~Jeron

--------------------------------------------------
This weeks selection (01/11/00):
Jerry Goldsmith In The 1990's

Throughout my recent columns on great film music you found Jerry Goldsmith praised. Until this last decade of the nineties. A few people have asked if this means I dislike his more recent work. No. But the omission wasn’t accidental. I’ll explain.

Those looking for something controversial look elsewhere. I’m not gonna dump on the guy. No other composer can match his output. The originality. The excitement. The dramatic skills. Period.

But where Friedhofer, Waxman, Kaper, Tiomkin, Alfred Newman, John Williams, probably others, have their richest composing periods showing up late in life, I find Goldsmith running it the other way around. That’s all.

When Goldsmith arrived in 1957 the early movie projects were modest. But each score was unique. Black Patch was dark, moody, scored for a reduced orchestra - without trumpets. Face Of A Fugitive was bright, rhythmic, scored for a full orchestra. City Of Fear featured orchestra but downplayed strings, spotlighted trumpets and percussion, and introduced repeated motifs and rhythms - the "Goldsmith ostinatos". And Studs Lonigan brought harmonica, a favorite Goldsmith color, to the big screen.

His first westerns had little of the requisite Tiomkin, Moross and Copland in them. Things could be sparse, grim, dissonant, violent. Shades of Stravinsky, Berg, Bartok perhaps. Certainly something new to the western. His dramas were unlike anything that had come before. Pulsating, rhythmically active. Incredibly tailored to the needs of the pictures. And melodies too. Studs Lonigan has a truly haunting theme, perfect for the depression era it accompanies.

The television work at that time was equally creative. Ensembles for Playhouse 90 could range from a full group of strings, to piano and solo harmonica. From a group of muted brass and percussion to a solitary guitar. Whatever the occasion required. And the music. One episode of Playhouse 90 ("A Marriage of Strangers") foreshadows the warmth of A Patch Of Blue.. A segment of Have Gun, Will Travel ("Head of Hair") clearly lays a foundation for Rio Conchos. Whether for Twilight Zone or Dr. Kildare the music was new, and always worth further study.

That gift made way into picture after picture. By the time the projects were top drawer no composer in the business was better suited to tackle any genre. One can point to the dramas, the westerns, the comedies, the science fiction. They all received standout music.

And so it was through the sixties, the seventies, most of the eighties. Even on projects of lesser merit (The Swarm, High Velocity, The Man, Caboblanco, The Challenge, King Solomon’s Mines) the music was inventive, first class all the way.

Up to this point it was pretty hard to find a picture that Goldsmith seemed to toss away. So I recall a sense of excitement every time I went to one of these movies, anticipating some memorable score no matter what the screen offered. To be sure, there were high points, unmatched, like The Wind And The Lion. But the lower points, noted above, were so good it didn’t matter.

Maybe it had to happen somewhere. I think it might have been after Link in 1986. But a time now entered where I was somewhat worried about the powers of a new Goldsmith score. Several scores from around that time left me a little less dazzled. Leviathan, Criminal Law, Rent-A-Cop, others. There were higher points - Innerspace, Rambo III. But I didn’t know going in. And yes, Hoosiers and Total Recall really were terrific.

I find after this last one the stream of pearls running dry. The melodies are there. The sweetness. The dramatic correctness. But there are things that catch in my throat. No, it’s not the electronics. I often read comments from other listeners, even composers, targeting that stuff. But there’s some ignorance here. Goldsmith was far ahead of that game way back when. Note electronic details for In Harm’s Way, The Satan Bug, Our Man Flint, many others. Note how he manipulated piano in The Flim Flam Man, harmonica in Take A Hard Ride. And, of course, the Echoplex-trumpets in Patton. No, it’s not any devices you plug in.

But somewhere within these last ten years the cutting edge has dulled. The complexity, the ferocious energy is gone. And that leaves quite a hole. I think, with the exception of a couple of action sequences in Congo, there are few really exciting chases, battles. It’s noticeable.

By simplifying the music there has been a decline in the originality from project to project. Themes have become a little more repetitious, blandish. And, in particular, the recurring interval of the fifth has simply taken over. From First Knight to Air Force One, from U.S. Marshals to Star Trek Insurrection, from First Contact to Small Soldiers, From Executive Decision to The Thirteenth Warrior, from his Universal Logo Music to his Fanfare For Oscar, that open fifth (usually in French horns) takes front and center. So now when I head for a new picture of his I have reduced expectations. Which is not a great sign.

