Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you collect Jerry Goldsmith's soaring and majestic title themes and want to hear the composer orchestrate most of his own material for the first time in decades. Avoid it... if you expect Goldsmith's trademark strength in the action and suspense sequences. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Edge: (Jerry Goldsmith) If you like seeing rich businessmen and socialites stranded in the Alaska's wilderness and chased by nasty wildlife (and each other), then The Edge was a film that was far more likely to amuse you than thrill you. Even more impressive than Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin battling the elements and their distrust of each other is the Alaska landscape, and it is this natural element that guided Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film. For long time collectors of the composer, The Edge is a satisfying listening experience, but is more importantly an unusual score for Goldsmith in that era of his career. While the score may, on the whole, resemble most of Goldsmith's other action scores from the 1990's, it has a few distinct characteristics that set it apart. First, despite the film's highly concentrated character development, none of the main principals receives any kind of theme (or even any motif, really). Second, Goldsmith treats his title theme quite differently in The Edge, with much more significant airtime provided for the broad, graceful theme than in his usual writing. Third, director Lee Tamahori instructed that Goldsmith not employ his usual array of synthesizers, and as a result, Goldsmith would largely orchestrate the score himself (a task he had not accomplished in many decades). Finally, with a little extra recording time left at the end of the sessions, Goldsmith and Tamahori decided it would be fun to manipulate the grand title theme into an intimate jazz rendition. The result of all of these little quirky aspects of The Edge is a score that is just as intriguing to study (as a collector of the composer) as it is to sit back and enjoy. The downside of the score, conversely, is that the action and suspense material in The Edge is not up to Goldsmith's usual high standards, leaving several non-thematic cues as filler music that will do little more than remind you of other Goldsmith efforts. It should be noted, however, that this is one Goldsmith score that works brilliantly in its film, though most of that credit needs to go to the title theme. Molded from Trevor Jones' sparsely grand Last of the Mohicans brass title (once again a Tamahori request), Goldsmith's primary theme for middle-range brass is a noble and spectacular accompaniment for the aerial shots of the wilderness. More interesting is Goldsmith's extreme loyalty to that theme throughout the score; it can be heard in full no less than in five cues on the 10-cue album, and its presence in the film is unmistakable. Part of that credit goes to the very simple and thus memorable movements of the theme (a carryover from the Jones theme, to some degree), and part goes to the bold statements of that idea without much interference from counterpoint or other orchestral activity. The most delicious area of study in The Edge, though, relates to the lack of synths. Ironically, in the electronics' requested absence, Goldsmith orchestrates several key cues in ways that imitate his normal bed of electric accompaniment. You can easily tell where Goldsmith had his tingling synths originally in mind, for he uses a piano, trumpet, and high woodwinds to attempt to recreate them organically. First, over the plane ride in "Lost in the Wild," Goldsmith forces the dexterous piano and trumpets into the precise, quick imitations, eventually adding the woodwinds into the mix in "Mighty Hunter." It's a curious, but delightful enforcement of Goldsmith's personal style into a handicapped situation. The trumpets and piano would play a very small role in the rest of the score. The only other thematic use in The Edge represents the grizzly bear, with a brute brass slur, falling one note, appearing in "The Ravine" and "Stalking." It's not as creative as the faintly related use in The Shadow, but it gets the job done. The rather bland underscore in chase sequences sounds like leftovers from Goldsmith's (and his son's) suspense cues in Star Trek: First Contact, with occasional references back to the tumultuous string movements of Poltergeist and a few foreshadowings of woodwind usage that we'd hear in The Haunting. A singular, jumpy string motif unconnected to the rest of the score exists in "Bitter Coffee." The final cue on the album is a jazz performance of the title theme by piano, bass, and percussion that the three musicians stuck around to perform at the end of the sessions. The effect of having this cue attached to the project is as odd as the similarly sudden jazz appeal at the end of Goldsmith's The Vanishing a few years earlier, and, quite frankly, even the biggest fans of style from The Russia House will find this cue a little tough to chew on after a completely unrelated score. Overall, The Edge is a solid score because of it's thematic integrity, though don't expect Goldsmith to impress you with vibrant action sequences. Even the vast simplicity of the title theme's construct, as well as its straight forward performances, could leave you wanting more. The album's mix is strangely heavy on the treble regions, with noticeable hiss in the trio's jazz performance at the end. That mix does, though, aid the cause of those funky attempts to recreate Goldsmith's synthesizers with the orchestral players. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 38:03
All artwork and sound clips from The Edge are Copyright © 1997, BMG Music/RCA Victor. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/1/97, updated 10/1/06. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1997-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
