 |
|
| Goldsmith |
|
|
The Mummy: (Jerry Goldsmith) At times, it's hard to
tell if director Stephen Sommers intended
The Mummy to actually
embody the characteristics of a serious action flick, because so much of
it is ridiculously dumb that there's the possibility that parody was the
goal. Nothing really remains from the 1932 Boris Karloff film of the
same name, with the remake a cheap knock-off of the Indiana Jones
concept that resorts to cliches for a bloated running time. A high
priest in 1290 B.C. Egypt is caught with the pharaoh's mistress and is
both buried alive with flesh eating beetles and cursed for all eternity.
He, Imhotep, is the mummy stumbled upon and accidentally released by
Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, who, in their roles as an American
treasure seeker and British historian, respectively, are plundering the
riches of Hamunaptra. As Imhotep is resurrected, he sets upon unleashing
Biblical plagues, among other auxiliary intentions. The concept of
Imhotep's attraction to the modern incarnation of his former Egyptian
lover, the central theme of the 1932 film, is only alluded to in the
1999 version. Inevitably, the special effects of Imhotep's plagues are
the main attraction, and the story was damned by Sommers' own writing
missteps. Sommers and composer Jerry Goldsmith had collaborated on the
ridiculous action/horror film
Deep Rising the previous year, and
The Mummy came after an uncharacteristic six month absence from
the film scoring scene for Goldsmith. Without a doubt, 1999 was the
veteran composer's last great year, treating audiences to robust
orchestral scores for this,
The Haunting, and
The 13th
Warrior. Though none of these films merited much praise, the
consistent quality of Goldsmith's output, as well as the outstanding
characteristics of the recordings' mixes, have caused the scores to
become late staples in the collections of the composer's fans. While the
score for
The Mummy certainly has all the building blocks of a
five-star score (or at least a solid four star one), it stumbles due to
its total lack of organization. The sequels' scores by Alan Silvestri
and John Debney, interestingly, used none of Goldsmith's material but
were arguably more consistent.
If you're the kind of devoted film music collector who
enjoys Goldsmith's exotic orchestral bombast in its purest sense, then
the aimless personality of
The Mummy won't bother you. The score
was Goldsmith's most densely ambitious "wall of sound" entry of the era,
blatantly pulling at the bloated charisma of the story. It's difficult
to determine if Goldsmith approached
The Mummy with absolutely
serious intent, for his music certainly makes it seem as though that
were the case. But given that the production elements of the film were
extreme to the point of parody makes one wonder if Goldsmith didn't let
rip with the tone of this score due to some "tongue in cheek"
playfulness. Several of the rhythms in
The Mummy are directly
related to the militaristic parody movements in
Small Soldiers,
which could indicate either a nod to the comical elements of
The
Mummy or perhaps simply the composer's preferred style of ruckus at
the time. Much of the style of Goldsmith's rambling, percussive rhythms
in
The Mummy would be reprised with greater coherence in
The
13th Warrior. The sheer density of
The Mummy is both its
major attraction and its demise. The many thematic ideas in the score
are often lost in the shuffle, though it should be noted that each of
the four individual themes is above average compared to the composer's
tendency in the following years to write some clunkers. While all of the
four ideas receive significant treatment throughout the score, none of
them really establishes itself as the primary identity of the film. The
closest candidate to taking this title is the ancient Egypt theme,
alternately representing the living soul of Imhotep and the curse placed
upon him at the outset of the film. This theme is rich with both
straight-forward boldness and a few twists of stereotypical
Middle-Eastern chord progressions. Its broad performance at the very
outset of the film is its most prominent, though it ranges in style from
solo woodwind in "Giza Port" to frantic hits and swirls of the ensemble
in the opening moments of "The Sand Volcano."
The sinister side of Imhotep's resurrection and curses
is provided with another theme, foreshadowed briefly on low woodwind
over choir at the end of "Imhotep" and debuting in full on brass in the
latter half of "The Sarcophagus." Fuller performances of this idea are
heard as the havoc is really being sent forth in "My Favorite Plague"
and "Crowd Control." A heroic theme for the film, alternately a
straight-laced action motif, is ripped directly from
Small
Soldiers and used during the more upbeat moments of adventure in the
film. Goldsmith only allows this theme to truly flourish in "The Sand
Volcano," prominently marching its way at about 2:20 into that cue. The
fourth and final theme in
The Mummy is the obvious love theme,
spanning both the relationship between Imhotep and the mistress as well
as the one between 1920's treasure seekers. The first hints of this
string theme are offered in the ancient Egypt scene in "Imhotep," though
it is more frequently referenced as the score progresses. A fleeting
performance in "Giza Port" and several prevalent statements in the
latter half of "Camel Race" cannot compete with the majesty of the
theme's performances in the last minutes of "The Sand Volcano," when the
choir elegantly joins in. In between all of these thematic references is
an extremely healthy dose of Goldsmith's most rowdy action material. As
mentioned before, these ideas owe heavily to
Small Soldiers and
would be explored with greater success by Goldsmith in his replacement
score for
The 13th Warrior. With percussive and synthetic
instrumentation appropriate for the region, many have compared parts of
The Mummy to
The Wind and the Lion, which contains some of
Goldsmith's most memorable action material for the region.
Instrumentally,
The Mummy sufficiently provides the setting with
an exotic tilt, and the elements used here for that effect are identical
to those heard again in
The 13th Warrior. Parts of the two
scores, in fact, could be interchanged and few causal fans would notice
the difference. There is irony in the fact that the end credits music
for
The Mummy consisted of pieces from the rest of the score
manually edited together into a suite.
|
|
|
 |
| |
|
| | |
|
Only $9.99
| | | |
|
The major difference between
The Mummy and its
two direct cousins,
Small Soldiers and
The 13th Warrior,
is that
The Mummy struggles to maintain a personality. The former
score's exuberant sense of humor and the latter score's stark sense of
antiquity are the kinds of defining characteristics that
The
Mummy lacks. You can't really rely upon any of the four major
themes, for Goldsmith doesn't enunciate them clearly enough for an
average movie-goer to grasp. You also can't really point to any single
instrumental or vocal element as the definition of the score (the
opposite of this would be
The Ghost and the Darkness, which
exudes a distinct style in nearly its entire length). The choir in
The Mummy is used sparingly, which is a nice alternative in some
ways to the outward explosiveness of the voices in
The 13th
Warrior, but outside of the final moments of "The Sand Volcano," the
choir's role doesn't add much to help direct the score. Electronics are
sparsely employed, mostly to assist with percussive rhythms. Overall,
within the subset of Goldsmith's action material of this era,
The
Mummy is extraordinary in its forceful stance but surprisingly
anonymous in its character. Perhaps the sheer volume of the score, with
its constant waves of rhythmically powerful action cues clobbering you
at every turn, is actually its defining personality trait. If this is
true, then the organization of the score's rhythmic and thematic ideas
are betrayed by their heavy-handed rendering. Still, the score, which
exhibits the same remarkably resounding sound quality as Goldsmith's
others in 1998 and 1999 (a perfect balance of detail and reverb), is
extremely popular with the composer's collectors, which often hail it as
among his best action ventures ever. That enthusiasm has always been
somewhat curious, but those fans were given the treat of an isolated
score on the DVD release of the film. Bootlegs ensued, and anyone
unsatisfied with the hour of music on the Decca album has long since
sought those unofficial, expanded issues. While interesting and noisy,
The Mummy really doesn't deserve that much attention, however.
It's fun, but adrift.
*** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
| 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.
|
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
