Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are reliably attracted to Jerry Goldsmith's easy-going, piano-rolling jazz and blues themes of distinctive character. Avoid it... if only ten minutes of that enthusiastic main theme on the album doesn't justify another twenty minutes of rather streamlined Goldsmith drama and suspense material. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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. 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. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 28:51
All artwork and sound clips from Love Field are Copyright © 1993, Varèse Sarabande. 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 6/1/98, updated 11/2/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1998-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
