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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
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Howard Shore
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Synclavier Programmed by:
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Robert Cotnoir
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Release Date:
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September 9th, 1997
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Audio Clips:
1. Happy Birthday, Nicholas (0:30), 179K game1.ra
3. Harlequin Clown (0:30), 179K game3.ra
6. Congratulations on Choosing C.R.S. (0:31), 179K game6.ra
11. Mausoleum (0:29), 168K game11.ra
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release, but out of print and selling for over $25.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you are familiar with the score's role in the
film, and are comfortable with the understated style of Howard Shore's
thrillers of the 1990's.
Avoid it... if you expect any interesting instrumental or thematic
development in an otherwise bland and atmospheric effort.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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The Game: (Howard Shore) In what amounted to a very
typical role for Michael Douglas, his character of Nicholas Van Orten is
a wealthy man in control. Alone, cold, and calculated. But, like any
good Douglas role in a 1990's thriller, Van Orten is destined to be
mentally and physically challenged beyond his wildest dreams. As a gift
from his brother on his 48th birthday, he receives a subscription to
"the game," a shady service that never really tells you what you are
about to receive. As the audience soon discovers, this service is a
group that provides real life thrills for its subjects, creating
excitement and stress that a person could never expect to encounter in
real life. Douglas is a man on the run and untrusting of his
surroundings, all the while trying to maintain his arrogant attitude
during the process of solving the game. The film relies on the actor's
performance for its success, and Douglas delivers. But in the film's
attempt to make you believe that all the events in its script are
actually possible, it leaves you with so many massive holes in logic
that audiences quickly discarded it the moment they left the theatres.
As such, The Game didn't perform that well. It does have the
typical atmosphere of a David Fincher film, with dark San Francisco
streets containing hints of noir style that eventually yield to
post-modern shades of black. Returning from his collaboration with
Fincher for Seven is composer Howard Shore, whose career was
defined by such films in his pre-Lord of the Rings years. While
some of his collectors will maintain that the late 1990's were a time of
great exploration by the composer into the realms of suspense and
horror, mainstream listeners will find very little from the era that
will compete with his later efforts. His score for The Game is
highly representative of the suspense music he often produced in that
time, and it is even considered to be less engaging than his other
similar scores.
The score for The Game is a clear example of
music that only marginally enhances the film in a few select sequences,
and the film floats the score for the remainder of its duration. Shore
opens the film and score with an elegant, but subdued title theme that
will serve as the score's only easy listening. Its solo piano
performance leads a waltz rhythm to a very lonely theme, with a slight
twist of jazz providing that hint of noir style. The theme is a tortured
one, so slow that it's barely recognizable. Its lone harmonious chord
shift in its mid-section is the highlight of the score, as is Shore's
very subtle incorporation of the opening to the "Happy Birthday" song
twice in between performances of the title theme. The second statement
introduces high range synthetic atmosphere and a layered string section.
Those strings would be used in their fullest to represent the Consumer
Recreation Services company in its two tracks on album. Meandering bass
strings and extremely low range woodwinds are joined by brass in a
secondary role for this theme, fleshed out with its most menacing
performance in "Congratulations on Choosing C.R.S." The title theme is
only heard in fragments thereafter, including the bittersweet and
somewhat morbid conclusion in "Pulling Back the Curtain." The most
memorable aspect of the score for The Game is the use of a
staccato piano motif that bangs itself into the film as Douglas first
notices a harlequin clown in his den. That sparse and striking motif,
with the piano very starkly pounding at high ranges at the same note
until it reaches its own crescendo, would repeat as the suspense in the
film continues. As a technique, it's effective, especially in the film,
but on album it's nothing less than an annoyance. The remainder of the
score is absent of any personality aside from the piano, which flutters
randomly as the primary instrument of mystery. Electronics and perpetual
string dissonance eventually lead to horror crescendos of the same in
"Mausoleum." The inclusion of the Jefferson Airplane song at the end is
distracting and incongruous. Overall, The Game is a weak score,
and largely uninteresting outside of the opening cue. **
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Happy Birthday, Nicholas (3:00)
• 2. Consumer Recreation Services (3:09)
• 3. Harlequin Clown (4:28)
• 4. House of Pain (5:07)
• 5. Van Orton Mansion (2:00)
• 6. Congratulations on Choosing C.R.S. (5:56)
• 7. Room 277 (3:34)
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• 8. Illegal Surveillance (2:59)
• 9. Reckless Endangerment (6:46)
• 10. Attempted Murder (5:55)
• 11. Mausoleum (3:55)
• 12. Tung Hoy (4:34)
• 13. Pulling Back the Curtain (4:42)
• 14. White Rabbit- performed by Jefferson Airplane (2:50)
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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