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The Forgotten: (James Horner) It's a premise that
intrigued nearly everyone when the film was in post-production during the
summer of 2004; a mother's son is killed in a plane crash and while that
mother is grieving, the entire world eventually comes around to tell her
that her son actually never existed. That child, they say, died in a
miscarriage and the mother, who is balancing on the edge of insanity, has
mentally fabricated all of the memories of the child, the pictures, and the
home videos she so dearly remembers. She spends the rest of the film
grappling with this possible truth while resisting it at the same time and
attempting to verify her own instincts. Director Joseph Ruben's film was
received with severely mixed reviews, with some critics and audiences
accepting of the film's ultimate truth while others believed that the
revelations at the end cheapened the film beyond repair. Ruben is best known
for his depictions of psychological family-related thrillers, and it could
be argued that the strong cast of
The Forgotten saves it from total
mediocrity for most audiences. Never having worked with composer James
Horner before, Ruben's choice of composer is strong; it's a subject matter
and tone that probably would best suit James Newton Howard, but after widely
varying the range of his scores in the last year, Horner seemed ready for
another score relating to children, and, more specifically, one of suspense.
Horner's approach to interpersonal struggle has traditionally revolved
around a meandering piano, and
The Forgotten returns to that familiar
territory. The score blurs the lines between soft sentimentality and
unsettled ambience, soothing the listener with harmonic, rambling piano
performances while often jarring that experience with an assault of
electronics.
Spoiler Note: To describe the score in any detail,
and especially the use of the synthetic elements, it would be nearly
impossible not to divulge the "major twist" that caused the polarization of
critics and audiences of the film. If you don't wish to know the ending of
The Forgotten, then stop reading here and stick with the
recommendation of Horner's score made in the "Filmtracks Recommends" section
above. If you don't know anything about the end of
The Forgotten, and
you listen to Horner's score "cold" on album (meaning that you are a Horner
collector who buys the scores for the music, not because of anything
relating to the film), then you could easily be left scratching your head
about why the score relies so heavily on the synthesizer programming by
Randy Kerber and Ian Underwood. After two cues of emotionally gorgeous
piano, solo violin, and fully orchestral, thought-provoking dreaminess
(reminiscent of contemplative moments in the
Deep Impact and
Bicentennial Man era of Horner's late 1990's work), the score becomes
an odd mixture of
The Name of the Rose and
Beyond Borders. The
electronics are pervasive, harsh, and intentionally disrupting at every
opportunity, built and sustained by Horner as counterpoint to the solo piano
and violin that obviously represent the motherly love at the heart of the
film. In the case of
The Forgotten, Horner knows the twist at the end
while composing the beginning, and has scored the film appropriately as a
science-fiction effort. Perhaps James Newton Howard better masks his efforts
when films fall hopelessly back upon the "aliens theory" resolution, as
The Forgotten does. In this case, the use of jarring electronics by
Horner foreshadows the highly technological and futuristic twist of tale,
and that's why the score is not your typical Horner psychological drama, as
House of Sand and Fog was.
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It could be argued that Horner did a rather poor job of
integrating the futuristic and family elements in his score; outside of the
double metallic clangs that hover over the performances of the title theme,
the romantic notions of family --which offer a compelling theme existing
most often throughout the score as one of Horner's favorite, free-flowing
progression of keys-- are abruptly shattered during the moments of chase and
science fiction. Thus, there are two different scores here: the one that
Horner fans will love for its fifteen minutes of light dramatic cloudiness,
and the one that meanders hopelessly through a myriad of atmospheric,
electronic banging and droning. The largely synthetic cue "Containment of a
Darker Purpose" is among Horner's most loud, obnoxious, and intolerable
music of the past ten years. If you purchase this album, do it for the
performances of the title theme in the first, tenth, and eleventh tracks,
all of which contain the sound of playing children at either the start or
end of the cue. The score can be best summed up by the second track,
"Remember...," a cue that serves up the fullest, most romantic performance
of the addictive title theme (complete with eerie, Mark Snow-like electronic
accompaniment in the high ranges), and then spoils that listening mood with
electronic interruptions and stark tonal changes. Whether this juxtaposition
works in the film or not, it leaves the album with only about fifteen
minutes of truly enjoyable material. Copy tracks 1, 2 (the first half), 10,
and 11 onto a compilation and you have a high three-star suite of music. But
you cannot help but get the impression that Horner could have made a far
more eloquent and interesting merging of his tender family motifs and the
futuristic science fiction ones if he had integrated his electronics more
creatively into the mix.
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| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.09 (in 95 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 176,446 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
