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Posted: |
Oct 11, 2014 - 5:48 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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Maybe some of you can post what I call REVISITING SOUNDTRACK X topics. I don’t care if any “revisiting” scores were previously discussed. These topics would perhaps be about new discoveries you’ve made while returning to a certain score. Maybe the topics would just be about the joy this revisiting has brought the listener. Such topics might educate others. Maybe no one will respond, but perhaps you may engender curiosity about a score or just find comradeship in your sharing.
For the last two days, I have revisited Jerry Goldsmith’s LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. What a marvelous score. Also, I did make some new discoveries. I always loved the main theme so I usually just listened to track two, the main title, and then skipped to track 21 called “Run For It” to hear the main theme beautifully integrated into a fabulous action track. The main theme reminds me a lot of the theme from the newly released RIO CONCHOS. Different melody but somewhat similar in orchestrations. It is a great theme that Goldsmith deftly and brilliantly expands and varies throughout the whole score. First it is a straight main theme. Then it becomes a jaunty almost comedic theme. Throughout much of the score, he slows the theme to perfectly depict the ever evolving loneliness and isolation of the Kirk Douglas character. If you loved "The River” from RIO CONCHOS, you will love “Run For It.” It’s Goldsmith action music at its best. Some music in this track emulates “telegraphing” sounds as the law closes in on Douglas. Finally, when Douglas rides through the trees, Goldsmith gives us a galvanizing, rousing rendition of his main theme. I just wish this part was longer or used more often.
What I discovered was that this is not a monothematic score. Track 3 introduces at least two, perhaps three themes, and again it has a fun, stirring variation of his main theme. I can’t stop playing this track, and I’m sorry I missed it for so many years. It is a great album by a masterful composer. I believe that this is the score that Herrmann heard during rehearsals, and he told Goldsmith the music was too good for the movie. Actually I thought the movie was well-done enhanced by masterful music.
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Thank you for revisiting this one so eloquently, Joan. It is one if my favorite Goldsmith scores and made even better by accompanying one of my favorite films that he scored.
Yavar
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Joan and mgh, since we are the "River" triplets, I had to chime in here. But this time with a counter-view.
Much as I love Rio Conchos, I have tended to think of "Lonely..." as one of Goldsmith's last "early" scores where he is still developing his signature sound, and haven't given it much attention. But thanks to this thread, and to support my two amigos, I'm giving it another listen right now (I mean, it's in my iPod, so I'm still a card-carrying member....)
This is probably because I'm not sold on the movie - I find it tiresomely "serious" and self-righteous in the way of a number of mid-century Hollywood films. This almost always puts me off even if the movies are quite fine in other respects, as this one certainly is. (Face in the Crowd is another example, I start out wanting to like it and then I become quite irritated by its attitude.)
So for me this really is a revisiting, but with more attention this time.
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Posted: |
Oct 12, 2014 - 5:19 PM
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By: |
mgh
(Member)
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Joan and mgh, since we are the "River" triplets, I had to chime in here. But this time with a counter-view.
Much as I love Rio Conchos, I have tended to think of "Lonely..." as one of Goldsmith's last "early" scores where he is still developing his signature sound, and haven't given it much attention. But thanks to this thread, and to support my two amigos, I'm giving it another listen right now (I mean, it's in my iPod, so I'm still a card-carrying member....)
This is probably because I'm not sold on the movie - I find it tiresomely "serious" and self-righteous in the way of a number of mid-century Hollywood films. This almost always puts me off even if the movies are quite fine in other respects, as this one certainly is. (Face in the Crowd is another example, I start out wanting to like it and then I become quite irritated by its attitude.)
So for me this really is a revisiting, but with more attention this time.
I hope it works for you, Sean; it is a great film and a great score.
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Since there are so many cues on the Varese release, I appreciate you highlighting these particular tracks, Joan. Everything you say is right about these.
It may be that I have come to this score late in my Jerry G. listening, since it features so many of the ideas and approaches he continued to hone later, it feels familiar when of course it was quite new when originally released. I think another reason this is lower on my list is that I'm not as fond of the main tune. This is a mysterious thing that I've long noticed - how easily I prefer one theme over another by the same composer, even in the same genre.
Anyway I'll give it some more attention.
And I love our picture...why, you're a beautiful actress who is playing one half one of the best song writing teams ever whose husband is played by Oscar Levant. Of COURSE you look silly.
while I look, well, I'll let my avatar speak for me.
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Yes, I understand the main theme issue. It's a more subtle one and doesn't wow you right away but keep listening because it grows on you. It's now one of my favorites, a powerful and emotional sibling of Jerry's later Rambo theme. Strong yet very melancholic and moving. I must say however my favorite tack of the score is #11, Worlds Apart...for the sort-of love story of the film. Full of such poignant regret. One of his best cues ever IMO.
To me this score is 100% mature Goldsmith, a five star masterpiece which stands up well against any of his later masterpieces.
Yavar
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Plus, a bit of the theme sounds like, or is harmonized like, Star Trek TMP's main theme. I'm not listening right now, so I can't say exactly what, I'll try to figure out later.
Love those composer thumbprints all over their work.
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) 
