Next Stop...Willoughby:
Film Music Voyages in The Soundtrack Zone 1998

Film Music Voyage #3--Sojourn Across Death

by Kerry J. Byrnes

Previously On Film Music Voyages

As suggested at the outset of our two previous Film Music Voyages (#1 and #2) in The Soundtrack Zone, time travel has been a recurring plot motif in Hollywood films and television shows for over 50 years. In the "time-travel" genre, voyagers travel back to the past or forward to the future. While many films and television series point to the popularity of time travel as a plot motif, do film music enthusiasts think of time-travel films or their original scores as a distinct film genre? Soundtrack collectors readily can identify films and composers in several genres, including biblical epics, silver screen swashbucklers, Hollywood westerns, and Italian "spaghetti westerns."

In this regard, this article proposes as its central thesis that the time-travel film genre subsumes three sub-genres and that each sub-genre (more simply, genre) places its own unique demands on the composer who receives an assignment to score a film in a given genre. To explore this thesis, this article has been surveying films and film scores across the three time-travel genres, providing an empirical basis on which to compare major trends in how composers have approached scoring films from one time-travel genre to another. Based on this survey, have composers approached scoring films in one time-travel genre differently than how they have approached scoring films in the other two time-travel genres?

To answer this question, the article proposed at the outset that the time-travel genre really subsumes three distinct genres. In the first, Sojourn Across Space (Film Music Voyage #1), a film's protagonist is challenged to move through or overcome space, encountering in the process that he or she has traveled across time to another place in the past or future, typically by accident. In the second, Sojourn Across Time (Film Music Voyage #2), protagonists are challenged to overcome time by finding a way to go back to the past or forward to the future, this achieved by building a machine or employing another device to facilitate the protagonist's purposive travel through time. As we saw in Sojourn Across Time, love or a touch of romance often figures as a central plot element in many of the films in this second time-travel genre.

In the third time-travel genre, Sojourn Across Death, the protagonist faces the ultimate challenge--overcoming death. The plot hook here is the human desire to transcend time and space, the motive typically being to recapture a love lost as the result of a loved one's death. In this genre, we will examine 10 films in which death figures prominently in motivating a film's protagonist to find some way to travel across space, time, and even death to recapture a lost love or to find love anew. This entry into The Soundtrack Zone spans 52 years from 1944's Laura to 1996's To Gillian on her 37th Birthday. This stop...Sojourn Across Death!

Laura - David Raksin

David Raksin scored 1944's Laura (D: Otto Preminger), in which a beautiful young "murder victim" becomes a "prime suspect" (Charles L. Granata, VideoHound's Soundtracks, 1998, Visible Ink Press, p. 245). As detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) questions suspects and later searches for clues in the victim's apartment, we realize that he is falling in love with Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), the murder victim. This is less than subtley suggested by one of Laura's suitors, columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), who asks: "Have detectives who buy portraits of murder victims a claim to privacy? [They] told me that you already put in a bid for it." This dialogue line, however, is not what tips the audience to McPherson's growing interest in Laura. Nor is his behavior the telling clue as he searches her apartment and gazes at her portrait.

Rather the detective's emotional state is conveyed by the haunting melody that is the main and all-pervasive theme in Raksin's original score for Laura. This melody, wrote one reviewer, may be described as obsesssive "since the protagonist...becomes increasingly obsessed with her and the case and eventually falls in love with the "dead" woman. "Laura's Theme," the very icon of passion and romance, appears in virtually every cue, whether it's one of the many source cues or a part of the dramatic underscoring. Her theme is omnipresent, as in her character--even when she's not on screen" (Roger Feigelson, Soundtrack!, Vol. 13/No. 49, March 1994).

While many instrumental and vocal versions of "Laura's Theme" were recorded over the years, the score itself was not available on record until RCA's 1976 release of a 5'52" version of "Laura" on David Raksin Conducts His Great Film Scores (CD: RCA Victor 1490-2-RG). Raksin recalls in the LP's liner notes that, upon receiving the assignment to score Laura,

Raksin met a few days later with the film's director. While Raksin was not aware at the time that Preminger had been unsuccessful in getting George Gershwin's Summertime' for the film, he told Raksin he intended to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" as the theme. Raksin replied that he felt this song was not right for Laura because of the associations a familiar song would evoke in the audience. That day being Friday, Preminger agreed to give Raksin until Monday to come up with an alternative to "Sophisticated Lady." Raksin tried that weekend to compose a new melody, interrupted only by a letter he received on Saturday from his wife:

It was not until nearly 50 years after Laura's release that Raksin's original score finally became available as a 27'16" suite as the premiere CD release of the Classic Film Score Series (20th Century Fox 11006-2). Ironically, Laura is paired with 1943's Jane Eyre, scored by Bernard Herrmann who, a year later, would turn down the opportunity to score Laura, opening the door for the studio to turn to Raksin to devise his own musical "time-travel" machine. When the detective falls asleep in a chair below Laura's portrait, it is as if Raksin's haunting "Laura's Theme" has the power to bring the "dead" Laura back to life as she enters her apartment, surprising the detective who thinks, as he rubs his eyes, that he's still asleep or seeing the ghost of the woman with whom he has fallen in love but never met until now.

