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Original Sin: (Terence Blanchard) Unless your
existence revolves around your unfathomable desire to see two hours of
Angelina Jolie's naked bosom-heaving and open-mouth sucking, then there
is absolutely no redeeming aspect to
Original Sin. The film
received one of the worst combined critical responses in the 2000's,
with reviewers going so far as to cheer when the deliriously awful film
finally ended. Jolie plays an ordered bride imported from America to
Havana, Cuba in the 1880's, wed to Antonio Banderas and at first
appearing to be extremely happy with the situation (and especially the
sex). When she steals all of her husband's fortune, though, he sets off
to find and either strangle her or convince her to change her mind.
Either way, the film anchors its appeal around countless slow-motion
scenes of badly photographed fornication (which made headlines because
of the digital removal of Jolie's tattoos in post-production). Such
situations involving theatrical films better suited for television
debuts often lead to a lack of inspiration for a composer. By the time
that renown jazz artist and composer Terence Blanchard was brought in to
score the film, the project was already known to be bust; it sat on the
studio's shelves for the better part of a year before it was quietly
dumped into theatres. For Blanchard, he had to look beyond the
ridiculously illogical, though surprisingly predictable plot and
concentrate on two things: the period of the story and the exotic and
lush location. Neither was particularly well handled in the film, and
Blanchard goes through his own mechanical process of scoring the film
without much inspiration either. When a film fails as miserably as
Original Sin, both critically and popularly, it makes the score
for that film all the more difficult to evaluate.
But in this case, a total lack of dynamic engagement is
easily the primary problem. There's nothing here outside of a few flairs
of Latin rhythm and trumpet solos to entice you for a second listen. It
is, essentially, an extremely boring work. When it comes to its thematic
structures, Blanchard's music is completely devoid of any romantic or
dangerous edge for the character of the seductress. The chase cues are
not dangerous or exciting and the sex cues aren't passionate or steamy.
Upon listening to the score on album, you would have no idea whatsoever
that anything erotic is happening on screen. The lack of a melodramatic
theme for the film was perhaps Blanchard's method of countering the
soup-opera like development of the story. The absence of any stimulating
theme beyond the underdeveloped rhythms and motifs from exotic
instrumentation hinders this score considerably. Granted, Blanchard
could have sent the film over the edge (to the domain of a totally
cheesy riot) if he had gone the more romantic path in his music. But the
handling of the Cuban locale is timid and sluggish as well. Blanchard
is, of course, an accomplished jazz artist, but he restrains the exotic
personality of the score quite severely until the final cue. The best
sequences of the
Original Sin score are most definitely those in
which Blanchard allows the Latin-influenced instrumentation to take
center stage. The droning of the piano (except for the wacky key shifts
on the opening track) and monotone orchestra for the majority of the
underscore isn't an annoyance, but it won't win many points with
listeners eager for a vibrant atmosphere either. The gain levels of the
recording mix are often so low that the music falls out of audible
range, and the source-like "The Brothel" is seems to be intentionally
presented in an even more muted sound quality. The score, in its
entirety, is ultimately just as dull and lifeless as the film.
That is, until the aforementioned "Boat to Havana."
Blanchard's trademark sound is rooted in his trumpet performances, and
those in the final track of
Original Sin are both spirited and
classy. For a film about a lip-smacking mail-order bride who absconds
with the contents of her chivalrous suitor's bank account after a few
seemingly blissful weeks of constant juvenile passion, you'd expect more
spirited trumpet solos like Blanchard's from that cue in the rest of the
effort. If those highly enjoyable trumpet performances had been better
melded with the orchestra for the mass of the score, then the album
could have functioned better even with the film already best forgotten.
It might have given the film a hint of noir style in the process. The
album itself was also notable because it marked the sudden and
mysterious end of the Chapter III record label (formerly Compass III),
which made its name as an upstart producer of albums such as
The
Legend of Bagger Vance,
Tomorrow Never Dies and a long series
of double feature classics from composers of yesteryear. The parent
company of Chapter III, Gold Circle Entertainment, maintained a healthy
monetary budget, and the executive producer behind the Chapter III
albums was reported to be interested in continuing his efforts towards a
new Gold Circle Soundtrax label that was about to release its first song
compilation soundtrack at the time of
Original Sin's release.
With the combined disappearance of the label and the failure of the
film, this Blanchard album quickly slipped into total obscurity and is
an expensive find on the secondary market. This will be a potentially
frustrating situation for those looking for the Gloria Estefan song
heard at the end of the film, "You Can't Walk Away From Love," which is
not contained on this product. You can, however, walk away from the vast
majority of the music on this album with ease.
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