Fox Classics: Ben and Jerry's

by Doug Adams, the Voice of Reason

Last week was a good one for film music fans, as it saw the long-awaited release of two extremely fine scores on CD--Jerry Goldsmith's brutal, ferociously modernistic Planet of the Apes, and Bernard Herrmann's limpid, otherworldly Journey to the Center of the Earth. Not only do these two scores make for fine listening away from the movie, but they are two of the most captivating evocations of filmic settings ever written.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth was one of the very first films I ever saw. It seemed to be in constant rotation with Fantastic Voyage on a local station during my childhood, and I caught it every time. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the simple story is exactly as the title tells it: a group of explorers goes to the center of the earth, then leaves. A recent re-watching of this film showed me that years of fond memories had given this film a few degrees of unwarranted polish (at one point an Icelandic coachman uses an accent resembling Hans and Franz on a bad night), but Herrmann's score still stands strong. I wonder what a composer would do with this film today. Jules Verne's plot (assuming it hasn't been changed much from the book, which I admit I've never fully read) is fun, but very much of-the-moment. There is very little by the way of setting up conflict which will come to a head later. The film is constructed in a series of small steps--someone says they're going to do something, then they do it. It's not shot glamorously, it's just documentary filmmaking with nice sets, and a fictional plot. Therefore, we've eliminated almost everything that modern film composers use as their access into a film--the action, the plot, the conflict, etc.

Herrmann's choice is to use the score as the setting. This is different from actually scoring the setting, because that would involve a reaction to it. Herrmann is not scoring character's responses to the setting and he's not scoring any cerebral or opinionated thoughts about it. He's simply mobilizing a pallet of colors which become synonymous with the setting itself. They represent it rather than comment on it. The result is that it never feels like, "oh this level of the underground is scary level," or "this is the happy level." In fact, the messages the settings carry are never expanded on past what the characters tell us, but somehow their boundaries are broadened. They exist on more than just the visual plane, and they gain a certain depth and reality from it.

Herrmann's sounds for the center of the earth are as clever as they are basic. Instruments are relegated to their very lowest tessituras, and his patented minimalistic phrase repetition is twisted into an echo-like function. The multiple organs are also used to create the effect of great cavernous spaces with their overtone-rich timbres, while several harps produce a crystalline sparkling. Then there's the primitive blatting on the serpent for the Dimetredon and the grandfather-to Elfman's-Batman-theme, which are both used like the above material. Add a brass fanfare and some love music, and that's all there is. Herrmann doesn't need to resort to a bunch of leitmotifs to bundle his score up, he just picks his musical materials and his orchestral colors and runs with them. The result is, of course, excellent.

On CD, the score is slightly less satisfying, only because any complete presentation of a Herrmann score is going to entail a bit of repetition. Still, if you don't mind jumping through the tracks a little bit, there is an awfully rewarding experience to be found.

Planet of the Apes

Whoever at Varese decided to release Jerry Goldsmith's score to Planet of the Apes at the same time as Journey made a very clever choice. Planet of the Apes' score is used amazingly similarly in its film--it's not about conflict or about Taylor's quest. And why should it be? There is nothing deficient about the way these things are presented in Schaffner's film. Once again, the music is about the setting, about the unfamiliar social structure, and about the kineticism of the chases. It's seeps totally inside the film because it becomes so much a part of these elements that they would be radically altered in nature without the depth the score carries.

Musically speaking, I consider Planet of the Apes one of the finest film scores ever written. There is not a misplaced note in the score. Everything in arranged and developed with total creative brilliance. Over the years, this score has become a sort of a watermark for those who can stomach more modernistic music. It's like the secret handshake of film music. I don't really understand why. Even if you aren't immediately familiar with the harmonic languages that Goldsmith is using, the score presents its most important thematic material in a very straightforward way. And as complex as the rhythms often are, they never lose their visceral thrust. Maybe this score should be used instead as a testing ground for one's dedication to the art of creativity. After all, is the sound of a flute playing a major scale really inherently more beautiful than clacking elephant bells, or steel mixing bowls, or tone clusters in string harmonics, or unwinding spools of low octave piano notes? Or do we just seek out familiarity when challenged. Listen to this CD and learn from it, folks. Listen to the disco in the Escape from the Planet of the Apes suite and hear it as music--organized sound--rather than some cultural ambassador from a humorously outdated past. This is how film music should be done.

Obviously, both these CDs earn very high recommendations from me. The packaging is very nice with special accolades going to the liner notes by Steven C. Smith and FSM's own Jeff Bond. Hats off to Varese for producing two absolutely must-hear CDs.

Comments? Just want to use my new address? Doug@filmscoremonthly.com