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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek one of the best scores that the romantic comedy genre has to offer, brilliantly balancing the humor of the film's story with the gravity of its location. Avoid it... if you expect the respectfully restrained underscore in between the opening and closing statements of the title theme to be as strikingly robust. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Shaiman's two primary themes for The American President are built with a lush performance in mind, led by strings and bold counterpoint by horns. The title theme, representing the office, is the more famous of the two, though the understated romance theme does the majority of the work in the central portions of the film. Shaiman doesn't restrain the title theme in any of its performances, highlighted by "Main Title" and the two concluding cues in the film and on album. Each performance seemingly enhances its presidential aura, leading to a final statement with rolling snare drum at the conclusion of "End Titles." This blatantly heroic character theme will likely be the attraction for most score collectors, though The American President excels in that the remainder of its contents are equally strong. The romance theme, often performed by piano or woodwinds, is a solid reinforcement of the film's flighty, positive spirit in cues from "The First Kiss" to "The Morning After," as well as several statements in the final twenty minutes. The theme is pretty standard in Shaiman's career (the title theme is, in fact, the one that goes above and beyond), but a relatively short album never allows these more subdued conversational cues to become boring. Another motif that appears twice in the score is the more serious bass-string rhythm that accompanies the politically procedural undertones of the story. This motif is mostly a tense rhythmic movement in "Gathering Votes," but takes a firmer stance with brass and snare in the impressive "Meet the Press." A lighter version of the rhythm in "Never Have an Airline Strike at Christmas" is an upbeat spin on this idea, leading to a source performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein's lounge-appropriate "I Have Dreamed." Overall, The American President is a score that doesn't reach out and grab your attention very often, but its consistent quality at the top of its genre, as well as a very good recording mix, make it a pleasure every time you revisit it. The final two tracks, totaling over twelve minutes, are worth the album's price alone. Shaiman's similar output in the following years would rarely capture the same enticing spirit. ****
* source music written by Rodgers and Hammerstein
The insert contains a note from director Rob Reiner about the score. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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