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Love Field: (Jerry Goldsmith) A largely forgotten
film about segregation from director Jonathan Kaplan,
Love Field
is a modern period study of a Dallas housewife (with a demanding leading
performance from Michelle Pfeiffer) and her contact with a travelling
black family on a bus trip to Washington D.C. in the early 1960's. With
the woman motivated by her idolization of Jacqueline Kennedy and
embarking on a forbidden journey to the funeral of John F. Kennedy, she
is forced to deal with her relationship with the black man and his
daughter as they make their way. Both the police and the woman's husband
initiate a search for the awkward threesome, and the film focuses on how
these primary characters overcome their racial differences to continue
seeking their dreams. The project represents one of composer Jerry
Goldsmith's lesser known points of interest; coming in the middle of an
extremely hectic pair of years for the composer (1992 and 1993),
Love
Field is understandably lost amongst Goldsmith's other, flashier
achievements of the time. His contribution to the film amounted to less
than thirty minutes, but even at that short length, some of his music
was removed from the final version of the movie. A substantial amount of
that Goldsmith material was replaced by small ensemble or solo piano
music composed by keyboardist Bill Payne, a founding member of 1970's
band "Little Feat." Payne's contribution to
Love Field was
painfully stark by contrast to Goldsmith's more lush orchestral work,
and it remains easily identifiable in the film to the trained ears of
displeased Goldsmith collectors. When you encounter live piano
performances of a piece called "Theme from Love Field" by various
artists on compilations since, that music represents some of Payne's
work for the project. The situation did not permanently sour the
relationship between Goldsmith and Kaplan, however, for the composer and
director would team up once again for the flavorful
Bad Girls not
long after. Regardless of Payne's unfortunate involvement, the
soundtrack for
Love Field is still best remembered decades later
for the pretty and occasionally snazzy blues and jazz-influenced primary
theme afforded the story and era by Goldsmith. In between this tender
theme featured at the start and finish of the score, the tragic and
suspenseful middle portions of
Love Field have much more in
common with
The Vanishing, a striking shift in personality that
strips away the initial flavor.
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Goldsmith had a knack for writing classy themes of blue
or jazz influence in the late 1980's and early 1990's (aside from his
occasional forays into light rock and other more blatantly urban tones
along the lines of
Rent-A-Cop) and
Love Field contains one
of the more relaxing incarnations of those efforts. Heard mostly in the
first two and final tracks on the album release, this theme offers all
the innocence of a breezy Goldsmith children's identity with the
distinctive zip and enthusiasm of Southern blues attitude. A touch of
Thomas Newman is to be heard in this tone, though perhaps more
accessible in this form. Led by a surprisingly crisp piano performance
(seemingly by design and mix), this main theme rolls with elegance as
easy-going strings, pleasant woodwinds, and occasional brass or
synthetic counterpoint flow in the background. A certain amount of
Goldsmith's usual tingling sound effects and creative percussion
accompany these thematic performances, though the their personality
never expands to the seriousness of similarly-conceived ideas in
The
Russia House and does not degenerate into the silly explosions of
madness from the piano heard in
I.Q. or equivalent comedy
ventures. Goldsmith's melodic sensibilities are at their best in
Love
Field, with at least eight minutes of this heartening theme
belonging in any collection of the composer's most wholesome works. The
middle twenty minutes of the score dwell in a darker place, however.
Because of the serious subject matter of the story, much of the music
outside of the opening and closing portions is turbulent and sometimes
downright unpleasant. A recurring ominous, militaristic progression is a
complete contrast from the jazz and blues heard in the bookending
tracks. Heavy, electronic banging is interspersed between delicate
moments when the main theme barely takes hold but inevitably falters, as
in "We're Not Alone." The active and suspenseful moments of this score
are a bit disjointed, harsh electronics and unsynchronized strings
reminiscent of parts of
Basic Instinct. A cue such as "The Motel"
is pulled directly from the predictable mold of Goldsmith's large-scale,
drum-pounding, brass-blasting thrillers of the 1990's. The tension built
into the cue for Kennedy's assassination is a different animal, handled
by Goldsmith with proper restraint and disbelief. Overall, at 29 minutes
in length and with a maximum of ten lighthearted minutes, Goldsmith's
score for
Love Field is a somewhat unsatisfying experience.
However, if you extract the two conflicting parts of the score and
include them on different compilations with like Goldsmith cues from
other works, their inclusion will be most welcomed.
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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 133,462 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
