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Orchestrated by:
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Alexander Courage
Arthur Morton
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Love Theme Arranged by:
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Brad Dechter
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Solo Performances by:
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Joel Peskin
Michael Lang
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Label:
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Big Screen Records
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Release Date:
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December 8th, 1992
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release. Re-pressed in identical form on December 11th, 1997
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you might enjoy a touch of elegance, a dash of adventure,
and a heavy dose of sentiment from Jerry Goldsmith at his romantic best.
Avoid it... if the few moments of soaring adventure in the score's
secondary flying theme don't hold your interest during the score's
significantly mellow majority.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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| | Goldsmith | |
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Forever Young: (Jerry Goldsmith) Both poetic and coated
with about as much sugar as humanly possible, Forever Young is a
fantasy love story that goes so far with its exploits of romanticism that it
even throws in some 1930's locale and soaring propeller airplanes. The film
was immediately recognized for what it was by audiences and critic alike: a
light-duty escape for mostly women to shed a tear over while their
boyfriends or husbands glance around for the nearest exit or beer. After his
30's love interest is put into a coma by an accident, a test pilot played by
Mel Gibson, with nothing left worth living for, decides to rely on his best
friend, a scientist played by George Wendt. Rather than simply killing
himself (where would be the fun in that movie?), the scientist freezes the
pilot in an experimental cryogenics device that had been successfully tested
on a chicken. Circumstances cause the pilot to remain frozen for over 50
years, mostly undisturbed in his capsule, before a pair of kids accidentally
thaws him out while playing in an old military storage depot. The film then
follows the tender relationship between the pilot and the two boys as well
some sweetness between Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis before the inevitable
search for the now-elderly and recovered lover yields predictable results. A
film like Forever Young relies heavily upon its score to create the
right atmosphere for its love story (especially for the 30's settings),
although in this particular case we have the need for some whimsical flying
music as well. Director Steve Miner refers to composer Jerry Goldsmith as a
"godsend" for the film. It's is the kind of project very typical of
Goldsmith's emphasis in the early 1990's, with love themes in the concurrent
Medicine Man and Mr. Baseball leading to a similar flow of
emotion in Forever Young. A touch of elegance, a dash of adventure,
and a heavy dose of sentiment are the recipe once again, and Forever
Young remains one of the better results of the composer's output during
this period.
For collectors who keep the Forever Young album
tucked someplace accessible on their CD shelves, the main enticement is the
love theme for the film. With the same attraction of the overblown
Rent-A-Cop theme and the instrumental ease that prevails in
Powder and other soft ventures, the Forever Young love theme
has a timeless quality and an innocence of heart that we would never really
hear again from Goldsmith. This project would arguably be the composer's
last (and few, overall) attempt to score a film with only beauty and
romantic lyricism at heart. The Brad Dechter soprano sax arrangement of this
theme at the start of the album is a mushy extension of Goldsmith's original
version incorporated into the final cue of John Barry proportions, and the
theme is appropriately downplayed in the middle portion of the score.
Rearrangement of the cue order for the album does allow a few of the piano
and solo woodwind performances of that theme to be scattered throughout that
album. For fans of Goldsmith's more ambitious and adventuresome music,
however, Forever Young holds two or three cues that will interest
you. The secondary theme for the film is one for the flying sequences, and
Goldsmith opens the film with the highlight "Test Flight" cue. Driven by a
Basil Poledouris-like electronic bass pulse, the soaring brass theme for
French horns, punctuated by exciting hits by the full ensemble, is
accompanied by string performances of the theme that faintly (but
appropriately) resembles John Williams' Superman love theme. As the
pilot teaches one of the boys in the future how to fly a plane on his
cardboard cutout of a cockpit in "Tree House," Goldsmith skillfully repeats
the "Test Flight" cue as a ghostly version of itself. A slight tingling of
Goldsmith's electronics would lend a hint of magic to that scene and a
handful of others. While some of the same rhythmic exuberance would
accompany the flying scenes at the end of the film, the sentimentality of
the impending reunion would water down the pulsing bass and snare with
uncertainty on a solo piano. Overall, Forever Young is an
above-average Goldsmith work, albeit one at the much fluffier end of the
fantasy scale. The 1992 album is completely out of print, although it
contains a satisfying 35 minutes of Goldsmith music and a Billie Holiday
source song at the end. A recommended lightweight for any Goldsmith
collector. ***
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Love Theme From Forever Young (4:02)
• 2. Test Flight (3:40)
• 3. The Experiment (3:12)
• 4. Tree House (3:04)
• 5. Kitchen Aid (2:41)
• 6. The Diner (1:57)
• 7. The Air Show (2:29)
• 8. She's Alive (3:28)
• 9. Let Go (3:01)
• 10. Reunited (7:42)
• 11. The Very Thought of You - performed by Billie Holiday (2:44)
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The insert includes lengthy information about Goldsmith and a note from
the director.
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