1998 Mint: The Year's Finest in Film Music
by Michael Ware
An annoying habit of film score geeks is the ubiquitous year-end best
list, and to be fair this one is absolutely no different than all the others
except that I wrote it. I'm going to note that I haven't gotten a chance
to experience important scores such as John Corigliano's THE RED VIOLIN
and anything by Debbie Wiseman.
1998 film music was basically avalanched by the reissues, and the most
awesome of these was perhaps the near-mythic restoration of Alfred Newman's
sublime THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. Dedicated followers of the craft
have long been immersed in the difficulties surrounding this project as
related in Ken Darby's book, HOLLYWOOD HOLY LAND, and now to have total
access to this austere masterwork of understated resonance and subliminally
powerful import, is actually worth a lifetime of gratitude to a composer
unafraid to grace his audience with a staggering profundity of compassion
and undecorative beauty. Kudos to the producers.
New works:
1. Jerry Goldsmith, MULAN: A crytalline powerhouse reconditioning of
Goldsmith's '90s minimalist haiku style, and a deft approach to animation
scoring that is awash in mood-defining color and driven home by the composer's
unmistakable sense of dramatic timing for an impact that is thrilling.
It is Goldsmith's best work since his Paul Verhoeven scores. The emphasis
is essentially one of serene contemplation for a story of a girl's self-empowerment
as a warrior, and Goldsmith responds with trademark long-lined lyricism
and his recent softness of touch (straight tonality), meeting up with the
sort of forceful action writing you'd expect from the composer of THE WIND
AND THE LION; the end result is a beautifully rounded tone poem worthy
of the verses of Li Ho. According to practitioners of Tai Chi Chuan the
more advanced one becomes the more effortless the ability to deliver force
and energy, precision focused vitality without strain. Goldsmith's compositional
tack has changed with the times, some would say simplified, but his powers
of communication and need to say essential things about human beings are
as masterful as anything composed for films in the last two decades. MULAN
is his most soulful utterance since UNDER FIRE.
2.John Morris, MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN: While on the subject of heartful
communication without sentimentality, wouldn't John Morris be the logical
choice to remind us that movies can still be about men and women making
choices and seeking actually to communicate rather than masquerade as stock
movie types acting out stock movie moments (see ARMAGEDDON, STEPMOM, etc)?
Morris will be remembered to probably a very few as the one-time house
composer for both Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, reaching some unforgettable
heights in the comedy genre (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK
HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER) and creating one of the greatest scores of the
century for David Lynch's THE ELEPHANT MAN-- a shattering work of compassion
and dignity you will remember for all of your life. The new score is for
a good telefilm mystery directed by Joyce Chopra and produced by Wilder.
Morris's music is spare, responding exactly to what his people call for
and nothing more. He is capable of creating life-affirmative intimacy as
well as real terror with the least number of notes, without making an effect
out of it, as if beyond the need to MAKE things out of his composition
(ie, past the need to create artifice for its own sake); Morris speaks
precisely to the heart of the matter, and he has my gratitude.
3. John Williams, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN: Williams's take on the John Morris
genre, an austere spiritual envoy which speaks to the totality of the experience
beyond words. In some ways it is beyond music, and though the drubbing
this score took was simply a mistake on the part of critics trapped by
their own expectation, this is likely the most redundant score in Williams's
career; however, the faint rumblings and barely articulated whispers of
score serve their purpose as a way into the film, and a lifeline out of
it. Finally it too is simply a profound resonance. "Hymn to the Fallen"
is a worthy testament and one of the glories of Williams's career.
4. Lalo Schifrin, RUSH HOUR: Schifrin's celebrated return to the Kung
Fu genre is the most entertaining film music of '98, the overwhelming first
impression is a kind of amazement that this kind of upfront, detailed,
actually-- hell, DELIBERATELY composed orchestral score is even possible
in our world of post-ABBA glitzy affectless production value drone scores
(my apologies to whomever is offended by that, but if you have an opinion
USE IT). Schifrin's ENTER THE DRAGON has the accumulated charisma of several
generations of fanatical admirers, and is a deserving icon, but RUSH HOUR
has the benefit of a far more dramatically interesting and seasoned composer
at work in a genre he might as well have been born to. Schifrin responds
to the jaded '90s by playing the whole film as a dazzling reinvention of
a past style, part parody and then full-force as a straight action score
defined by Schifrin's unequalled way with asiatic influences (internally
incorporating appropriate scales into a Stravinskyesque modern structure
punched out with 90's funk in place of DRAGON's Mayfield licks). The Aleph
CD is better than your first hit of crack! (I'm kidding.)
5. THE HORSE WHISPERER, Thomas Newman: I could have included Elliot
Goldenthal's THE BUTCHER BOY for a fascinating exercise in dramatically
potent postmodern musical-dramatic ideology and art. I didn't because I
preferred Newman's best soundscape work since THE PLAYER, and the ideology
of the Redford film is something valuable to the survival of all life on
the planet, specifically the need for understanding (empathetic) dedication
to living beings regardless of species or whether you feel like riding
them around or eating them. Many people were outraged at the dismissal
of John Barry from this flic, but Newman's score is everything this film
is about, a spiritualized, mostly serene, latently fierce, communion between
women, man, and horse.
Noted:
Elliot Goldenthal, THE BUTCHER BOY: See above.
Jerry Goldsmith, DEEP RISING: Overt response to a blatantly cheesy film,
that also brings out Goldsmith's best mercenary intensity plus an intoxicatingly
B-grade rhythmic title theme, almost makes up for the relative lack of
form. Can't wait for THE MUMMY.
Jerry Goldsmith, STAR TREK INSURRECTION: First rate and beautifully
structured, including a softer approach to vintage Goldsmith action writing
and a form of reconciling oppositions, a good take on Paradise Lost but
with a happier ending!
Tan Dun, FALLEN: Initial film assignment for the esteemed composer of
the Hong Kong Symphony 1997. I hope he gets a better project.
John Williams, STEPMOM: Good but no comment.
Hans Zimmer, THE THIN RED LINE: Nice sounds, but no comment.
Christopher Young, URBAN LEGEND: Big score from one of the current best.
This is the stupidest movie I saw last year (that wasn't called ARMAGEDDON),
but Young's trademark way with horror overcompensates with complex orchestrations
and a jagged paganistic attack.
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