The late Tony Thomas wrote that Raksin made "Laura's Theme" "speak for the detective's strange obsession--the image of the beautiful girl haunts him, irritates him and moves him to anger at the killer and a determination to solve the crime. Raksin's score is one of the foremost examples of the power of music on film" (Music for the Movies, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1973: p. 163). As a small piece of trivia, and a comment on Laura's power over men, Raksin's score is supplemented by a 1938 song, "You Go To My Head" (J. Fred Coots/Haven Gillespie), used as an instrumental during the film's dance scene.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Bernard Herrmann

In 1947's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), a young widow, takes her daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) from London to live by the sea in Gull Cottage. She discovers the cottage is haunted by its former owner, Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), whose spirit appears in an unsuccessful effort to scare her off. When he cannot frighten Lucy, Daniel agrees she can stay. But Lucy's pension runs out and she must find a way to generate income, and Daniel offers to assist Lucy in writing his "unvarnished memoirs." The growing spectral love between Lucy and Daniel is jeopardized by author Miles Fairley (George Sanders) who begins to court Lucy. Facing the reality that the dashing young Fairley can offer Lucy a corporal love he cannot, Daniel decides as she sleeps to leave her so that she can lead a normal, human life. When Lucy learns that Miles is married, she returns to the cottage to live out her life by the sea as a widow and watch Anna grow and leave. After years of solitude with her faithful maid Martha, death finally takes Lucy as she sits alone in her cottage study:

Bernard Herrmann's score for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is "a superb masterwork of fantasy, brimming with beauty and compassion, and simply contains some of the loveliest music...ever heard. Emanating straight from the composer's heart, the score works directly upon ours." (Steven J. Lehti, Soundtrack!, Vol. 6/ No. 21, March 1987, p. 21). The score's prevailing texture, as described by Fred Steiner, is symphonic but with a sparing use of brass and percussion:

In many sequences the size of the orchestra is markedly reduced, and certain pieces use special orchestral colors of a limited palette, generally featuring woodwinds. Herrmann used an orchestra of 67 players, consisting of 3 flutes (doubling piccolos and alto flutes), 2 oboes (including English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bass clarinets (including contrabass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, battery, 2 harps, celesta, and strings. Following his usual custom, Herrmann orchestrated the entire score himself (Fred Steiner, liner notes, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir LP, Varese Sarabande 704.340).

Herrmann's score is first heard in the prelude, a montage of the sea sweeping across England's coast, the image and music suggesting the film's two main themes--time's inexorability and the final release of death. Several leitmotifs bring out the film's many moods--the ghost captain's sea chanty for clarinet; a rushing woodwind pattern for the eternal sea; the subdued, lonely yearning of the young widow; "the pain of frustrated desire...and...the promise of spiritual transcendence in death (Steven Smith, liner notes, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir CD, Varese Sarabande VSD-5850). As a reviewer noted, the score's most striking leitmotif connotes the timelessness of the sea, with the Sea Swells representing the passage of time as the undertows eat away and change the face of the earth,

For another reviewer the score's most striking characteristic is that Herrmann "avoided any otherwordly effect that might have seemed too obvious. Instead, he concentrated on creating a musical canvas that relied on attractive orchestral textures, sometimes pared down to only a few instruments, at other times using the full contingent of players" (Didier C. Deutsch, VideoHound's Soundtracks, 1988, Visible Ink Press, p. 165).

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir score was not issued on record until Elmer Bernstein re-recorded it for his 1975 Film Music Collection LP (FMC-4), later re-released by Varese Sarabande as both an LP (704.340) and CD (VCD 47254). Just as Daniel's patience was rewarded by a reuniting with Lucy on her death, the patient half-century wait of film music lovers to hear Bernard Herrmann's original score for The Ghost and Mrs.Muir on record was rewarded in 1997, when Fox Classic Series (Varese Sarabande VSD-5850) issued the score on CD to commemorate the film's original 1947 release, the score's lush sound as radiant today as when Herrmann composed it over 50 years ago.

