman returns home to her lakeside apartment in a grand hotel. She locks herself in her room. Records begin to spin on an old record player, and the stirring strains of "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" float out. She sits tearfully in her rocking chair, holding the program for the show she has just seen: "Too Much Spring", a stage production of "Springtime", written by Richard Coryell. A frustrated, enraptured smile spreads across her face.
The tender and sentimental piano concerto from "Seventy Years Back in Time" is a gentle and touching piece of music, like a gentle finger across the heart, like gazing into the eyes of a young girl's feelings, which lingers for a long time through space and time....... John Barry's re-arrangement of this piece is really quite charming.
As the camera superimposes, the volume appears to build, and the music transitions uninterruptedly from the old woman's vintage record player to the floorstanding combo stereo in Richard's modern Chicago apartment eight years later. A monumental piece of music traveled through time and space, connecting two hearts forever searching for each other in solitude, and the storyline unfolded .......
Richard in a kind of inexplicable irritation turned off the jukebox, pulled off the typewriter did not write down the paper, driving out. Outside the city, driving on the sunny highway, the music became elegant and smooth, in contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city's sound, instead of words to describe the protagonist's changing mood. When he passes the sign for the "Grand Hotel", he stops for some reason, and as he reverses, the car backs up to the fork in the road leading to the Grand Hotel, and the old woman's theme motifs from the fiddle solo are played as a mysterious reminiscence and summoning.
Without realizing it, Richard has already embarked on a road to the past, and the gentle, lingering motif of the fiddle solo is another variation on the theme, as the second section of the soundtrack moves into the time-reversal theme. This is the first time this melody has appeared in a film, and it is one of the most popular and widespread pieces not only in John Barry's own filmography, but in the world of film music as a whole.
The structure of the "Back in Time" theme is distinctly Barry: beautiful and refreshing, with a soft flute solo accompanied by a serene harp playing a sing-songy melody, and strings that enter unobtrusively with a warm, lingering feeling, before replacing the flute with bright tones. The strings enter unobtrusively, bringing a warm, lingering feeling, and then replace the flute with a bright tone that expresses the unquenchable passion of the heart. When the melody is reproduced on the solo piano in soft, delicate tones, it invariably evokes a sense of loss and sadness from a distant time and place.
Richard senses someone watching him in the hotel showroom, a subtly slow-moving, subjective shot from the audience's point of view. He looks back and is immediately drawn to the warm gaze of a young woman in a photograph on the opposite wall. As he steps closer to the photograph, he passes through a dazzling beam of light coming down from the upper left-hand corner of the room, a shot designed to give the audience a real sense of being transported to another world, and the stirring melody of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is repeated in this scene. The melody of "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" reappears in this scene .......
He approached her slowly in the light of the dusty daylight, trying to see why the face that had been hanging on the wall for decades was still there, a smile frozen in the past, but as if it were stuck in the present day. At the moment of meeting, he was pinned in time, unable to move. No one knows why there is no name underneath the picture that captivated Richard, and he is determined to find out. Richard began to search for all the traces of the past of the woman who had haunted him, and in the library he finally discovered that the owner of the photo was the very famous actress and performance artist Alice McKenna, and when he saw the last photo taken of her in her old age, he was shocked, it turned out to be the same mysterious woman who had given him the pocket watch, the magician, who had sculpted her face, making their short-lived meeting a goodbye. The magician, who carved her face, turned their brief meeting into a farewell.
The hotel doorman on his déjà vu, he visited Alice's former residence in Alice's deep sense of déjà vu, Alice had regarded as life of the piece of pocket watch, the music box to play the song is Alice's favorite piece of music "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini", her bookshelf is placed in the Richard went to college, a book written by the professor of philosophy "TRAVELELEL". On her bookshelf was a book written by Richard's philosophy professor in college, "TRAVELS THROUGH TIME", and he felt more and more that his destiny was inextricably linked to this beautiful woman. Eventually, he from the hotel attic on the top floor of the passenger register found in his own had in June 28, 1912 signature, in order to witness this love across time and space, he in accordance with the style of 70 years ago the popular dress stop, do all the preparations, without turning back to start their own journey through time and space.
