Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... on either the bootlegs or the official, limited 2010 album only if you want to experience the horror that James Horner must have felt when actually trying to write 20+ minutes of mundane, mostly synthetic filler material for this unbelievably awful film. Avoid it... if you expect Horner to have written anything as compelling as the beautiful Loreena McKennitt song or as interesting as the Igor Stravisnky piece both mixed so prominently with the score throughout the film. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Jade: (James Horner) Cinematic disasters are regular occurrences in Hollywood, though not from as varied a cast, veteran a director, controversial a writer, successful a composer, and high a budget from a major studio as Jade. The 1995 production cost $50 million to make, utilized a script by sex and thriller favorite Joe Eszterhas, and offered director William Friedkin another opportunity to not only shoot another of his famous chase scenes, but expand upon his history of tackling highly disturbing subjects as well. The mystery story contained nearly every familiar plot element standard to the noir genre, putting a detective in between his powerful former lover and her equally powerful attorney husband. When death strikes the ranks of San Francisco's executive and governing class, the detective (played with absolutely no pizzazz by David Caruso in one of his worst roles ever) has to piece together how the other two members of the triangle are involved. Fertility masks and bizarre sex rituals involving Linda Fiorentino join the topics of blackmail and hidden cameras, though none of this competes with the chance to see Rambo favorite Richard Crenna involved in the wicked and explicit rituals. And then there was the controversy. As if an American gross of less than $10 million wasn't bad enough, Jade came under fire from Eszterhas (who claimed that Friedkin mutilated his script so badly that he insisted upon having his name removed from the film) and stirred further problems when accusations were raised that Friedkin, in the style of The Exorcist and The Sorcerer, shot subliminal messages during scenes involving the freaky masks that induced vomiting in audiences (indeed, there were reports of nauseous viewers staining theatre floors with their dinners). Whether the film makes you sick to the stomach or not, it's terrible entertainment, and outside of the one minimally redemptive car chase through San Francisco's Chinatown, Jade has nothing to offer. Composer James Horner apparently realized just how wretched Jade was destined to be when he was offered the assignment by Friedkin, who very actively sought Horner's services for the film and still thought highly of him long after this collaboration. The composer, desiring to have nothing to do with Jade, did what some composers do if they are not interested in a project: have their agents demand a ridiculous sum of money to lock up the contract. Surprisingly, despite the need for only about 20 minutes of original music in Jade, Paramount accepted Horner's offer and, by an unconfirmed report, paid him $3 million for his services. That kind of money was at one time typical for a major score performed by The London Symphony Orchestra and rarely anything less. Thus, Horner was stuck in an assignment for the only kinky sex thriller of his career, a topic nestled in between his recordings of Casper and Balto. Should anyone be surprised, therefore, that Horner's finished product for Jade was awful? There have long been many unanswered questions about the composer's involvement in Jade. First is the exact amount of music he wrote for the picture, because Friedkin used a plethora of outside material for the film as well (supposedly dumping some of the score). Eventually, Horner's contribution was pegged at about 27 minutes, though the film only used about 20 minutes of it. Second is the placement of Loreena McKennitt's song, "The Mystic's Dream," throughout the score in such a fashion that the score would have to interact with it. Horner did emulate elements from the song into his work, though post-production editing of the score was more often the reason for the mingling of the two. Third is a rumor that Horner's dissatisfaction with the production spanned his entire involvement with it, creating speculation that he intentionally wrote as wretched a score for the film as possible. The last question will go unaddressed in this review, because it's impossible to say if the music is actually poor (or, at best, "phoned in") by intention. Of more importance to the discussion about Jade is the balance between McKennitt's song and Horner's score, among other items. Plenty of outside sources came into play in the film (as usual for the director and his eclectic musical tastes), including Igor Stravisnky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" ("Rite of Spring"), "Isn't It Romantic" and "Where or When" by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, "Last to Know" by Pat Metheny, and "Pau Rolou" by Egberto Gismonti. But it was "The Mystic's Dream" that factored so heavily in the film, meandering in and out of a hazy sound mix during several scenes and eventually occupying the end credits in full. It's a beautiful song, and it's no wonder that the majority of the population was confused into thinking that Horner, who was partial to McKennitt's style anyway, was responsible for that material. What her tone and instrumentation has to do with a San Francisco cop thriller with African masks is another issue... That's why filmmakers fail, no doubt. Friedkin is inclined to connect it to the emotional side of the title character's eroticism, though it's tough to match the coolly compelling lyricism of the song with the film's lack of convincing depth. The tricky part in evaluating Horner's score for Jade is that it seems as though the song, or portions of the song's mix, were arranged into the film before Horner's involvement, forcing the composer to write bridge material