Vertigo - Bernard Herrmann

1958's Vertigo (D: Alfred Hitchcock) often is hailed not only as one of Hollywood's classic films but as having one of the greatest film scores of all time. This masterpiece, also composed by Bernard Herrmann, is fortunately available in three CD versions: a 1990 reissue (Mercury 422 106-2) of the Muir Mathieson-conducted original score LP, Joel McNeely's 1996 recording of the score (Varese Sarabande VSD-5600), and 1996's remastering of the Muir Mathieson-conducted original score (Varese Sarabande VSD-5759).

Detective Scottie Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart) is hired to spy on his client's wife, Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak), with whom he falls in love after saving her from an attempted suicide by drowning. Later, struggling to overcome his vertigo, he climbs the staircase of the mission tower to prevent Madeleine from attempting suicide again, but his vertigo prevents him from reaching the top as he hears Madeleine scream and watches her fall to her death. Some time later Scottie meets a store clerk, Judy Barton (also played by Novak), who bears a striking resembance to Madeleine. Obsessed by this, Scottie takes it upon himself to transform Judy into Madeleine, this twist allowing Scottie, as it were, to turn back the hands of time, bringing Madeleine not only back to life but also back into his arms. This transformation is accompanied by "Love Music": "The music begins as [Scottie] longingly awaits her final transformation. When she at last appears, the vibrancy of the experience is expressed in the orchestra [as] the most passionate arrangement of the love theme, building to a grand crescendo with the camera all the way around their embrace." (Alan Jay Quantrill's liner notes to Mercury 422 106-2).

Kevin Mulhall's CD liner notes to Vertigo (Varese Sarabande VSD-5759) recall Herrmann's description of this transformation as the "recognition" scene, Judy presenting herself to Scottie as the second coming of Madeleine. But just as Herrmann's "Scene D'Amour" functions as a musical time-travel link between Scottie's obsession with Judy and his love for Madeleine, "The Necklace" brings Scottie back to the present as he discovers that the necklace previously worn by Madeleine is now around Judy's neck.

Romeo and Juliet - Nino Rota

While 1968's Romeo and Juliet (D: Franco Zeffirelli) may not be the classic film addressing love, death, and timeliness (if not time-travel per se), the score provided by the late Italian composer Nino Rota for Shakespeare's tale of two young lovers, Romeo (Leonard Whiting) and Juliet (Olivia Hussey), is a classic. The film's original soundtrack on CD was released several times, including a 1989 CD (Capitol CDB 792057 2) that provides both score and dialogue, and on England's Cloud Nine Records (CNR 6000) with only the score and vocals.

In Listening To Movies: The Film Lovers Guide to Film Music (Schirmer Books, 1994, p. 20), Fred Karlin writes: "Composers must always decide to what degree the historic period in which the story takes place should influence the score. There are scores that immediately evoke the period--Nino Rota's score for Romeo and Juliet, for example." While providing a separate theme each for Romeo and Juliet, the score's standout cue is "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" which also appears as the vocal "What Is A Youth." This theme is used throughout the score in key cues such as "Their First Meeting" and later in "Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow" and "Death...Hath Sucked The Honey Of Thy Breath." As the tragic story goes, their love can be saved by Juliet taking a potion to feign her death, after which she will awaken and be reunited with Romeo. Romeo, not knowing this plan, believes Juliet has committed suicide and takes his own life ("O Happy Dagger!"), after which the reprise of "What Is A Youth" is again heard.

The Reincarnation of Peter Proud - Jerry Goldsmith

In 1975's The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (D: J Lee Thompson), Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin) "is suffering from recurring nightmares of a place he has never seen, a woman he has never known, and a death so brutal and horrifying he must seek an end to the torment" (Vestron Video VA4160). He sets out to search for a home town his "other self" would recognize, and comes to believe that he is the reincarnated Jeffrey Curtis (Tony Stephano) who was murdered in 1946 on a Massachusetts lake. When Peter meets "his" widow Marcia Curtis (Margot Kidder) and daughter Ann (Jennifer O'Neill), Marcia senses she has met Peter previously. Those suspicions are fueled when she overhears him, in his sleep, repeating the words Jeff told her the night he died. Marcia's memory flashes of Jeff's abusive behavior (rape in marriage) reveal his revolting brutality and the reason why she killed him. Proud, now in love with "his" daughter Ann, realizes he can only escape the torment of Jeff's death by going back to the lake where Jeff died, where he inadvertently recreates his own death at the hands of Marcia who believes Jeff-cum-Peter has come back to haunt her and commit incest with his daughter. Given this strange plot, John Caps noted that The Reincarnation of Peter Proud tests the notion that a composer's "ability to score for concept in a picture is even better tested in a film that has no cogent concept" (SCN/20, January 1980, p. 6).

