> Whenever I watch The Two Towers, I can never help feeling slightly
> dissapointed (although I like the score very much, probably best of the
> three) that Howard Shore and the filmmakers didn't find more musical
> inspiration in the portrayal of Gollum. In my opinion, Gollum is easily
> the most charismatic and powerfully drawn of all the various presences in
> the story, and is also the site of the most affecting dramatic conflict
> that occurs. And yet, all we really get in the score is a reprisal of the
> initial "Pity of Smeagol" motif from "Fellowship" and
> a rather understated agitato cymbalom leitmofif. Nothing at all wrong with
> that, of course, but I still feel the material offered the opportunity for
> something richer. For example, I imagine that more could have been done to
> accentuate the mystical and mercurial aspect of smeagol, maybe with harps
> and flutes to create a rich and darkly haunting soundscape. Also, there
> could have been some scope for "decadent" sounds, something
> similar to Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie", perhaps? It's odd in a way
> that Rohan is the musical center of the film, as that particular narrative
> line is, to quote Peter Jackson's DVD commentary, "dramatically
> slight" and depthless when compared to the Frodo/Sam/Gollum triangle.
> Or maybe this is precisely the reason it had so much musical back-up. I'm
> not knocking Shore's Rohan material here, but don't you feel that it would
> have been far more interesting had they done more in the way of devising a
> melodically richer and more intricate musical journey for Gollum??

Interesting point. I, for one, have always liked Gollum's Menace theme (though you are right, it is underused.) Yeah, they probably could have used something else for Smeagol. Like three themes or something. The Pity of Gollum (or Smeagol, whatever the thing is called) is used, as Douglas Adams says, to represent Gollum's slavish addiction to the Ring. In film one it was used to represent Gollum's influence even off the screen. But instead of using the Pity theme exclusively for Smeagol in Two Towers, why didn't Shore compose a darker motif for the actual physical prescence of Smeagol? Ah well. A good point. But I can't complain that much.

Also, if the Rohan and Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli storyline is so "dramatically slight," as Pete Jackson apparently put it, why is it emphasized as the main point of the film? It's not just the music, just the film itself. It gets really annoying to be watching two storylines (Rohan and the Ents) for about forty-five minutes, and then, bam, suddenly Frodo and Sam are back on screen. If you ask me, the editing could have been slightly better.

But then again, you don't have to ask me, either.