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The Golden Bowl: (Richard Robbins) To say that
Merchant Ivory Productions of the 1990's appealed to a certain, narrow
audience devoted to dramatic period films is not too controversial of a
generalization. With dozens of adaptations of classic novels of that
genre under their belts, the Merchant Ivory team continued in the 2000's
to produce films of character development that take place in the 1800's
or early 1900's. While these films always appeal to the arthouse crowds
(and sometimes even garner Academy recognition in their greatest
successes), they are never blockbuster hits. After all, nearly all of
the Merchant Ivory films involve a considerable amount of lengthy
toiling between the talking heads of several arguably stuffy characters.
For some, these films become a wash, exhibiting the same kind of
thematic character wrestling that binds them all together by common
flaws on a fundamental level. The equation is much the same for
The
Golden Bowl, the team's third adaptation of a Henry James novel. To
nobody's surprise, its plot involves two sets of characters (in England
of the early 1900's) involved in various love affairs, betrayals, and
the problems inherent in the relations between the rich and the poor. Of
course, the relationship between rich and poor, or the rich and their
servants, is nothing new. Seeing Uma Thurman star in such a production,
though, was something of a novelty. To be expected, Richard Robbins
returned to score yet another chapter in the Merchant Ivory saga.
Robbins' music for these films goes largely unnoticed; the assignments
for such productions are split between himself and Richard Bennett, and
some will argue that the latter actually writes more listenable music
for them. Robbins had his fair share of success with the genre, winning
respect and praise for the glory days, shall we say, of the Merchant
Ivory series in the early 1990's.
Howard's End and
The Remains
of the Day both received Oscar nominations for Robbins, but since
then, his music's popularity has tapered off. Without a doubt,
The
Golden Bowl is tethered strongly to the advantages and disadvantages
of its brethren. Most film score collectors, when bored and in search of
the next album to pull off the shelves, will skip past Robbins' scores
for several reasons, all of which apply to this predictable entry as
well.
Since the Merchant Ivory tales tend to involve an
insufferable amount of dialogue, the music is meant to simply provide a
proper atmosphere to coincide with the costumes and art direction. The
style of music you hear in these productions is often an imitation of
what the characters would have heard in chamber orchestras of the era.
Robbins is quick to point out the importance of this circumstance,
though his adaptations of that sound often exist without much
amplification or thematic development. Additionally, Robbins' scores all
begin to sound alike after a while, and once again
The Golden
Bowl adheres to this rule. From a technical standpoint, there's
nothing wrong with a continuation of style; it's like hearing Alex North
readapting parts of
Spartacus into
Cleopatra. When you
have so many films of similar time period and character traits, there's
no need to vary the music much. As such, a work like
The Golden
Bowl is sufficient at every level for its film, but it borders on
being insufferably boring for much of its length. For this entry,
Robbins employed a medium-sized orchestra and manages to spread the
generally harmonic performances of meandering motifs between all its
sections. The lack of clearly delineated themes is compensated for by
repetitious rhythms of strings and an overarching sense of melodramatic
weight. Some of the tracks (almost half, in fact) involve very
simplistic, repetitious statements of the strings, easily dismissible as
meandering and drab atmospheric maintenance (if you think John Barry can
be repetitious at times, then Robbins could drive you mad). The more
interesting aspects of the score are the brassy statements of robust
movement of scene, such as in "Opening Credits" and "The Golden Slave."
The end titles are scored with a Scott Joplin style of piano tune that
coincides with the time, and this is the surprising highlight of the
work. On the whole, however,
The Golden Bowl is a stereotypical
Robbins score for a Merchant Ivory film that undoubtedly succeeds in
furthering the torment of the characters' relationships and their
surroundings. The Milan album contains a long hour of neatly packaged
music from the film, but unfortunately it's not the kind of material
that most film score collectors will be able to digest. Only established
fans of Merchant Ivory films or Robbins' career should approach it with
confidence.
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The insert includes a note from Robbins about the score and film.