Perhaps the one composer up to the challenge was Jerry Goldsmith. While one reviewer described Goldsmith's score for The Reincarnation of Peter Proud as a "synthesized drone with hazy string sounds and sudden shocks which are very effective for brief flashes" (Barry Spense, Legend, Issue 14, Winter 1993, p. 42), another reviewer hailed it as "one of the most easily attractive, lyrically flowing scores [Goldsmith] would do in the 1970s" (John Caps, SCN/20, January 1980, p. 6). Unfortunately for soundtrack collectors, the film's soundtrack appeared only on a rare bootleg LP (Monogram JG-7711) and two obscure 45s from Italy (Cinevox MDF 089) and Japan (Victor VIP-2515).

Goldsmith's score for The Reincarnation of Peter Proud emphasizes flute and piano, backed by a strings orchestra and synthetic sounds that mix into Peter's disturbing dream world, creating a mood of "elegiac melodrama where Predestination is a sad necessity of life--at least Proud's life." The score is effective in setting the film's tone, telling us how to respond to the unfolding story. The main theme is used in several guises, including piano solos, pulsing travel music as Peter drives around Massachusetts searching for the home town of his "other self," and a yearning string moment when Peter's physician, Samuel Goodman (Paul Hecht), describes reincarnation to him. Later, a flowing new waltz theme for piano and flute is introduced when Peter plays tennis with Ann. The theme is repeated by a lush string orchestra during their love scene but even the love music reinforces a regretful, fated moodiness that is noted in another assessment of Goldsmith's score:

Obsession - Bernard Herrmann

1976's Obsession (D: Brian De Palma) was the director's homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. But the film's brilliance also owes to Bernard Herrmann's Oscar-nominated score. The composer considered this score, which consists of "two distinct elements ... romance and tension," the finest of his career. The film's score appears on two CDs (Masters Film Music SRS 2004, and Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2065) as well as the original soundtrack LP (London Phase 4 Stereo SPC 21160).

One reviewer published an insightful portrait of Obsession several years ago (Shane Pitkin, Film Score Monthly, #30/31, Feb/Mar 1993). Recorded in 1975 in a London church, the score calls for eight female singers placed with the organ in the loft at the back of the church without a microphone, while the strings, oboe, four horns, two harps, and timpani were placed at the front. Herrmann's instructions called for the organ and singers to be recorded only through the strings microphone.

The score's basis, a sighing two-note theme, is introduced in the film's title sequence by organ and horns that provide an air of foreboding and darkness, then by harp and ethereal voices. The title theme alternates between these two orchestrations until the titles end, at which point one views a party at the New Orleans home of Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson), his wife Elizabeth (Genvi‚ve Bujold), and their nine year-old daughter Amy. The Courtlands, celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary, are dancing to an eloquent valse lente derived from the two-note theme. Once the guests leave, the story shifts to the bedroom, where rapturous strings anticipate the lovemaking that is to come. Suddenly both Elizabeth and Amy are kidnapped and Michael faces whether to pay a ransom. The police advise him to substitute a transmitter for the $500,000 ransom.

Herrmann is heard at his most gripping as Michael delivers the "ransom" aboard a New Orleans river boat. This scene is scored as a perpetuum mobile for strings against an organ producing thundering counterpoint, this arrangement representing the beating of Michael's heart as well as the steady rhythm of the boat's paddle. But the rescue attempt results in the fiery deaths of Elizabeth and Amy, and a devastated Michael who builds a monument for them. The monument's construction is scored for voice and harp playing the two-note theme, until the viewer sees a title indicating that 16 years have passed. The guilt and despair wracking Michael all these years are represented by a melancholy quote from Vertigo.

On a business trip to Florence with his partner Robert Lasalle (John Lithgow), Michael visits the church where he and Elizabeth first met. There he meets Sandra Portinari (surprise, Genvi‚ve Bujold) who is an exact look-alike of Elizabeth. Michael courts Sandra as the valse lente, heard when Michael danced with Elizabeth on their tenth wedding anniversary, plays. As Michael dreams of their approaching wedding, he embraces Sandra and whispers "I've waited so long..." as unearthly passion is heard from singing strings. Then, before the wedding, Michael experiences a terrifying repetition of 16 years earlier when Sandra is kidnapped. Now Michael again must deliver the ransom aboard a river boat; however, the treacherous Lasalle has substituted paper for the ransom.