But ask me: do I listen to the albums? Yes. Do I keep seeing the movies? Yes. Does the music work? Yes. Is he the right composer for the job? Yes.

So does he have scores I consider landmarks of the nineties?

You know what else is interesting? His style started changing around the time when you had some idiotic critques saying he couldn't write a nice melody. Perhaps that could be a cause for his changing.

I also noticed the same with Williams. A few dumb critiques said his music was to popcornish and he started composing more complex scores.

What do you think?

Goldsmith always writes nice melodies in my book. Always.

Glad you enjoyed the article, though.

Here let me try again:His style started changing when there were some professional music critics who said he could not write a descent melody.

Comon Jeron, you of all people know my spelling and that I try to be as truthful as possible. How could you think I was talking about YOU?
Tztz

But one relentless, if mostly cogent critic at the FSM board decried Mr. G's perceived decline in the 1990's, up until 1999 with a supposed return to greatness with The Mummy, Haunting and 13th Warrior.

Poster MLWare at FSM rebutted and summed up these criticisms as follows, a brilliant defense. The question, Why does Goldsmith have such a devoted, ardent following? Why does he keep getting assignments despite decline?

MLWare posted 10-21-99 10:43 AM PST (US)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because he's a great composer? Ya think?
These weird threads are entertaining but it takes more than a message board to destroy the accomplishments of great artists. I truly hate to break it to you like that.

In the last decade culture has notably DEsophisticated itself to commercial anonymity. Cynicism and spiritual exhaustion are not synonymous with education and intelligence, just defense mechanisms against despair and bitterness.

Goldsmith's least motivated utterances like Ghost and the Darkness blow Barry, Jarre, Zimmer, Horner, completely off the screen in about four million different ways. The musico-dramatic perspicacity present in the tonal thinking and application in terms of drama and character motivation/response continue to serve as full-blooded lessons in dramatic score efficacy. The scores have become more functional and cutthroat and sleek. It's his choice not yours.

The movies are simplified formulae. Your hero-worship of wallpaper technicians Zimmer, Horner etc, is correct in that they are perfectly suited for anonymous commercial pap requiring impersonal, bloodless, and basically non-creative drones and traditional tonal symphonic licks, whereas Goldsmith, Bernstein, Morricone, Scott, Shire, Morris, Shore, Safan, Goldenthal, Walker are way too sophisticated for this crap (Sarde split for European flics only, Williams only chooses the best). Zimmer's disco beats were stupid when first formulated. The new agey ether style was in place since the early 80s (Thomas Newman was doing excellent work in this style in 1987--Less Than Zero, Lost Boys). Their work won't survive the next trend. As for the "increasingly sophisticated" culture of idiotic $impson Bruckheimer inanities, I guess it would be hot stuff in a new fascist corporate regime ruled by Rupert Murdoch (he made Titanic and Independence Day) and his six cohorts. Horner, Zimmer et al are just more Puf Daddies. Appropriately disposable.

There is no cult of Goldsmith. At the mess board there are a number of people who have been affected by some of the more complex and toughminded and viscerally exciting compositions in this century authored by Jerry Goldsmith. In a sense they're all giving something back in appreciation for the enlightenment they've downloaded most of their lives. Some of us know the difficulties of creative work and are honored by the accomplishments of true artists and serious intellects. Goldsmith is one of a handful of living film scorers worthy of the acclaim. His functional scores are exactly what the assignments required. Anything more is up to him, and its none of my business to second guess someone who knows a bit more than I do in the field. Posting zillion bit messages stating he is stupid over and over is like saying a Kung Fu GrandMaster like Pan Qing Fu is overrated. You know what? He couldn't care less about any of this! If you are offended and outraged, great. Blast away.

Again, the above is the opinion of Mr Ware, but I can only concur.

There are only TWO composers in the universe who's scores I will purchase immediately, whether I've watched the movie or not, whether the whole world likes it or not. I do this because they are excellent IMHO, even when they score a bad movie or change their style. Their efforts are always 100% and I always find something in their scores to apreciate and to say "Wow".

Those two composers are Mr. John Williams and Mr. Jerry Goldsmith.

Scott