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Congo: (Jerry Goldsmith) With the massive cinematic success
of
Jurassic Park a few years earlier, there was never any doubt that
studios would jump on the Michael Crichton bandwagon and bring another animal
versus human challenge by the popular author to the big screen. Never had
Congo been as successful as a concept as many of the writer's other
stories of technology and nature, but the film's distinguishing production
feature would be the massive apes themselves. Even with many of the technical
obstacles conquered by the filmmakers, the production suffered from a terrible
translation into a nonsensical screenplay, with an unknown cast and questionable
directorial execution. An expedition containing an eclectic group of scientists
venture to the Congo for wildly different reasons, and when they start getting
killed off by maniacal wild apes, a few cheers are merited. Composer Jerry
Goldsmith had been lucky, in many regards, in the African or jungle-related
assignments he received in the 1990's. Even in the common circumstance in which
Goldsmith was handed a truly horrible film to write music for, he would return
with a serviceable and, occasionally, very enjoyable score. In an attempt to do
his best to salvage
Congo from the cinematic pits of despair (an
assignment likely the result of the composer's strong connection with director
Frank Marshall's mentor, Steven Spielberg), Goldsmith teamed up with Lebo M. and
assembled a percussion-heavy orchestral ensemble to provide a robust score for
the picture. The involvement of Lebo M. in the project wasn't a surprise, for
his arrangements for
The Lion King were still bouncing around theatres
with enormous success when production began on
Congo. Since 1995,
however, Lebo M. has arguably become repetitive and highly stereotyped, partly
due to his continued collaboration with Hans Zimmer and related artists. His
arrangements and performances in
Congo are surprisingly limited to a
relatively short piece called "Spirit of Africa." The framework for this song
is the film's central theme, composed by Jerry Goldsmith for interpolation in
the rest of the score. While Lebo M. takes the song in a new direction in the
waning moments of the "End Titles" cue, Goldsmith's theme still anchors the
piece.
The Lebo M. aspect of the "Spirit of Africa" song is very
generic, with pounding drums and African chanting yielding to one great
performance of the theme by Goldsmith's orchestra in the middle of the first
song appearance. Otherwise, the Lebo M. elements are sorely lost in the central
mass of the score, diminishing their effectiveness in
Congo as a whole.
Goldsmith's underscore does a valiant job on its own to compensate for the
film's weaknesses, usually choosing to blast the listener with frantic, brassy
action cues rather than accentuate the finer points of the story. The clichéd,
varied drums would be offered several times throughout the score, setting a
rolling, easy rhythm for the orchestra to meander along to. Occasionally, the
percussion boils up into an impressive rumble, the orchestra obliging it with a
full performance of thematic material. Such would be the case in the cues "Deep
Jungle" (fourth on album) and "Crash Site" (sixth cue on album), easily the
highlights of the score. No matter how strongly Goldsmith attempts to infuse
life into other sections of the score, however, the straight action material is
second rate compared to Goldsmith's usual standard. The anonymous nature of
these sections is an unfortunate mirror of the kind of bland material that
Goldsmith often provided for substandard films in the following years. At times,
he comes close to capturing the spirit and the energy of the rhythms (and bold
performances) of
The Ghost and the Darkness, but never with the
enthusiasm or excitement of the later score; a touch of the popular 1996 score
is previewed at the start of the "Crash Site" cue. Additionally, the use of
clanging metallic percussion and Goldsmith's usual array of synthesizers is
adequate, but not inspired to the same level of beauty as heard in
Medicine
Man. Overall, the attitude of
Congo seems rather flat. It's not as
intolerable as the film, but it expresses ideas that hint at the strengths of
other superior jungle scores by the composer (without every actually delivering
on its promises).The album release, however, is just as frustrating as the film.
Designed by someone named Christine Wilson (whose name is listed on the
packaging right next to a phone number that you can call and complain to! Way to
go!), the
Congo album was the first largely known case in which the
track titles were intentionally listed incorrectly on the packaging of the
product. As it states, the true track order is only available on the CD itself
(with the tracks order listed randomly on the packaging). Such insanity should
severely damage such a designer's career. In a way, it perfectly tops off a
generally unoriginal Goldsmith score for a terrible film.
**
| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 111 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 120,040 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The packaging is extremely difficult to read and understand, and it
includes no extra information about the film or score.
