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Review of Joe Versus the Volcano (Georges Delerue)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're enamored by each of Georges Delerue's highly
melodic romance scores, for Joe Versus the Volcano is among his
last great genre entries in a career sadly cut short.
Avoid it... if you have only a casual interest in Delerue's highly predictable styles, because the unyieldingly optimistic whimsy of the composer's techniques could potentially test your patience.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Joe Versus the Volcano: (Georges Delerue) The
almost forgotten first pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Joe Versus
the Volcano shamelessly plugged the ultimate corny, modern
fairy-tale love story. It was along the same quirky lines as Big
for Hanks but not remotely rising to the same level of popular or
critical success. The film remains a more prominent footnote for Ryan,
who played three entirely different characters for the production. The
silly plot of Joe Versus the Volcano involves the misdiagnosis of
Hanks' modern day man with an incurable condition called a "brain
cloud," and along his journey to throw himself into a volcano, he
inevitably is sidetracked by Ryan's presence. The failure of the film
led to an early exit from the directorial scene for John Patrick Shanley
(which ultimately lasted 18 years). Far more bittersweet was the venture
for fans of composer Georges Delerue, who was only two years away from
his surprising death in 1992. This project was one of a dozen scores to
his credit in the 1990's, showing his enormous productivity in the film
composing scene even up to his final days. Luckily, because Delerue had
a strongly established following of collectors by that point in his
career, nearly all of these scores were released in album form. The most
notable absence for a long time in Delerue's scores of the 1990's on
album, however, was Joe Versus the Volcano. Because the film
flopped so terribly at its debut, Delerue's score was never treated to a
commercial release. This shouldn't be surprising for an additional
reason; Delerue's contribution to the film was originally to comprise
about fifteen minutes of screen time. By 1990, films had just
re-discovered the popular idea of inserting series of pop songs into the
mix instead of using an orchestral score, and Joe Versus the
Volcano made extensive use of this notion. Interestingly, however,
after hearing the mastery that Delerue had created in those fifteen
minutes, the producers of the film asked the composer to beef up the
content to beyond 45 minutes in length, and Delerue, at the last minute,
was happy to oblige.
As fate would have it, however, the producers of Joe Versus the Volcano ended up removing a handful of Delerue's lengthier cues in favor of pop songs anyway, including the notable recordings for "Brain Cloud," "Shopping Spree," "Alone in New York," and "Fishing." Much of the remaining score was undermixed in the film, deflating its impact in many parts of the love story. In fact, as you will notice if you have watched the film in one of its numerous television reruns, the fabulous "End Credits" suite is dubbed out and most casual viewers won't likely get the idea that a strong score for the film exists at all. As for that score's contents, the music for Joe Versus the Volcano follows the fairy tale genre of the story very faithfully. Delerue begins with a music box theme that repeats with innocence several times throughout the score before eventually concluding the narrative with it. The central romance is treated with one of Delerue's many remarkable, career-defining love themes, flourishing in rich strings, flowing harp, and melodically dramatic key shifts. This one in particular is even loftier than many of his other, similar entries in the genre, sometimes straying into the pure fantasy genre, though Delerue, as always, manipulates the otherworldly whimsy of the theme for insertion into nearly every cue in some way or another, whether it be with a sax, full brass, or even a chorus. The lengthy "End Credits" suite, which for years had been a popular bootlegged representation of the entire score (likely yanked from the end titles of a foreign-released VHS tape), presents the love theme in not only a solid performance of full strings, but also a lyrical song as well. In terms of integration, the lyrical version of the theme melds with the surrounding score much like Jerry Goldsmith's accomplishment in his rejected fantasy score for Legend. For Delerue enthusiasts who collect his plentiful love themes on album, there are plenty of performances of the one here, and because this theme didn't appear on his popular compilations, the belated Varèse Sarabande album of Joe Versus the Volcano will suffice to meet your desire for yet another sugary romance melody from the master. Several cues highlight Joe Versus the Volcano with breaks from the standard Delerue romance formula, however. The sax interwoven with the love theme in "Shopping Spree" is a success in its contemporary tones, and the light rock of the rejected "Fishing" cue is a welcome change, as well as the acoustic guitar performance in "Dinner with Dee Dee," which finishes with a flash of gusto. Ironically, the most notable use of music in the film itself is the humorous adaptation of "Hava Nagila" and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," arranged by Delerue into the tribal chants of the native "Waponis" people of the volcano island late in the film. Orchestrally, the most powerful standout cue in the film exists for its only major action scene: the typhoon sequence. As the storm ravages the ship and forces the main characters to be marooned, Delerue explodes with a full brass statement of a secondary "despair theme" of dramatic tragedy that was explored less melodramatically in "Brain Cloud." The sheer size of this extended cue, and the mastery with which Delerue creates the perfect "storm at sea" atmosphere, elevates it beyond even the love theme on the album. It is fitting that this cue was seemingly Delerue's favorite when scoring the film; driving brass in the minor key build to one magnificent major key crescendo, after which the love theme is performed in full. This cue alone is worth the price of the album. The 2002 CD release had been a project of love for the Varèse Sarabande label's Robert Townson for some time, as he was a close associate and friend of Delerue. Mounting requests from fans, along with the simple fact that Joe Versus the Volcano was the last of Delerue's great 1990's scores yet to be released on album, eventually led to this "Masters Film Music" release. How these "Masters Film Music" albums differed in intent from the label's CD Club albums, which had been resumed just a year prior, wasn't entirely clear, but the fact remains that Joe Versus the Volcano was also a limited pressing of 3,000 albums. Long after this album inevitably sold out and became a top collectible, Varèse expanded it slightly and cleaned up its sound for another 2,000-copy run in 2016. For both Delerue collectors and general film music fans alike, either album will not disappoint you if you enjoy his predictably strong romance scores. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
2002 Album:
Total Time: 48:19
2016 Album: Total Time: 60:40
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both albums contain a list of performers and a lengthy analysis of
the film and score.
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