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Love Field: (Jerry Goldsmith) Among composer Jerry
Goldsmith's more enjoyable, lesser-known scores of the 1990's is for a
largely forgotten film about segregation,
Love Field. From director
Jonathan Kaplan, the movie is a modern period study of a Dallas housewife
(with a demanding performance from Michelle Pfeiffer) and travelling black
family on a bus trip to Washington D.C. With the woman motivated by her
idolization of Jacqueline Kennedy and embarking on the forbidden journey to
the funeral of John F. Kennedy, she is forced to deal with her relationship
with a black man and his daughter as they make their way. Both the police
and the woman's husband are searching for the awkward threesome, and the
film focuses on how these primary characters overcome their racial
differences to continue seeking their dreams. Scored in the middle of an
extremely hectic pair of years for the composer (1992-1993),
Love
Field is understandably lost among the composer's other achievements of
the time. His contribution to
Love Field was under thirty minutes,
and even at that short length, some of his material was removed from the
final version of the film. A substantial amount of Goldsmith material was
replaced by ensemble or piano solo music composed by keyboardist Bill Payne,
a founding member of 70's band "Little Feat." Payne's contribution was stark
by contrast to Goldsmith's more lush orchestral work, and is easily
identifiable in the film for the trained ears of Goldsmith collectors. When
you see live piano performances of a piece called "Theme from Love Field" by
various artists today, 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 a year or two later.
Ten years after its initial release,
Love Field is
still known for its blues and jazz-influenced primary theme. Heard mostly in
the first two cues and finale cue, this theme offers all the innocence of a
Goldsmith children's theme with the zip and enthusiasm of Southern blues
attitude. Led by a surprisingly crisp piano performance --by design and
mix-- the title theme rolls with elegance as easy-going strings, pleasant
woodwinds, and occasional synthesized counterpoint flow in the background. A
certain amount of Goldsmith's usual "tingling" sound effects and creative
percussion accompany these thematic performances, although the their tone
never expands to the seriousness of similarly-conceived ideas in
The
Russia House and does not degenerate into the silly kind of madness from
the piano heard in
I.Q. Goldsmith's thematic sensibilities are at
their best in
Love Field, with at least eight minutes of this
heartening theme belonging on any compilation of the composer's works. The
middle twenty minutes of the score dwell in a darker place, however. Because
of the serious subject matter of the film, much of the score outside of the
opening and closing titles is turbulent and sometimes downright unpleasant.
A single, ominous, militaristic progression is a complete contrast from the
jazz/blues heard in the bookending tracks. Heavy, electronic banging is
interspersed between delicate moments when the main theme barely takes hold
("We're Not Alone") but falters. The active, suspenseful moments of this
score are more confused and disjointed, with harsh electronics and
unsynchronized strings reminiscent of parts of
Basic Instinct that
same year. A cue such as "The Motel" is struck directly from the mold of
Goldsmith's large-scale, drum-pounding, brass-blasting thrillers. The
tension built into the cue for Kennedy's assassination is a different
animal, handled by Goldsmith with proper restraint. Nevertheless, the tragic
and suspenseful middle portions of
Love Field have much more in
common with
The Vanishing than they do the tender theme established
at the start and finish of the score. At 29 minutes in length, and with
under ten lighthearted ones, the score 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, their
inclusion will be most welcomed.
***
| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 111 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