There is further surprise as the ransom is picked up by Sandra herself; she, in fact, is Amy, Michael's daughter, who did not die 16 years earlier. Believing her father to be responsible for her mother's death, Sandra plotted with Lasalle to swindle Michael out of his property. But when Sandra sees she has been wrong about her father, she attempts suicide. At the same time, Michael discovers Lasalle's treachery and kills him after a struggle that is underscored by bass pizzicati and organ against a four-note theme on the horns. Michael grabs the money and is determined to shoot Sandra but, when she sees him, she runs into his arms. Suddenly Michael realizes that Sandra is his daughter Amy whom he now holds in his arms. Pitkin describes the denouement of this De Palma-Herrmann as follows:

In his Unicorn-Kanchana CD liner notes, Christopher Palmer wrote that Herrmann scored every film with a different combination, and Obsession was no exception--"here the organ...is a principal dramatis persona, with thunderous timpani in a firm second place." This aggressive dynamic was contrasted by the use of the small choir of wordless female voices and a blend of horns, woodwinds, and strings.

Chances Are - Maurice Jarre

In 1989's Chances Are (D: Emile Ardolino), a beautiful young woman, Corinne (Cybill Shepherd), marries Louie Jeffries (Christopher McDonald) in 1963. Their marriage comes to a shattering halt a year later when Louie is killed in a car accident. Louie gets a second chance at life, agreeing to be "recycled" back to earth as newborn Alex Finch. Fate crosses the path of Alex (Robert Downey Jr.) 23 years later when, as a Yale student, he meets Miranda (Mary Stuart Masterson) who, unbeknownst to Alex, is the daughter of Louie and Corinne. Shortly thereafter Alex is graduated and heads for Washington, D.C., aspiring to become a reporter for The Washington Post. There Alex meets Philip Train (Ryan O'Neal) who was best man at Louie's wedding.

Realizing Alex is new in town and without a place to stay, Philip invites Alex to stay a few days at Corinne's home. On meeting Corinne, Alex suddenly is flooded with Louie's memories. As Louie's former existence starts to come slowly back to life, he must deal with a wife who thinks he is dead, a daughter who could be his girlfriend, and best friend Phillip who is in love with Corinne. For her part, Corinne, who has remained devoted to Louie since his death, must face the reality that Louie's spirit has returned in the body of a much younger man.

Chances Are is described by Leonard Maltin as a "surprisingly skillful blend of fantasy and romantic comedy [that] manages to maintain its sweet-natured tone from start to finish." The film's original score, provided by Maurice Jarre, is complemented by a dozen songs, including After All ("Love Theme from Chances Are"), ("Tom Snow"), first heard early in the film as a piano solo played by Louie. The popular songs in Chances Are fit the film's narrative. Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are," over the opening titles, sets the stage for Corinne's marriage to Louie. Jimmy Soul's "If You Wanna Be Happy" provides humorous comment that Philip is also in love with Corinne. When, 23 years later, Corinne hears Alex attempting to play the "After All" on the same piano, the melody helps to reinforce Louie's reincarnation as Alex.

At the benefit dance to raise funds for Corinne's exhibit at the Smithsonian, band leader Lester Lanin conducts several instrumentals-- "It's Impossible," "Night and Day," and "Strangers In The Night"--each providing comment on the unfolding story. That evening, Corinne realizes that Louie has come back as Alex as she listens to him play After All' as a beautiful piano solo; as they embrace, Jarre amplifies the melody with lush orchestral arrangement. The next morning, as Corinne lets down her hair to Rod Stewart's "Forever Young," she and Alex take off for a carefree day in Louie's VW. Later, as they start to undress one another, Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful, Wonderful" reaffirms the joy of being reunited. As bride and groom prepare to take their vows, the vocal "After All" (Cher and Peter Cetera) closes the film.

Jarre's original score and arrangements for Chances Are, plus a careful selection of popular songs, provide an effective musical "time machine" to help suspend audience disbelief in the film's underlying premise that Louie could transcend death and be reunited back on earth with Corinne. Such well known popular songs as "Strangers In The Night" (from the mid-'60s) and "Forever Young" (from the mid-80s) provide a musical bridge (or "time-travel" device) to reduce the generation gap between the early 60s and the late 80s, making it believable that Louie really has been reincarnated as Alex, and that Corinne is falling in love with Alex, a man young enough to be her son. Despite the market glut of song-filled soundtrack albums, this film's original score and songs sadly were never released as a soundtrack album.