Music in the process of participating in this narrative is more typical of the "synchronization of sound and picture" approach.
Richard, after consulting his philosophy professor, makes several unsuccessful attempts to enter a special state of sleep. The composer then repeated an intermittent, hesitant melody in the fiddle part over a dark, hazy background of (C minor) bass strings. A similarly cautious fragment on the piano, inserted from time to time, and the relative tonal instability of this section of the music, heightened the mood of trance and anxious longing, revealing accurately and graphically Richard's situation and state of mind at this moment.
When Richard finds his signature on the passenger register, the music enters another level, with the relative stretch of the melody and the relative stability of the tonality (back to C minor), showing that he has found the basis for the possibility of his own time travel, and finally feels relieved. Finally, when Richard wakes up and realizes that he has finally returned to 68 years ago, the music also rises to a higher level (to C major), contrasting with the past by the brightness and stretch of the melody, and the change and stability of the tonality, expressing the joy and excitement of the protagonist after getting what he wished for. In the green bushes by the rippling lake of that year, Richard finally meets the charming Alice, a charming and charming girl in the painting. British actress Jane Seymour, who has a mysterious air, gives the scene the right atmosphere, as she seems to be waiting for someone. Facing Richard, she asks quietly and eagerly, "Is that you, is it?"
The euphonious melody played by the weakened fiddle solo imaginatively outlines Alice's subtle, sweet, delicate profile, and the reappearance of the back-in-time theme in this scene carries with it warm, blissful overtones.
The two finally met. Despite repeated obstruction by Mr. Robinson, the manager of Alice's troupe, they still had a wonderful day at the lake with a strong artistic atmosphere and beautiful scenery. The slightly depressing and subtle cello solo seemed to be telling of the loss and longing in their hearts, and the strings with their gradually clearer tones were as smooth as a song, and the sentimental melody seemed to be pouring out the difficulty and hardship of travelling through a faraway place in space and time. ......, with the spring-like arpeggios gushing out from the harp, a tune that makes people feel hearty and sweet finally appeared: A Day Together - A Day of Getting Together. The second half of the soundtrack, "A Day Together," returns to the back-in-time theme. As the two are boating on the lake, Richard can't help but hum "Rhapsody," and Alice instantly falls in love with the tune. It is through Richard that she learns and begins to love this piece of music. It's an interesting and telling detail of the movie,
which is rich in drama. We know that Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" was composed in 1934. Richard, who lived in the 1970s and 1980s, would of course have been exposed to this work, whereas Alice, who lived at the turn of the century - around 1912 - would have had no way of knowing of its existence. So she asks, "What is this piece? It's so beautiful!" This melody became for her a precious gift from the future years brought by her dream lover Richard, who was destined to change her life ...... During the evening's performance, since Richard was in the audience and thus inspired Alice, she involuntarily went out of the play and added a large part of her inner monologue. Confronted with the man of her dreams, she expresses the deep and uncontainable passion in her heart through the mouth of the heroine on stage. During the intermission, Richard, who had entered backstage, saw Alice in front of the camera taking the picture that had mesmerized him, and just at the moment Alice made eye contact with him, her face appeared to be even more radiant, revealing a brilliant, eternal smile ......
End Credits. Seventy years backward in time, but love is only consumed in this moment, like fireworks. The most unforgettable moment: the two people through thick and thin finally happy together, and together unlimited vision of a better future. However, at that very beautiful moment, Richard inadvertently pulled out a 1972 coin from his coat pocket, shattering the beautiful dream. He watched as Alice called his name in desperation and disappeared into the dark, eternal time tunnel. Desperate, Richard tries to go back in time once more, but he knows that those distant good times are gone. When the two met when the lush green tree is now dry, originally rich in romantic feelings of the beach is now placed in the garbage cans ...... reality of everything has become so unbearable, a strong sense of nostalgia in our hearts. Richard was crushed by the fact of losing Alice, but also lost the power to live, he sat in his room for a week without water. The final shot of the film shows him and Alice reuniting in a white, white heaven,
"Turn Back the Clock" Theme Reprise ......"