WALTER MURCH - “THX 1138″ audio tracks/sound design (1971)

One of my absolute favorites from the 1970s and certainly one of the great dystopian sci-fi efforts, “THX 1138″ was George Lucas’s first feature film, and is a dense, swirling mass of technology, technobabble and cold, hard humanity. Allmovie sez:

In a 1984-esque white-washed future underground dystopia where sexuality is banned, all humans sport shaved heads and the same shapeless outfits as they go about their work in a mandated state of sedation, listening to exhortations to “Buy and Be Happy.” Black-clad robot cops chant a mantra to their victims that “everything will be all right” and automated confessional booths emit soothing therapeutic bromides. But unbeknownst to THX 1138 (Robert Duvall), his roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) has been reducing their meds, resulting in their mutual discovery of love and THX’s subsequent imprisonment for drug evasion and sexual misconduct. Determined to find the pregnant LUH, THX breaks out of prison with the help of his cellmate SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence) and an escaped TV hologram (Don Pedro Colley).

The vision of sound editor/co-writer Walter Murch (who would later establish himself as one of the cinema’s top picture/sound editors, with Coppola on “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now”) is equally as important as that of Lucas here, since the film’s sound design is so thick with detail and information that it easily stands on its own as a radio play with almost no dialogue, or a concept album way ahead of its time!

I grabbed this download from some other blog about two years ago, and I honestly can’t remember which blog it was, or I’d credit it here.

NOTE: This is not a rip of the CD release of the Lalo Schifrin score to the film. This is instead an extended compilation of audio rips from the 2004 DVD release of the film, and mainly highlights the work of Murch instead. I’m gonna try to track the Schifrin CD down, and also get that up here at a later date — it’s been difficult to track down.

Walter Murch - “THX 1138″ audio tracks/sound design (ZIP file)
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“THX 1138″ on DVD
Walter Murch on Amazon.com

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