Buy it... only if you specifically seek five minutes of a generic contemporary love theme from Jerry Goldsmith, or if you wish to study an intelligently unpleasant score.

Avoid it... if you expect any of the suspense cues to shake the dissonant monotony of an unconventional, challenging atmosphere that defines the vast majority of this edgy score.

Goldsmith

Coma: (Jerry Goldsmith) The understandable obsession of writer and director Michael Crichton with topics relating to medicine and experimental science collided with the public's interest in deception and manipulation from powers beyond their control in the 1978 film Coma. One of Crichton's most fiscally successful pictures, Coma took advantage of public fears of the establishment by targeting the medical community, suggesting the possibility that doctors could intentionally induce comas in patients visiting a hospital for otherwise mundane surgeries, allowing them to perform experiments on those patients once a significant collection of brain-dead patients could be assembled. When a young female doctor in a hospital causing and collecting comatose patients begins to suspect that something is awry, she sets off a tense thriller in which she naturally becomes a target, eventually putting her on the operating table herself. A solid cast highlighted by young stars competently brought Crichton's story to life, though it was the general creepiness of the story that helped Coma earn solid grosses at the box office. Conspiracy films were certainly not absent from composer Jerry Goldsmith's career during this time, with Capricorn One largely defining this style of music from the veteran later in 1978. Goldsmith had already collaborated with Crichton for the writer's directorial debut on television, and the two friends would work together again twice in the short term future. One thing that can be said about Goldsmith's music for Crichton films with absolute certainty is that you never know exactly what you're going to get. Some of the composer's most unorthodox compositions have accompanied these productions, and Coma is undoubtedly a perfect example of this creativity. Unfortunately, none of Goldsmith's music for films directed by Crichton translates into a particularly enjoyable listening experience, the 1984 electronic score for Runaway intolerable in many places. Coma presents different challenges, because the composer made several wise decisions about the score that make it highly effective in the context of the picture while also dooming it as album. Along with his recommendation to leave the first hour of the film unscored, allowing the tension to speak for itself in an eerily quiet atmosphere, Goldsmith also decided to treat Coma with a rough, dissonant tone through an unconventional instrumentation. Much of the score's personality is defined by an otherworldly element of discord that twists reality to suit Crichton's ominous plot.

If you're investigating Coma because you seek a pleasant score, you're deranged. Few efforts from Goldsmith are more daunting that this one. He eliminates a brass section, reduces the percussion, and utilizes four pianos on top of strings, woodwinds, keyboards, and cimbalom to create an alienating environment that, with the help of the composer's famous echoplex machine (best known from Patton and Alien), imitates the sounds of surgical implements. The confinement of the ensemble to these high-pitched tones of clattering and banging metal is very unnerving. Extreme discord of the many striking suspense cues in Coma is aided by a title theme that is itself disjointed and challenging, suggested frequently through a faintly disconnected two-note progression that is often processed through the echoplex. Consistent rhythms are almost nonexistent in Coma, the meter edgy and unpredictable in its shifts. Goldsmith rarely allows for any relief in the mass of suspenseful underscore, allowing one notable transition to a harmonious reward at the end of "A Free Ride" (to accompany a temporarily successful escape on screen). Also easier on the ears, of course, is the obligatory love theme for the young doctor and her life-saving boyfriend, only heard twice significantly in the film. In the resolution cue "A Nice Case" and an early scene of character-building romance ("Cape Cod Weekend"), Goldsmith explores a light, contemporary theme for strings, piano, and acoustic guitar that has remarkable similarities to John Williams' style of writing for such pop material during the 1970's. This theme was, perhaps not surprisingly, translated into a disco variant by Goldsmith for use early in the film as source material. He also, interestingly, re-recorded his theme from his 1963 score for The Prize for hospital source music as well. When it debuted on LP record, Coma relied heavily on its variations of the love theme, the remainder of the score's contrasting material heavily edited for an abbreviated but adequate presentation. Those contents were eventually released on CD by Bay Cities in 1992 and Chapter III in 2000 (just before the latter label's closure). The complete score was eventually pressed on a limited album by Film Score Monthly with two other (totally unrelated) scores for Crichton's earlier projects. The FSM album is a bit convoluted in its inclusion of the three disparate works, though it does remix the score from a different source than the previously remastered arrangements on the Chapter III CD. Regardless of the album, Coma is an effective and interestingly disturbing suspense score that simply will not amount to a functional listening experience on album for all but Goldsmith's most ardent collectors.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Music as Written for the Film: ***
Music as Heard on All Albums: **
Overall: **

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 133,462 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.