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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you appreciate Randy Newman's more serious, dramatic efforts of the 1990's, even if they're spiked with a few trademark jazz and comedy cues. Avoid it... if the extent of your interest in Newman's work rests firmly in the realm of his comedy scores and song performances. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The album opens with the two throwback cues; the opening television theme is innocuous in its big jazz band and light chorale performance (reprised by solo brass ensemble in "The Sweater"). The finale cue, "Let's Go Bowling," is the kind of pure Newmanesque retro-romp that Danny Elfman would borrow from in Meet the Robinsons almost a decade later, from the lazy rhythms to the 'la-la' female vocals. The remaining score is dead serious, ranging from sentimental dramatic themes for small ensembles to bold Western-styles themes for the whole. The title theme for Pleasantville's inner story is introduced in "Real Rain," and its tender piano movements offer a practical application of the location's goodness to the two visiting characters. Newman takes few chances in the score, with some of the darker hues ("Burning the Books" and "Punch") presenting little more than an interesting deviation from the composer's typically upbeat charge. But when he does step forward and insert the score into the forefront of the film, the rewards are outstanding. The Western rhythms of "Bud's a Hero," hailing back to the brass tones of Jerry Goldsmith's works in the genre, are far more convincing, ironically, than Newman's own score for Maverick not long before. He would alter that sound for some more traditional John Philip Sousa style of marching in "Together," a brief nod towards comedy. The other two major pieces are "In the Bath," a self-discovery track that leads a Thomas Newman-styled woodwind rhythm and the light choir to a gorgeous crescendo of almost science-fiction proportions, and "Mural," which is a somewhat transparent but nonetheless enjoyable transfusion of magic from Elfman's finale for Edward Scissorhands (minus the choir). The lengthy "A New Day" cue takes the Western-styled theme and uses the piano and string sections to fuse it with the more weighty, Americana style of the entire score. There are several filler cues that pass without much interest, and those who argue against this score for its short album length need to be aware that not only did a sparse total of 45 minutes of music get recorded for Pleasantville, but the album, at 31 minutes, features its fair share of holes in the middle sections. Even with these slow interludes, Pleasantville has plenty on album to keep you entertained, and the product contains none of the songs that were placed on the separate commercial album.
Music as Heard on CD: *** Overall: ***
The insert notes contain no information about the score. The text font on the back of the packaging is extremely difficult to read. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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