extending and complimenting sounds from the song into his own score. For instance, the song contains a deep, two-note motif, rising from a note below key to a resonating, harmonic key droning. Horner emulates this sound adequately on his synthesizers. Other examples of this cloudy merging exist as well; the McKennitt usage is so prevalent that either Horner was forced to address the song in his original composition or a music editor had a hell of a tough job for this production. Nothing that Horner produces for Jade is as lovely as the heart of "The Mystic's Dream," however, and fans of the song will be interested in the fact that the various layers of the song, whether vocal or instrumental, are often separated and conveyed in their solo potions (or layered differently). Stravisnky's "Rite of Spring" supplies the Chinese angle to the soundtrack, starting as a morbid, primal march that bounces on woodwinds in "Main Title" and "Looking for Answers" and eventually culminates in a wildly exotic, dissonant, descending brass theme over rowdy percussive pounding. The only notable usage of this Stravisnky piece in the film comes as the fertility masks are seen on display in the latter half of "Main Title," and given how strangely reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's most zany tendencies this obnoxious (and albeit older) piece of music is, it's no wonder people in the audience were vomiting in the aisles. These two cues, along with the first minute of "Finale" (which once again reflects Herrmann mannerisms in its prickly excitement), represent the only outwardly orchestral music tracked into Jade. The dissonance that concludes the film in "Finale" is among the generic muck to match Horner's lack of enthusiasm for the project. And what of Horner's actual original material? It's an oddly incongruous combination of The Name of the Rose and Jumanji. The extremely heavy bass keyboarding and plucky string motif from the earlier score are reprised here, as are the imitations of the male choral part of McKennitt's song that are familiar to the previous Horner score as well. The composer collected his usual group of associates on specialty instruments and added a few specifically to handle the erhu and other Chinese-related components. Deeply pounding piano and percussion, joined by wailing sakauhachi flute, are similar in execution to Jumanji. Especially as the score progresses, Horner's atmospherics are as bland a tone as Unlawful Entry and the less engaging parts of The Name of the Rose. A slight, puffing electronic choral effect (heard most extensively in Titanic) seems to be a tool to connect McKennitt's performances to the original music. The pacing of the score is incredibly slow, with lengthy sequences of basic keyboard droning or other inaudible activity. There are recurring motifs at work here, though all of them relate to flourishes of awkward instrumental performances rather than readily identifiable melodic lines. When lines are explored tepidly, as in "Drive to the Airport" in the original recording, they are too brief and nebulous to remember. Most of the basic motifs in Horner's music for Jade can be heard established in the opening cue, though some of this material was seemingly replaced by the Stravisnky and McKennitt interludes. As such, the score was never worth the search for the short bootlegs that long represented its only album presentation, even for completists. Sound quality isn't terrible on the variants of the 33-minute bootlegs of (often padded by a five-minute suite at the end), but it is very muffled. Anyone familiar with the film was better off seeking "The Mystic's Dream" as the first track on McKennitt's popular album, "The Mask and Mirror," or as the centerpiece of the album for the 2001 television production The Mists of Avalon, where it fits much more comfortably with Lee Holdridge's superior score. From a production and editing standpoint, the film manipulations of this soundtrack might be an interesting study for enthusiasts of both Horner and McKennitt's music, but you won't find yourself revisiting it again for enjoyment. Interestingly, when the time came for the score's official debut on a licensed product from La-La Land Records in 2010, the original recording by Horner was provided alone on the single CD. While this 27 minutes is joined by a handful of source recordings and the Stravisnky and McKennitt portions directly from their existing albums, the product does not try to emulate the film edits of this music. Granted, there is little sense at times to what Friedkin did with all of this raw material, but while the original score and Stravisnky piece don't benefit much from the film edit, the McKennitt music might. Among the only highlights of the soundtrack are the varying mixes of extracts from "The Mystic's Dream" featured in the film, and none of these is included on the La-La Land product. As such, the only benefit of that album is to hear Horner's score as originally written, and that's no attraction at all despite crystal clear sound. It should be no surprise that the album did not fly off the shelves, and the stock of 3,000 copies was reduced in price from $20 to $15 by the label after only a few weeks of availability. On the other hand, a clear copy of Stravisnky's mask motif could be an extremely effective tool with which to suddenly scare the crap out of a sleeping roommate in the middle of the night. Otherwise, don't lose your sleep (or your lunch) over it. * Track Listings (2001 Bootleg):
Total Time: 32:51
(variations between bootlegs exist) Track Listings (2010 La-La Land Album):
Total Time: 51:19
* different from version contained in film ** not contained in film All artwork and sound clips from Jade are Copyright © 2001, 2010, (Bootleg), La-La Land Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/26/09, updated 1/15/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2009-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. Some people learned the hard way that Jade wasn't exactly a great date movie. |
2001 Bootleg