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Miracle: (Mark Isham) "Do you believe in miracles?
Yes!" With these words in 1980, viewers of the Olympics in Lake Placid were
treated to the event that Sports Illustrated magazine deemed the single
greatest sporting event of the 20th Century. With the United States
seemingly on the decline in world power, suffering from scandals at home and
a hostage crisis in Iran, the U.S.S.R. seemed on the surge with its invasion
of Afghanistan and continued control over the Eastern Bloc. The Soviets had
dominated Olympic hockey in the 1960's and 1970's, winning four consecutive
gold medals leading up to the 1980 games in America. Under the determined
coaching of Herb Brooks, a collection of American mutts averaging 21 years
of age trained for and won the gold in 1980 (there's not much suspense in
the film...). The punctuation of that year's tournament was a spectacular
win over the Soviets that was seen, politically, as the turning point of the
Cold War. Director Gavin O'Connor, still a newcomer in the industry, took
the story of first time screenwriter Eric Guggenheim and made a play-by-play
documentary of the story. Even the game itself included Al Michaels' and Ken
Dryden's original commentary played over original televised footage, and
original speeches of President Carter's could be heard over other segments.
With Kurt Russell convincing in his portrayal of Brooks, the film was
considered a success by both critics and audiences alike --the ultimate
feel-good story based on a real event, with the good guys beating the bad
guys with world domination at stake-- and yet, the film suffered from a
sluggish response by mass audiences and was not overly successful at the box
office. O'Connor wanted a unique and personal approach to his film and,
subsequently, the score. In composer Mark Isham, O'Conner found "a score
that is truly potent, arresting and multi-layered, going to a profoundly
deep level." Response to Isham's music has seemed equal to the merits of the
film, despite a main theme with arguably awkward chord progressions.
There remains one overarching aspect of Mark Isham's film
scoring that often restrains his scores from greatness, however. When
O-Conner mentions "multi-layered" as an attribute of Isham's score for
Miracle, it's difficult to understand his meaning, because this score
(as well as many of Isham's others) seems two-dimensional and mono-thematic
in its composition and recording. Isham's concurrent
Twisted score
suffers from a similar lack of depth; whereas
Twisted was obviously a
hideous project all around, it's surprising to hear more of Isham's
understated style and lack of powerful emotion in much of
Miracle. If
anything, sports dramas bring out the most ambitious of film scores from
composers, and in the heightened training and game sequences, Isham begins
to show drive, determination, and flavor in his chopping strings that is
absent from the rest of the work. This film would have seemed to be an
excellent opportunity to spur the same feel-good depth heard in Isham's
spectacular effort for
Fly Away Home, and yet,
Miracle falls
flat before it can really get started. If you want to speak about this
phenomenon on a technical level, one could argue that the simplistic sound
of Isham's music here is due to a complete lack of counterpoint, variation
of rhythm, or interesting orchestration. The snare drum softly tapping as a
representative of patriotism is badly underplayed, and the sense of weight
necessary in the American victory simply can't be heard on the shoulders of
one trumpet player. Had a bank of trumpets, a rattle of electronics, or,
better yet, the distinct crack of a hockey stick on ice been used to
punctuate rhythms or carry themes,
Miracle could have contained the
emphasis and excitement that Isham's score lacks. There is no musical
representation of the Soviets as well. To his credit, Isham does finally
unleash the full ensemble of 100 players in the finale of the score, with
brass on levels that we don't often hear from the composer, but
Miracle takes a long time building up to that moment. By the time
that finale arrives, a listener could very well wonder what all the fuss
regarding the 1980 Olympics was all about. It's a sufficient score, but not
a noteworthy one; it simply lacks true drive and enthusiasm. An album
without proper track breaks, without a single picture from the film, and
with three songs unrelated to the score cause the entire package to be
insufficient.
Score as Written for FIlm: ***
Score as Heard on Album: **
Overall: ***
| Bias Check: | For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.93 (in 15 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 6,616 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Despite some erroneous advertising, the Aerosmith song "Dream On" does
not appear on this album. The insert includes a note from the director about the
score and film, as well as a list of performers.