Ghost - Maurice Jarre

1990's Ghost (D: Jerry Zucker) provided a new twist on the romantic fantasy genre, in which a dead man attempts to reunite with the woman he loved on earth. When Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) is killed and learns (in his ghostly state) that he was the victim of a botched hit, he attempts to warn his grieving girlfriend Molly Jensen (Demi Moore) that she's also in danger. The plot takes an interesting twist when storefront medium Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) is the only one who can convey Sam's messages to Molly. Sam, before he died, had told Molly he would love and protect her forever.

While Ghost was not Hollywood's first "ghostly romance", film music critic Daniel Schweiger felt the film's success was related in no small part to "the heartfelt music that plays as [Sam and Molly] bid their last goodbyes, an instrumental of their song "Unchained Melody" changing into an original, equally poetic love theme." The score for this "enjoyable mix of fantasy, thriller, and romance" was provided by Maurice Jarre, and released on two CDs (Varese Sarabande VSD-5276; and Milan ML2 35733, the latter with two bonus tracks as well as in depth liner notes).

In approaching Ghost, Jarre built on his experience in mixing orchestral and electronic music (e.g., Enemy Mine and Gorillas in the Mist) "to place his characters' symphonic humanity in a melodically alien environment. Jarre heard a similar instrumental combination for Ghost" (Daniel Schweiger, Ghost, Milan ML2 35733), one contrasting Sam and Molly's earthbound love with the ghostly realm into which Sam is thrust. Yet the image most people recall from Ghost is Sam embracing Molly at her pottery wheel, this scene being tracked by the Righteous Brothers' cover of Alex North's Unchained Melody.'

"Unchained Melody" was brought to the attention of Jerry Zucker, the film's director, by Ghost's producer. Amazed by the lyrics ("Longing for your touch."), Zucker stated: "It was as if they were written for our movie, describing a ghost who could no longer touch his lover, but desperately wanted to." However, to avoid using "Unchained Melody" every time Sam and Molly appeared on the screen, the director asked Jarre to compose a different, but equally effective, love theme that could be used throughout the film. Zucker emphasized that the alternate theme "needed to be romantic, without having the emotional pain of 'Unchained Melody'" This alternate love theme, heard for the first time in the cue "Ghost" soon turns dark as low synthesizers punctuate the fight resulting in Sam's death. The cue "Ditto" includes a refrain of the "Ghost" love theme as Sam tells Oda Mae to yell "Ditto" to Molly, a phrase he'd always used with Molly instead of "I love you." Later, when Oda tries to warn Molly that Carl (Tony Goldwyn) is on his way to Molly's place to get an account code he needs, Molly refuses to let her in.

As his girlfriend sobs, Sam asks Oda to slide his treasured Indian head penny under the door. Then before Molly's startled eyes, Sam uses all of his concentration in the material world to move the coin up her door, finally floating it into her hand. With an astonished smile and falling tears, Molly is convinced of Sam's existence. . . . It was only through [Jarre's] persistence that [his love theme] ended up in a scene ... always ... intended for 'Unchained Melody.' "I loved that scene because it was so touching, and I wanted to give it warmth with my original score," says Jarre. "I ended up giving Jerry two versions. The first used my love theme, while the other was the instrumental version of "Unchained Melody" that [Zucker had] requested. Maurice Jarre's gamble paid off when Zucker watched the penny scene with both pieces of music, and decided on the composer's love theme. "I listened to the music with an open mind, and Maurice's score just worked better. It was wonderful and fit the score (Daniel Schweiger, liner notes for Ghost, Milan ML2 35733).

Reflecting on his score for Ghost, Jarre commented that the "penny" scene without music "could have seemed unreal. But because the score worked, you completely believe in Molly's emotions. That's why film music is so interesting for me. You can say what people are feeling inside."

Defending Your Life - Michael Gore

In 1991's Defending Your Life (D: Albert Brooks), advertising agent Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) is at the wheel of his brand new BMW, driving down a Los Angeles street as he listens to Barbra Streisand sing "Something's Coming" (from West Side Story). Yes, something is coming, a bus that crashes into Daniel's car. Daniel awakes in Judgment City, a processing center for the afterlife. Daniel must prove to a tribunal that he was successful in life in overcoming his fears. Daniel's life is reviewed on videotape, allowing prosecutor Lena Foster (Lee Grant) and defense attorney Bob Diamond (Rip Torn) to access randomly episodes in Daniel's life to show whether Daniel made the most of the life he's just completed. Like Weatherman Phil in Groundhog Day, if you do not make the most of your life, you will be sent back to try until you get it right and are ready to move forward. At the comedy club, an entertainer sings "That's Life," as Daniel meets Julia (Meryl Streep), the only other young person in town. They soon fall in love, the only problem being that Daniel obviously is headed back to earth to try again, while Julia will be moving forward.

