Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you maintain at least a moderate collection of Jerry Goldsmith's action scores, because First Knight connects the styles of his 1970's classics with the bombast of his best scores of the late 1990's. Avoid it... if you expect either the intellect or creativity of the related (but superior) music from Goldsmith for The 13th Warrior. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
First Knight: (Jerry Goldsmith) Outside of Sean Connery's casting as the famed King Arthur, the rest of First Knight was both an artistic and intellectual disaster. So embarrassing was director Jerry Zucker's mutilation of the Arthurian legend that Camelot became humorous in parts where it was not intended. A ridiculously dumb script, poor special effects, and absolutely wooden performances by Richard Gere and Julia Ormond rounding out the love triangle were the doom of First Knight. Aiding in the discontentment were comparisons at the time to the more fiercely original Rob Roy and Braveheart, both still fresh in the minds of audiences and critics at the time. Faring reasonably well despite scathing reviews, First Knight is remembered with more forgiveness by film score fans for Jerry Goldsmith's heroic music. The project marked the second time in the matter of two years that Goldsmith would replace Maurice Jarre in the action and adventure genre, confirming (among other factors) Jarre's slow descent into relative obscurity at the end of his career. The score that Goldsmith would provide for First Knight was so epic in proportion and noble in tone that some might have wondered, given the suspect quality of the film, if the composer was writing a parody score. But with his tendency to tackle substandard projects with the utmost serious enthusiasm, it's far more likely that Goldsmith was over-compensating for a film that lacked scope and nobility in its other production elements. His score is quite memorable in its blatant statements of each of its ideas, with two extremely obvious primary themes typically sounding off amongst several smaller motifs of equal power. It's a score dear to the hearts of many Goldsmith fans if only because it is saturated with techniques that span from The Wind and the Lion and The Omen in the mid-1970's to Air Force One and The 13th Warrior later in the 1990's. The music for First Knight may not be packaged as well as those other scores, but it nevertheless entertains fans of the composer with unyielding bombast and romanticism. The score opens and closes with a sparse, but effective fanfare for Arthur himself, and this idea permeates the score with its easily-identifiable octave-spanning structure. The high tones of this theme (as defined by the trumpets) can be obnoxious at times, though the theme fares far better when Goldsmith uses it as counterpoint to one of his other ideas. A curious statement of this theme exists over upbeat, oddly mixed metallic percussion at the end of "A New Life." The three massive action pieces in the score, "Raid on Leonesse," "Night Battle," and "Arthur's Farewell," all feature stock Goldsmith action material, but pulling inspiration from different directions in each case. It wouldn't be surprising if a snare drum was damaged during this recording, for its sharp pronouncement of each note gives these action cues a distinctive, deliberate sense of movement. In a return to the pulse-pounding style of Lionheart, Goldsmith provides a somewhat refined version of the pompous and loquacious form that impresses with volume rather than unique substance. With the pride of Camelot at stake, Goldsmith pulls all the stops the bombast department, with no cue as impressive as "Arthur's Farewell." Goldsmith withholds the adult choir until this late cue and the final minute of the score, but the merging of style from Carmina Burana and Goldsmith's own The Omen makes for a stunningly deep and massive climax. This cue would serve as compilation bait, with The City of Prague Philharmonic and Crouch End Festival Chorus offering a very impressive performance of this piece on their best-selling Cinema Choral Classics album (under the more appropriate cue title "Never Surrender"). Aside from the totalitarian action cues, the score has a beautiful and often overlooked love theme. This theme, introduced in "Promise Me" and "Camelot" and fading with bittersweet longing in "Camelot Lives," is among Goldsmith's more attractive romantic themes of the 1990's. The performance of the theme in that last cue would remind of the elegant finale of Total Recall and foreshadow the more fluid movements of his later Star Trek scores. At only 40 minutes on album, some fans grumble about its brevity, though many of the same bold and brassy attitudes in performance would resurface in superior form in 1999's The 13th Warrior. It's fun, but predictable. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 39:59
(track times not listed on packaging) All artwork and sound clips from First Knight are Copyright © 1995, Epic Soundtrax. 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 9/24/96, updated 2/11/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1996-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
