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The Last Castle: (Jerry Goldsmith) In a rare return
to acting without directing at the same time, Robert Redford places
himself in the role of a decorated American general who refuses to obey
an executive order and is thus sent to a military prison called "the
castle." His stubborn will to resist the unreasonable actions of the
prison's warden in
The Last Castle earn him the respect of the
men, and only through his sacrifice in an uprising can he bring proper
justice to its confines. The Rod Lurie film was undoubtedly too long in
running time, dragging its story out for over two hours and hitting the
patriotism and redemption buttons too frequently. While making use of a
few blues songs during that time,
The Last Castle was among the
last five scores written and recorded by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith,
taking advantage of the composer's rich history of uplifting patriotic
works. Forgotten by some listeners in the composer's late string of
ethnically powerful action and solemn mystery scores was the fact that
Goldsmith was very capable of assembling a rousing, country-first score
for brass and percussion. Thirty years prior, his military marches for
Patton and
MacArthur burst into movie music history,
establishing Goldsmith as an artist with a mastery of pompous and even
arrogant military music. That style of writing from Goldsmith would turn
bittersweet in his three
Rambo scores, producing a haunting theme
for a fallen soldier that remains atop his resume. In the 1990's,
Goldsmith's military-related work had more of a swashbuckling edge, with
scores such as
Air Force One and
Executive Decision
melding patriotism with all out adventure. All of the aforementioned
scores are dominated by lead performances by brass instruments, with
bold themes that often graced the composer's compilations and concerts.
In
The Last Castle, as the gritty, court-martialed general leads
his insurrection, Goldsmith returns to emotional territory that is
closest in relation to the complexly vengeful
Rambo scores, but
with a prominent role for trumpet and rolling motif usage that will very
obviously remind even mainstream listeners of
Patton.
For a film that was advertised as having a substantial
amount of action,
The Last Castle is treated to an introspective
score, exploring the patriotism within the context of tense resiliency.
Only in a handful of cues does a fully rousing performance of defiance
break the mostly reflective underscore. The tone for
The Last
Castle, while it may contain the same basic elements as all of the
scores mentioned above (and serve a film for which a highly dramatic
advertisement campaign was launched), was among Goldsmith's most
reserved in years. The majority of cues is opened and closed by rapid
snare bursts, with minimal strings and electronic rhythms to set the
necessary military atmosphere. On top of that, two or three brass motifs
repeat unwaveringly throughout every cue, very predictably and with a
consistently sorrowful and frustrated mood. These rising and falling
statements function almost like a slow ostinato for various brass
layers, which is where the comparisons to Goldsmith's echoing trumpet
call in
Patton become inevitable. The short bursts of actual,
ballsy action music resemble very much the composer's
Rambo III
score from 1989, as well as
Executive Decision to a lesser
extent. The use of the timpani to pound out the bass region of
Goldsmith's action cues had become a staple, as had the deliberate
tempos and emphasized spacing of brass whole notes. When you compare all
of Goldsmith's patriotic action themes for many years, it becomes
evident that the meter and placement of lengthier accent notes in his
themes are typically pretty much the same. This similarity causes the
themes to have that "Goldsmithian" sound that is always enjoyable, if
not superb in its nobility. Many point to
First Knight as a prime
example of this. But the sound was also growing old and predictable by
the 1990's, and Goldsmith again in
The Last Castle failed to take
any chances with his established structures or instrumentation. No
substantial secondary themes exist, and the electronic effects, often
Goldsmith's tool for creativity, are largely diminished. When not
engaged in development of the primary theme, the score often meanders
aimlessly with only the help of slight bass string tones.
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The remarkable predictability and lack of
experimentation in this score causes it to pass by very quickly on
album, though part of that comment results from the existence of under
35 minutes of score material on that product. Because long sequences in
the film exist without Goldsmith's material, the score as a whole has
less of an impact outside of the most intentionally poignant scenes. For
the collectors of the composer's works, there's nothing to really catch
your attention once you've established that
The Last Castle is an
extremely stereotypical score for Goldsmith. It is the kind of
derivative, patriotic music with a melancholy heart that many had come
to expect from the composer for portrayals of rebellious patriots. As
usual for the era, the engineering of the score is marvelous, especially
enhancing the few full performances of the primary theme on trumpet with
resounding harmony from bass strings. Ironically, it was the terrorist
attack on America in September of 2001 that caused this album to be of
note. With the attack occurring in the waning days of the film's
post-production, Goldsmith re-arranged the theme he had written to
represent the prison and labeled the recording "September 11, 2001."
Interestingly, the superb trumpeteering by Malcolm McNab and the
seemingly more inspiring orchestral accompaniment for this rendition of
the theme (led by muscular piano) are a remarkable aspect of an
otherwise solid, but average Goldsmith album. Only three minutes in
length, the tribute to the victims of the attack is a noteworthy move by
Goldsmith, especially given how close it came to the time of his death,
and he was fortunate enough to record the piece for an already patriotic
film due to awkwardly lucky timing (had he been scoring
Along Came a
Spider at the time instead, such a tribute would have been more
difficult to manage). The album unfortunately contains two bluesy songs,
and although they fit the prison environment quite well, the final one
significantly diminishes the mood of the attack tribute, a memorial cue
that undoubtedly should have been presented as the final track on the
album. On the whole, while
The Last Castle is certainly stronger
than his other 2000 and 2001 scores, collectors who have heard his work
for many decades will find very little that doesn't reflect or repeat
the previous patriotic efforts in his career.
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| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.26 (in 113 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.32
(in 133,461 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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