Composer Michael Gore provided the film's original score (CD: Columbia CK 47836), which provides the reassuring music you'd probably want to hear if you had to defend your life in Judgment City. The score is upbeat and brisk, picking up the pace of a film heavy on dialogue and short on action. But Defending Your Life also contains tender, romantic moods as in "First Kiss' at Julia's hotel and Do You Want To Spend the Night?' as Julia says "I love you. I'm going to miss you." Daniel, fearing Julia's loss, walks away, only to have this action used against him by the prosecutor, as the tribunal rules "You're Going Back." Daniel, despondent about losing Julia, boards a tram headed back to earth. As the tram pulls out, he spots Julia aboard another tram headed onward. Assisted by Gore's scoring of this scene, Daniel overcomes his fears, bolts from his earthbound tram, dashes across the tarmac, and jumps aboard the tram taking Julia, his love, to their next life. Gore scores this thrilling finale to Defending Your Life for full orchestra in the vein of an action film, almost as if the unfolding drama were the rescue of a damsel in distress in a Hollywood western. The score's "Finale" brings the film to a joyous conclusion; as brass and strings work their magic, Daniel overcomes his fear and is reunited with Julia.

To Gillian on her 37th birthday - James Horner

In 1996's To Gillian on her 37th Birthday (D: Michael Pressman), David Lewis (Peter Gallagher) can not let go of his wife, Gillian (Michelle Pfeiffer), who died two years earlier in a boating accident. As the tragedy fades, David deals with his grief by continuing his romance during walks with Gillian's "ghost" on the beach at night, acting as if she were yet alive as they stroll and talk about their lives. The film's score, provided by James Horner, may be heard on the soundtrack CD (Epic EK 67866).

Horner scored To Gillian using a pattern he employed in several other sentimental and small films (Field of Dreams and Searching for Bobby Fischer). While primarily synthesized/electronic, the score has its moments of fine orchestration. This mixing of electronic and acoustic instruments is heard in the soundtrack CD's first cue ("A Far Away Time/Main Title") which opens with sustained synth support for the solo french horn which

Gillian's death is underscored in "The Boating Accident" which opens "with synth support, while piano (digitally processed to have a very ethereal quality) slowly meanders until abruptly interrupted by a very harsh and digitally processed bass chord in piano, which repeats a few times, growing stronger" (Elmo, ibid.). The cue returns to the piano playing the main theme in a mood that accentuates not only Gillian's death but also Peter's sadness over his loss. The similarity to Horner's Field of Dreams score is evident in the CD's third cue, "Gillian," described by one reviewer as sounding "as if it were an out-take from Field of Dreams, having the exact same orchestration of a...soft and lovely piano melody soothingly and slowly playing over even lighter synth support. The sound and feel is identical to "The Long Drive Home" from Field of Dreams, though the themes are completely indigenous to this film" (Elmo, ibid.).

One of Horner's many fans on the World Wide Web noted that his favorite score cue is "Rachel's Dream/Gillian's Visit," which begins with linear piano playing high notes, supported with synths and a repeating note in the piano's mid range.

This piece has a very sleepy, wandering feeling, until a sense of slight urgency develops in sharper attack of the piano, quietly booming bass notes, faster playing, and finally harp supporting the piano until all stops and the harp, as if poised on the edge of a stairwell, trips down a few notes, and a flowing section continues with additional orchestration in synths and light woodwinds. Then a reverse of the build-up takes place, until all that's left is the piano, playing very pleasantly and dreamily in its mid to lower registers (Elmo, ibid.).

The soundtrack CD ends with a 12'40" cue ("Saying Goodbye/End Title") which reprises the main themes and "closes the disc in a yearning yet hopeful and upbeat manner" (Kevin McGann, Music from the Movies, Issue 14/15, Spring 1997, p. 26). While Horner's score for To Gillian works well in the film and has its poignant and emotional moments, reviewer Elmo felt the score "never successfully finds its way out of the fuzzy dream-world of glowing warmth to achieve the clarity and orchestral brightness" achieved by Horner in scores such as Field of Dreams (Elmo, ibid.). On the other hand, another reviewer found Horner's score "romantic and genteel, flowing calmly as underscore for the character-driven drama, and yet it still becomes highly emotional at times, with lush strings happily working with the action instead of saccharinely pounding you over the head with sappiness. It's a lovely socre that's one of the most restrained and elegant works in Horner's career" (Andy Dursin, VideoHound's Soundtracks, 1998, Visible Ink Press, p. 443).

