Newman CD Reviews

MEET JOE BLACK ***

Music by Thomas Newman

Universal UD-55229. 20 tracks - 52:01

For Martin Brest's last film, the wonderful Scent of a Woman, Thomas Newman produced one of his best scores, so it was with great anticipation that I was looking forward to his music for Meet Joe Black. And Newman didn't disappoint. The score opens with an ominous, short track that had me panicking a little, but from then on normal service is resumed. "Everywhere Freesia" is a bright, breezy scherzo that the composer does so well, complete with his trademark woodwind and bells.

The third track, "Walkaway," will delight older listeners, for the string sound Newman manages to draw from his orchestra is more than a little reminiscent of the classic sound his father Alfred used to create so often. The rest of the score continues in a very similar vein, irresistibly recalling the finer moments of the composer's scores to Little Women and Oscar and Lucinda. A gorgeous piano theme is used in "Cold Lamb Sandwich" that sounds just perfect.

However, it's not all rosy. As is the case with so many of the composer's scores, many of the tracks are very short; this means that there is rarely any time for any real development of any of the cues, and after a while this becomes a little frustrating - Newman states a nice melody but then, rather than repeating and developing it as one would expect from most composers, it simply ends and we're moving on to the next track.

Another problem is that, unlike most of Newman's scores, there is no memorable theme. There are two or three particularly attractive melodies, but nothing that grabs you as particularly memorable; indeed, this reviewer would be hard-pressed to remember any musical phrase from the score at all once the disc has ended. Several instrumentals of well-known pieces of music that are placed through the score hardly help - it's quite a shock to get a jazzy version of "Let's Face the Music and Dance" or "What a Wonderful World" in the middle of Newman's carefully-constructed musical atmosphere, and they shatter it.

The last track of score eliminates all the problems I mentioned above - it is ten minutes long and includes all the main themes. It would be a great way of ending the disc; it's a pity, therefore, that instead, the CD ends with an instrumental of "Somewhere over the Rainbow."

--James Southall

Music by Randy Newman

Varese Sarabande VSD-5998. 17 tracks - 31:08

It takes more than a great movie to make a blockbuster. It takes a myriad of intangibles: the stars (of the film, that is), the weather, and the mood of the public as shaped by current events. Part The Truman Show and part Back to the Future, Pleasantville was a well-executed high-concept film that just didn't leave the yard. For one thing, movies about television are always handicapped at the box office, and telling the audience that they should be grateful for things they take for granted -- like imagination and personal liberty -- is never welcome.

Randy Newman used to score one movie every seven years, and people would say, "He's great! Why doesn't he score more movies?" Then he did, with varying degrees of success: the bloated comedy western Maverick, the animated Toy Story and James and the Giant Peach, and the action film Air Force One -- the latter a fiasco when Newman's score was rejected. Pleasantville is a reminder of why Newman is so highly regarded, and a shining example of his talent. The "alternate universe" of the movie is precisely the casting the composer needs in order to exercise his favorite styles: ragtime and early jazz (which influence the theme for the Pleasantville "TV series"), Americana (as in the apple pie values of the world-within-the-show -- best exemplified his rousing theme for the kitten-rescuing firemen), and an almost Golden Age sentimentality. More than his cousins David and Thomas, Randy grew up in the presence of uncles Alfred and Lionel at 20th Century Fox, and his scores show an affection for the lost art of Hollywood symphonic scoring. This is part of the problem in his animated scores, which seem overly interested in technical proficiency, but makes him perfect for the emotional awakening of Pleasantville, which deals with broader gestures.

Pleasantville involves two modern-day teens (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon, in excellent performances) being injected into the static world of a '50s sitcom and bringing color to it -- literally, in a brilliant, story-driven use of optical effects -- by introducing sex and culture. Unfortunately, along the way, the movie jettisons its early comedic ambitions, confuses its focus of which female character is the lead (Witherspoon, or her TV mom, played by Joan Allen), and ends up as a transparent racial allegory. Newman's job is to score the characters' emerging emotions, and while his early cues are all over the map as far as tone (the ones involving the ragtime or Copland-esque material), once the score develops it provides several chunky pieces of tender and evocative music.

We take for granted that film music, as music, used to have beginnings, middles and ends, with colors and counterpoints uniquely associated with specific passages. There have been dozens of "feel good" scores in the last year alone, all with crashingly emotional melodies and climactic moments -- and they all stink. Pleasantville is like a John Williams score in that it does not merely ape instrumentation, but provides real pieces of music. There's only one fly in the ointment, which is that the primary "awakening" theme is clearly based on Danny Elfman's Edward Scissorhands, with the same I to iii progression also heard in John Barry's Peggy Sue Got Married -- it's gotta be white-bread suburbia that simply sounds this way to film composers. Director Gary Ross practically took the blame for forcing Newman to imitate the temp while introducing the composer at a recent ASMAC event.

Pleasantville the film also boasts a bunch of songs, which, while mostly classic works cleverly placed, contribute to its awkward shifts in tone. They are collected on the song album from Clean Slate/Work/Sony Music Soundtrax (OK 69626, 12 tracks, 47:44, ****), headlined by the Fiona Apple performance of Lennon and McCartney's classic "Across the Universe." It's such a great song, it almost doesn't matter who sings it, and I like this new version. Apple also sings "Please Send Me Someone to Love," not used in the film. Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Miles Davis (playing the classic "So What") are among the other artists represented; one of the clever, subtle things about the songs is that they progress from real '50s antiques to some of the most famous signposts of the modern era to come. Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," for example, a huge hit in the previously alien time signature of 5/4 -- the same thing that distinguishes classic TV themes "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Mission: Impossible" -- slyly underscores a long sequence of Maguire's character casually introducing literature to amazed diner patrons. And all you need to hear is Elvis's voice to know that something's a-rockin' in this formerly static environment.

The song album is capped off by an 8:11 suite from Newman's score (either the end title edit or a close cousin thereof), which as a concise statement of his themes almost tops the score album. Both CDs come recommended from this engaging, sophisticated film, which will likely develop a cult audience in the years to come.

--Lukas Kendall

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