A Couple from Thomas Newman

The following reviews are being edited now for inclusion in the February Film Score Monthly, but here are sneak previews of what our writers had to say.

By the way--NEWS FLASH: Yes, Bruce Broughton is now the composer on Lost in Space. This represents Broughton's first major picture since probably Tombstone in 1993--also a film, curiously enough, at one time to be scored by Jerry Goldsmith.

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Red Corner ***1/2

THOMAS NEWMAN

Edel America 0037602EDL. 26 tracks - 59:28

There is a long tradition in Western film music of "the Orientalist mode." By this I mean music that incorporates certain Asian instruments or styles to reinforce the conventional image of Asia as exotic, mysterious and different. But these scores always strive, in fact, to contain, domesticate and make palatable for consumption the erstwhile strangeness of the continent. When this music goes beyond exoticism and spelling out the (Oriental) background, the result can be alienating for an American audience; for example, some of Toru Takemitsu's scores.

This tradition has been going on for so long that we have accumulated a mental database of Oriental cliches; gongs, wailing shakuhachis, and so on. However, in recent years it has become increasingly difficult for the public to accept an unreflective, unironic presentation of an Orientalist score. For example, Enter the Dragon today is appreciated as the action extravaganza it is, but if someone tries to make a serious marshal arts movie today, it wouldn't have a score like Enter the Dragon. That would be received as out of place, more appropriate for "A Fistful of Yen II."

So today, many filmmakers, in order to take an easy way out, or, conversely, out of respect for the native Asian cultures, have their movies scored with straightforward Western music, leaving Asian components for source music. But for talented and open-minded composers, this situation means a new artistic challenge. How to come up with a score that effectively convey Asianness without relying on the obviously ethnic approach or eliminating Oriental-sounding music altogether? In the last year, this challenge has been met by John Williams (Seven Years in Tibet) and Philip Glass (Kundun), each taking a very different track.

Thomas Newman also does something interesting in Red Corner, but alas, he seems constrained from departing into truly radical terrain. Since Newman is the kind of composer who remains loyal to the proceedings on the screen rather than imposing on them an ideological design of his own, the CD comes with a good deal of conventionally defined suspense music. This, however, is done in the style of '70s Goldsmith/Jerry Fielding thriller scores, with a contemporary twist, such as samples of Beijing street noises. The "Main Title" and some cues such as "Shen Yuelin" contain lovely melodies that adapt textures of Chinese string instruments, leaning in the direction of Williams's collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma in Seven Years in Tibet.

The most interesting cue is "Black," serving as the end title; it's a techno-pop, industrial rock, electric guitar-and-scratching-sound melange with an eerie female vocal that sounds awful in description, but is actually quite intriguing. It has just the whiff of Asianness, without any element obviously identifiable as Asian in origin; a darker Ryuichi Sakamoto, perhaps. -Kyu Hyun Kim

Oscar and Lucinda ****1/2

THOMAS NEWMAN

Sony Clasical SK60088. 29 tracks - 55:43

It is with great maturity and a relentless capacity for versatililty that Thomas Newman has created this magical set of compositions for Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda. Alternating between majestic orchestral flourishes and unsettling low-key atmospheres, the score offers a bounty of melodic and textural material, and will easily thrill fans of The Shawshank Redemption and Little Women.

The score opens with an expansive Main Title, "Prince Rupert's Drop," in which a minimal thematic fragment for piano, bells and pizzicato strings initially sets a surprisingly light-hearted tone that will define much of the material to follow. A wordless voice introduced into this texture then gives way to full chorus and orchestra, with a complement of bells and chimes, in one of the composer's most richly orchestrated themes to date. This principal material makes a welcome return in variations at later key moments ("The Church of Glass"), in contrast with the shorter cues developed in-between. Here, Newman has fun with several highly energetic scherzi ("Floorwashing," "Leviathan")--these pieces are scored mainly for string orchestra, but a tasteful palette of shimmering bells and the use of numerous flutes, whistles and recorders create an ethereal, almost bucolic atmosphere which benefits the score's quieter passages.

Of these, the highlights are too numerous: "The High Downs and the Sea" is entirely evocative of a cold, bleak landscape; "Never Never" blends a ghostly female voice with orchestral colors that are eerily affecting; and the so-simple pairing of piano and strings in "Two Gamblers" leaves such a heartbreaking feeling of nostalgia for these two characters, one hardly even needs the images themselves. "Six Rivers to Cross" achieves a brilliance of sound out of Newman's trademark textures--crystalline orchestrations built on deceptively simple, repeating progressions--bearing favorably comparison to the sheer buoyancy John Williams regularly achieves from his strings and brass.

This is beautiful, wonderful music--Thomas Newman at the top of his craft. -James Torniainen.

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