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Goodbye Lover: (John Ottman) Solid "R" ratings were
invented for films like
Goodbye Lover, a circus act of sex,
murder, and profanity that doesn't make much sense with all of its
double-crosses and nonsensical plot twists. The noir style of
Goodbye
Lover is its dominant trait; the haphazard story is largely
irrelevant. Four highly flawed characters involved in affairs and crime
with one another say and do the ridiculous, all the while Ellen
DeGeneres' witty cop pursues them. The remainder of the cast is lost in
the performances, and it's truly amazing to recall that this director,
Roland Joffe, was the same person who brought
The Mission and
The Killing Fields to life. Appropriately derided by critics,
Goodbye Lover quickly slipped from the spotlight, and yet none of
that failure can be attributed to composer John Ottman. On occasion in
the late 1990's, Ottman had a habit of letting his wild creativity get
the best of him, providing scores that on paper may seem outrageous but
in the rendering are extremely likable. This often happened when Ottman
pulled inspiration from a specific genre of music and twisted it into
his own universe of thought. In the case of
Goodbye Lover, Ottman
takes the jazzy noir concept and perverts it into a playful comedy
routine. Unorthodox instrumentation and distinctive development for the
main characters merge with the staccato rhythms that defined
Incognito. A quirky personality that evades conventional
boundaries causes Ottman's work to be stunningly unique against the
bland backdrop of the plethora of mundane scores that exist today. The
devious character of Ottman's music for scores like
Goodbye Lover
is precisely the reason he was often described in the late 1990's as
being the wacky composer that collectors thought Danny Elfman would
remain. In this case, some of the blend of orchestral action and solo
jazz elements is so well realized that you get the impression that
Ottman would be at home in David Arnold's sound for the James Bond
franchise. It is unfortunate that the composer's move towards the
mainstream in the 2000's pulled him away from such wildly creative
projects.
None of the themes in
Goodbye Lover is
particularly memorable, but as was the situation with
Incognito,
the rendering of each idea is so enticingly original that you can't help
but admire them. Many of the instrumental colors from the previous score
return. The harpsichord, glockenspiel, saxophone, acoustic guitar, and
piano are joined again by a brilliantly mixed array of percussive
delights, including medium drums, tambourine, castanets, and other
tingling and clicking effects that produce an extremely dynamic
soundscape. Fluttering woodwinds often carry smart counterpoint to the
themes, string ostinatos drive the cosmopolitan pace of the majority of
the score, and resounding brass offer occasional blasts of enthusiasm.
The contemporary elements of the score are beefed up using electric bass
and electric guitar, with their most flamboyant contributions in
"Rendezvous." Some of the synthetic effects are precursors to the highly
stylish
Point of Origin score that Ottman would define later in
his career with musical imitations of an old-fashioned typewriter. This
includes some of the clicking sounds and, more importantly, the high
range synthetic choir that was frequently employed by Ottman for his
lower budget scores. Rhythms ranging from a jazz swing to tango and
waltz all propel the score with a wicked sense of humor. Thematically,
Ottman provides almost an excess of themes for
Goodbye Lover. The
two, dull male leads aren't treated to much in the way of musical
identity, but the three women are. The main character, Sandra (Patricia
Arquette), is a psychotic piece of work, and Ottman defines her with a
combination of devilish sexual appeal and child-like innocence. Her
scheming and erotic side is represented by both the ostinato rhythms
that prance with deliberate playfulness while harpsichord and
glockenspiel perform the actual melody. These two devious ideas are
introduced together in the opening minute of "Main Titles" and are
frequently referenced on the first half of the album (with the help of
some snazzy sax accents).
The psuedo-innocent side of Arquette's character is
given a slight piano theme, and in the "Main Titles" this idea is
presented as an interlude to the primary melody. On its own, it receives
two fleeting performances in "A Broken Heart." What's interesting about
this theme is how Ottman can take its sensitive piano performances and
use the sax and woodwinds as tools to give it an alluring edge (heard
best at about 1:00 into "Main Titles"). Perhaps the most enjoyable
aspect of the entire score for
Goodbye Lover is the fact that
Ottman plays upon Sandra's built-in obsession with
The Sound of
Music by quoting the first phrases of the classic "My Favorite
Things" melody frequently on woodwinds during performances of her
primary theme. The use of the famous melody as counterpoint to the
original theme for Sandra is very smartly integrated. To hear fragments
of "My Favorite Things" in a sexual environment is damn near worth the
price of the album alone. Mary-Louise Parker's secondary character
(though only slightly less of a sexual being) is given a theme that's
often quoted in between the ideas for Sandra. Its delicately staccato
flute-based melody is first heard in "Peggy's Story" and "Observations,"
though it receives some awesome brass counterpoint in "Rendezvous." A
lower, descending woodwind theme for DeGeneres' cop is introduced in
"Victims" and explored much further in "Crime Scene." On the whole,
though, the themes for Sandra and Peggy are the main attraction of
Goodbye Lover, for it is the mood of their performances that
dominates the work. The recording mix is incredibly expansive, and
because Ottman explicitly asked the ensemble to perform as "erotic" as
possible, you clearly hear all the jazzy slurring and pulsating emphasis
of each section trying, sometimes humorously, to meet the composer's
request. On album, the score saves its more traditional orchestral cues
of suspense for its latter half, diminishing its appeal after a dozen or
so cues. But
Goodbye Lover is still well worth the time of any
collector looking for a composer striving for something different. You
often hear Ottman at his best when he concentrates on clever style over
meaty substance, an ever-intriguing, seemingly backwards concept that
Goodbye Lover serves to prove.
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| Bias Check: | For John Ottman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 32 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.03
(in 17,523 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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