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The Natural: (Randy Newman) The 1980's saw the
birth of the "sports hero movie" phenomenon, leading to several of the
best entries in the genre during its infancy. Many imitations followed,
some delving off into parody territory, but in the realm of purely
serious, high quality drama in the sporting arena, few (if any) films
can rival the influence of
Hoosiers and
The Natural. The
latter was the inaugural venture of TriStar Pictures, a 1984 Barry
Levinson adaptation of a Bernard Malamud novel that has often been
considered the best representation of baseball on screen. Overcoming
uncertain early reviews,
The Natural became a crowd-pleaser and
gained respect in heavy doses as the years passed. It told of the story
of a man seeking redemption after his early promise of a baseball career
was foiled by a gunshot from a crazy woman. Sixteen years later a
35-year-old rookie on a terrible team, Roy Hobbs, played to perfection
by Robert Redford, leads the team, despite its corrupt ownership's
intentional attempts to lose, to an unlikely pennant. Some argue that
everything after the shooting is a flash of the life he could have had
if not killed at that moment, but that speculation is as dissatisfying
as the book's original downbeat ending (in which Hobbs strikes out to
close out his comeback and succumbs to the bribes central to the story).
His last-strike home run into the shattered lights of the stadium has
become an iconic symbol of triumph, in both the sports world and in
other avenues of life. Much of the success of that famous scene in
The Natural is owed to Randy Newman's memorable score. Not yet
established as a household name (and long before his fame singing for
animated blockbusters), Newman announced himself with a solid score for
The Natural that earned him a well deserved Academy Award
nomination and Grammy Award win the following year. His music became an
integral part of the mystique of the film, utilizing some of the
vintage, jazzy sensibilities that flowed from his Louisiana roots while
also conveying his Americana symphonic habits. Above all,
The
Natural features Newman's most potent career fanfare.
A touch of Aaron Copland is met with an obvious
influence by Vangelis'
Chariots of Fire in the performances of
the score's two primary themes, but the true treasure of
The
Natural is Newman's heroic incarnations of his title theme. This
triumphant and deliberate brass theme, aided by the magic of tingling
percussion and electronic bass enhancements, has become an anthem for
sporting perseverance in the decades since, often used at baseball
events to introduce players. It even joined Jerry Goldsmith's equally
popular music for
Rudy on American Senator John McCain's doomed
2008 presidential campaign as the official introduction music of
divisive Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. Such tarnishing was unfortunate,
but at least royalties were supposedly paid. While the disparate tone of
the various themes used by Newman to address the facets of the story is
clearly evident when hearing the score for
The Natural apart from
the film, he managed to consistently instill enough instrumental
representation of magic to keep the entirety tightly cohesive.
Understandably, attention goes to the heroic brass fanfare and its
accompanying theme of redemption, but the most frequently employed and
manipulated melody in the score is the Elmer Bernstein and
Copland-inspired representation of the baseball player's roots on the
farm (and the associated simple life often discussed in the character
interactions). Heard as the anchor of "Prologue 1915-1923" and opening
"The End Title," this wholesome theme for strings and solo trumpet
receives considerable attention in between. It informs the love theme
for Hobbs and his eventual partner in "Iris & Roy" and "A Father Makes a
Difference" as well. It is in this Americana theme that Newman conveys
the sentimental heart of
The Natural, and while it doesn't hold
the kind of memorable characteristics as the main fanfare, it is the
glue that ensures the score's appropriate period tone. At times, as in
"The Whammer Strikes Out," the Western sound will remind too much of
Copland for many listeners' comfort. Joining it are a handful of roaring
vintage, big band jazz pieces that make the score more original,
including "The Majors: The Mind is a Strange Thing" and "Winning." This
tone is boiled down to solo woodwind performances of slight sleaze in
"Memo."
In the end, though, it's the fanfare and adjoining
theme that make
The Natural a classic. From its initial pair of
rising notes on brass in unison, this theme is as inspirational as any
in film music. After the bold and heroic fanfare comes the "feel-good"
melody of the picture, the redemptive piece that connects the immensity
of the fanfare and the period of the other main theme to audiences. The
famous "The Final Game" cue utilizes the fanfare and theme with
brilliance, imitating the sparks from the shattered lights with tingling
percussion rhythms that have played an important role in setting up that
one moment throughout the rest of the film. A blend of what listeners
would later recognize as Jerry Goldsmith's synthetic ramblings and James
Horner's opening of
The Rocketeer, this percussive effect,
achieved with piano, woodwinds, metallic percussion, and possible
electronics, gives the score its sense of magic and the inevitable.
Newman's employment of the technique is masterful; at 2:14 into "The
Final Game," he builds it from a single piano stroke into its full
rhythm to match the awe and disbelief of the conclusive home run. The
gradual clarification of this idea from the moment lightening hits the
family tree in the first cue until the climax is an intangible highlight
of the score. The presentation of Newman's contribution to the film on
album has always been neatly succinct, running only a little over half
an hour when removing the source performance of "Take Me Out to the
Ballgame" (with a few sound effects from the game in the mix) and the
concert suite of the main theme from the equation. That latter piece,
titled "The Natural," is the obvious result of
Chariots of Fire,
an electronic sports score still fresh in mainstream minds at the time.
This synthetic version of the fanfare and redemption theme is easy
listening, though its echoing stereo effects to mark each measure are a
bit too close to Vangelis territory to ignore. This recording was not
heard in the original print of the film. A better summary of the score
remains "The End Title," which touches upon all of the main themes in
full symphonic glory. Overall,
The Natural still eclipses Randy
Newman's many accomplishments in the decades to follow, a splendid and
extraordinarily effective combination of period theatrics and
inspirational victory in the sports genre.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