Instant Replay

In moving from the first (Sojourn Across Space) to second (Sojourn Across Time) time-travel genre, film composers had to make a shift from scoring for action and science fiction, with time travel incidental to space travel, to scoring for drama and human relationships, with a greater emphasis on emotion and fantasy in films where time travel is purposive and has intended and/or unintended consequences. The second time-travel genre (Sojourn Across Time) is premised less on action per se and more on drama, presenting a film's composer with new scoring opportunities and demands.

Films in the first time-travel genre, Sojourn Across Space, are action-oriented and do not depend on having music to describe the action taking place on the screen, although music may be a complement to that action. By contrast the films reviewed in Sojourn Across Time became more introspective, with a greater emphasis on fantasy and often romance, requiring the composer to complement the explicit on-screen action by illuminating a protagonist's internal emotions as he or she copes with the reality, having traveled through time, of being relocated to some point in space in the past or future. Perhaps the best film score in this genre is Barry's Somewhere in Time.

Our film music voyage's third leg, Sojourn Across Death, spanned 52 years of Hollywood films, from 1944's Laura to 1996's To Gillian on her 37th Birthday. In this time-travel genre, death figures prominently in motivating a film's protagonist to find a way to travel across time and space to recapture a love lost or to find love anew (as in Defending Your Life). What is key in this shift in time-travel genres from Sojourn Across Time to Sojourn Across Death is that the latter genre takes one completely away from the science fiction and heroic action films featured in the first genre (Sojourn Across Space) and the romantic fantasies featured in the pure time-travel films in the second genre (Sojourn Across Time) and into the realm of films heavy on dramatic suspense and romance, excepting the occasional comedic touches Chances Are, Defending Your Life, and Ghost. The Sojourn Across Death genre includes films (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Vertigo, Obsession) having lush romatic scores by Bernard Herrmann, as well as the haunting scores composed by David Raksin for Laura, by Jerry Goldsmith for The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, and by Maurice Jarre for Ghost.

Such romantic scoring for symphonic orchestra rarely is heard in the first time-travel genre (Sojourn Across Space), the exceptions being John Williams' Superman ("Can You Read My Mind"), John Scott's orchestration of The Final Countdown's love theme ("Laurel and Owens"), and a minor love theme in David Arnold's StarGate ("Daniel and Shauri"). Romantic scoring is heard more frequently in the films in the second time-travel genre (Sojourn Across Time), with romantic themes in Russell Garcia's The Time Machine, Miklos Rozsa's Time After Time, John Barry's Somewhere in Time, Jerry Goldsmith's Forever Young, and to a lesser extent in Mark Isham's Timecop and Alan Silvestri's Contact. The balance of the second genre's film scores tend to have relatively minor love interest and perhaps coincidentally a heavier use of electronics (e.g., Brad Fiedel's The Terminator and James Horner's Field of Dreams).

Despite the central role that death plays in the 10 films reviewed in this third leg of our film music voyage, these films' original scores often have positive or upbeat musical themes that reflect the love a protagonist feels for one who has died. In the two Maurice Jarre-scored films, Chances Are and Ghost, this romantic note is conveyed by beautiful love themes, "After All" and "Unchained Melody," respectively. While David Raksin's Laura and Nino Rota's "Love Theme" for Romeo and Juliet have been covered by multiple artists over the years, these two themes being among the public's all-time favorite silver-screen romantic melodies, Herrmann's romantic themes for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Vertigo, and Obsession were never translated into popular love songs. Generally, most films in the Sojourn Across Death genre end on an upbeat note, with only Vertigo, Romeo and Juliet, and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, lacking an upbeat ending, although Goldsmith's score for the latter provided a love theme heard in its most upbeat form as a flowing waltz while Peter and Ann play tennis. Even Horner's score for To Gillian on her 37th Birthday is "hopeful and upbeat" as David finally overcomes his grief over Gillian's death.

Compared with the films in Sojourn Across Time, none of the 10 Soujourn Across Death films has a time-travel premise per se, although love and death serve as motive forces for a film's protagonist to transcend space, time, and death in order to recapture a love lost or to find love anew. Each film is made more convincing by a hauntingly beautiful original score provided by the film's composer, as if the next best thing to a time-travel premise or time-travel devise is making sure your "sojourn across death" film has a good composer. Certainly the original score provided for each of the films in this genre played a key time-travel role in helping each film's protagonist to transcend death and recapture love.

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