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Angie: (Jerry Goldsmith) In a feature film that was
originally set to have starred Madonna as the title character,
Angie takes Geena Davis instead on a wild ride from New York
comedy to larger plains of American melodrama. Adapted from Avra Wing's
novel "Angie, I Says," Todd Graff's script is executed on the big screen
by director Martha Coolidge, whose involvement with the project would
have seemed appropriate given her well-received work on another "woman's
coming of age" film, the highly acclaimed
Rambling Rose.
Unfortunately for Coolidge,
Angie was met with indifference by
both critics and audiences because of its inherent flaw in regards to
the indecision about which direction to take the film in relation to its
genre. The first half of the film is a very funny, sassy, almost
sitcom-style comedy, taking viewers on a journey of relational problems
with considerable New York flavor. The latter half of the film is much
more heavy-handed on the dramatic front, exploring far deeper issues
than the first half could have possibly foreshadowed. It is this twist
of focus that either soured the lighthearted mood or saved you from it,
and in either case, the wandering focus was destined to doom the
picture. Coolidge claims that she believed the task of writing original
music for
Angie would be a difficult one, perhaps because of the
presence of these two contrasting styles in one film. Composer Jerry
Goldsmith, however, seemed to have the ability to step up to that
challenge. The breadth of productivity in the early 1990's were the
ultimate proof of the veteran composer's versatility, with sensitivity
for smaller films flowing steadily from his pen in the early years of
that decade. A careful balancing the comedy and dramatic elements in
Angie was accomplished by Goldsmith, some would say, though the
need to walk the tightrope between both attitudes means that the score
doesn't really excel in either its comedy or drama tones. Regardless of
the pickle that the film's wayward direction put the composer into, the
final identity that Goldsmith afforded
Angie does exude a great
amount of charm and affection, so much so that it actually becomes
tedious after half an hour when heard outside of context.
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The consistency with which Goldsmith expresses his
identities in
Angie is the make or break point for the composer's
collectors seeking an escape into this pleasant diversion. A delightful
melody for the title character inhabits the entire score, with
variations bubbling up from light rhythms in the first half to
melodramatic strings and vintage Hans Zimmer-like keyboarding in the
latter portions. The introduction of "Angie's Theme" is done in almost a
child-like manner, perhaps representing the character before her
"growing up" experiences that occur later in the film. This affable
theme is delicately played by accordion, piano, Henry Mancini-style
strings, and electric bass with a faint waltz-like rhythm. In subsequent
tracks, this theme is put through a more jovial Italian rendition (for
the title character's Italian boyfriend), placing the previous, French
sensibilities of the title theme in a somewhat awkward ethnic position.
Goldsmith's synthesized elements tingle over the top of the mix as they
almost always did at the time, though these electronic loops keep a low
profile throughout much of the score. Outside of the rhythmic "Family
Life" cue, one that shares many traits with Rachel Portman's upbeat
comedy writing, the score relies firmly upon very low-key, nearly solo
performances of melody. As the film takes a turn towards more serious
topics when the title character ventures on a search for her long lost
mother (in "The Journey Begins"), the score uses the minimal power of
its partial ensemble to generate some substantive worry and doubt, aided
by some synthetic pace-setters familiar to the concurrent
The
Shadow. Several minutes of bland atmospheric suspense, led by "The
Prognosis," are unfortunate. A solo trumpet is given the task of
representing the wandering spirit of the character, although the lack of
power in these cues, which were seemingly written to be melodramatic,
causes them to fall short due to rather tepid performance depth. When
you stand back and look at
Angie as a whole, you almost wish that
the comedy was more spirited and the drama more weighty, even though the
director likely advised Goldsmith to keep as even a keel as possible
between the two halves. On album,
Angie is a short, fluid, and
easy listening experience, but the composer has written better comedy
and better drama separately in other far better scores, leaving this
entry as a shadow of the composer's more successful works.
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| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.26 (in 113 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.32
(in 133,461 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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