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Poltergeist: (Jerry Goldsmith) So active was Steven
Spielberg's imagination in the early 1980's that he couldn't contain
himself and release
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and
Poltergeist successively. In the process of directing the former
and dominating the latter in 1982, he created more controversy with the
concurrent projects than necessary. The famed director and producer both
created the concept of
Poltergeist and managed each of its
production elements from start to end. For expediency, however, he had
horror veteran Tobe Hooper direct the film. This proved problematic by
the time Spielberg was writing public letters in the newspaper trying to
convince a skeptical public that Hooper had any input into
Poltergeist at all. No matter the extent of his back end
involvement,
Poltergeist was a Spielberg film through and
through, and with his usual collaborating composer, John Williams, also
tied up in early 1982 with
E.T., Spielberg turned to Jerry
Goldsmith for
Poltergeist. The director had always been an
enormous fan of Goldsmith, though the two would only work together on
this and
Twilight Zone: The Movie shortly thereafter. Goldsmith
was a natural choice for the assignment, having won an Academy Award for
his horror genre sounds in
The Omen and extending the same
menacing tones to its sequels and
Alien and
Magic, among
others. In the larger scope of Goldsmith's career,
Poltergeist
would mark the culmination of the composer's efforts in producing the
most sinister music an orchestra can provide, and while he would revisit
the genre very late in his career, he would never achieve the same
monumental success. In
Poltergeist, Goldsmith brilliantly created
a war between the sweetest, most innocent lyricism and the darkest, most
treacherous atonality possible. It's a lesson in contrasts so vivid that
you can't help but admire its radical swings of mood and the primordial
appeals that both ends of the sonic spectrum make to each listener. The
highly effective score would gain Goldsmith another Academy Award
nomination, though all of
Poltergeist's nominations would
understandably lose to
E.T.
Outside of the context of the film, the
Poltergeist
score's memorability is most often created by the softer elements
representing the Freeling family. As the concepts in the story evolve
from the blissful suburban lifestyle to the turmoil of "the other side,"
the score turns progressively more frightful, first in a suspenseful,
religious fashion, and eventually in a seemingly unorganized bombast of
atonal orchestral strikes representing "the beast." The outstanding
results from Goldsmith's most strident horror material in
Poltergeist are difficult to diminish simply due to the fact that
they're challenging to enjoy on album. But Goldsmith's route to those
depths of fright are what matter, and the gems within the
Poltergeist score exist halfway through that journey. The score's
title theme could deceive the naive in the audience, though "Carol
Anne's Theme" is such an invariably good-natured representation of a
5-year-old girl's lullaby that anyone can clearly see that Goldsmith was
only using this theme as a control for the contrasting horrors to come.
In concert performances of
Poltergeist, listeners are treated to
this lovely piece, but in retrospect, it borders on being contrived when
seated next to the remainder of the score. This title theme would be
very well integrated into the rest of the work, especially in fragments,
though the score's only other truly organized theme is its highlight.
For the more wondrous and mysterious element of the religious concept
involving the souls caught in between worlds in the Freeling's
sub-development, Goldsmith coins a longing string theme of curious
elegance. First heard during the description of "the other side" in "The
Light," this theme would accompany the psychic Tangina in "It Knows What
Scares You." The floating atmosphere of this melodic string theme causes
Poltergeist's frequent comparison to similar parts of
Star
Trek: The Motion Picture. This theme would play a larger role in the
film than on album, for it is a rare circumstance when early
conversational scenes are provided with a substantial piece of score. In
its fragments over the course of the film's frantic finale, this theme
would mostly be unrecognizable due to its violent shift in tempo and
instrumentation.
As the film and score progress even further into the
realm of the unknown, Goldsmith conjures two more ideas that
successively become less organized. One of these is the transformation
of the religious theme into a tumultuous rhythmic motif for low strings
and brass that first erupts at 2:20 into "Contacting the Other Side."
This motif steams into full action throughout "Rebirth," first
accompanied by whimsical female choir and eventually achieving
remarkable weight in the fourth minute of that cue. As the battle to
retrieve Carol Anne from the next world ensues, this "battle rhythm" is
often interrupted by full ensemble hits. Its merging with the religious
theme by the fifth minute of "Rebirth" is a highlight of the entire
score. Hints of this rhythmic material would be rearranged by Goldsmith
for the climax of
The Haunting in 1999, a neat tribute to the
earlier score. Finally, the "beast" itself is given an identity, but by
the time the score addresses it, the motif is mostly represented by
jagged blasts in the lowest registers of the ensemble. A preview of this
idea would be provided in the latter half of "It Knows What Scares You"
and occupies the first minute of "Night of the Beast." The larger
representations of this concept are mostly atmospheric in a blasting,
staggered, rhythmic sense. By "Escape from Suburbia," the score has lost
all of its melodic cohesion and exists as only a series of sharp jabs
over groaning, atonal strains. After the Freeling family escapes to a
motel, the end credits returns to a full statement of the innocent
"Carol Anne's Theme" provided at the start, though Goldsmith throws a
kink into the conclusion with a really psychotic mix of laughing girls'
voices overtaking the end of the thematic performance. While showing a
bit of a sense of humor from Goldsmith (or Spielberg; the two
collaborated so closely on the music for the project that it could be
attributed to one or both), the laughing voices at the end are an
extremely effective method of ending the score on a sour note without
resorting to typical surprise tactics. The subsequent sequel score by
Goldsmith a few years later would only carry over "Carol Anne's Theme"
and explore a more menacing, male-chorus variant on the representation
of evil.
Other singular elements in the score deserve
mentioning. Throughout the recording, and most evident in the latter
half of "Rebirth," Goldsmith utilizes the dry slashing of a cymbal in a
fashion that almost resembles the passing of an electric shock.
Goldsmith makes very little use of synthesizers in
Poltergeist,
but two distinct aspects of their contribution make themselves known
immediately. In the first ten seconds of the score, Goldsmith offers the
descending, low range effect that appears throughout the score for the
sake of mystery, as well as the tingling, extremely high range
keyboarded accent that usually accompanies it. As source material,
Goldsmith also recorded the Star Spangled Banner to accompany the
television stations' conclusion of broadcasting for the night, an
integral aspect of the film. Overall, Goldsmith's score is horror in its
most classic and intelligent form. Whether or not you can enjoy its
latter half depends on your ability to appreciate the short bursts of
harmony amongst the demonic blasts of fright. The original LP release of
Poltergeist heavily favored the action material, with 38 minutes
of music rearranged wildly out of film order. In 1997, Rhino and Turner
finally gave
Poltergeist a CD release, and it's one of those rare
occasions when a label treats an unreleased score so well that no
subsequent release has been necessary. Rhino expanded the running time
to 68 minutes, placing the music in film order and presenting much of
the softer music from earlier in the film. Interestingly, most of this
material, including an expanded rendition of "Carol Anne's Theme" in
"The Tree," was removed from the film by Spielberg. Given how closely
the composer and producer worked on
Poltergeist, these outtakes'
displacement from the film was a collaborative decision, and some of the
problems related to the recordings' applicability to the film related to
the fact that Goldsmith had to record the music before the special
effects sequences were shot. As such, the composer was sometimes left
approximating the synchronization points of the film. Still, any fan of
Goldsmith will want to seek the
Poltergeist album for his or her
collection, though even the mass-produced Rhino release has fallen out
of print after ten years on the market.
****
| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 111 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
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The insert contains notes about the film and score that are in great depth,
including the standard statement from Spielberg.
