Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're looking for a score to reliably help you zone out, in this case representing James Newton Howard's light dramatic mode with saccharine, pleasantly innocuous consistency. Avoid it... if you desire any of the plethora of songs you heard in the film or, for that matter, any orchestral depth as engaging as the main theme that John Barry famously wrote for this project before dismissing himself. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Prince of Tides: (James Newton Howard) The directorial career of Barbra Streisand was reaffirmed with the success of the 1991 romantic drama, The Prince of Tides, for which she also produced and acted in a lead role. Purists of Pat Conroy's novel of the same name weren't thrilled by an adaptation of the story that shifted the focus squarely on the role of the psychologist played by Streisand, but the movie was nevertheless nominated for seven Academy Awards (though did not win any). In the other lead role of the story is Nick Nolte, whose character, like all of his family, is troubled by a traumatizing event that happened in his youth. When his sister suffers a psychological breakdown, he travels from his native region of America's South to New York to assist Streisand's character in unlocking the past and reuniting the dysfunctional family. During this painful process, the two leads begin a doomed romantic relationship that helps steer both on a better path in their own lives. Although Streisand did not sing for the movie, The Prince of Tides was nevertheless viewed as a vehicle for her cinematic career and continued public enthusiasm for her translated into immense box office success. To maximize the appeal of the film, Streisand hired John Barry to write a predictably sappy original score; the composer was fresh off of his success for Dances With Wolves and couldn't have been more popular at that moment. After writing the main theme for The Prince of Tides, Barry refused to relocate from his residence in New York to Los Angeles so that Streisand could keep close tabs on his work. If there was one pet peeve that bothered Barry more than any other, it was a director hovering over his shoulder. He later commented that Streisand was "an extreme case" in this regard and that is why he walked away from the project. That theme he wrote before exiting, however, was performed and released as "Moviola" on the 1992 Barry compilation of the same name and later adapted into the cue "Flight Over New York" (with irony in the title) in his score for the 1995 IMAX film, Across the Sea of Time. It's a stunning theme, despite its redundancy in structure when compared to Barry's other output of the time, and its deeply enriching and melodramatic stature may have benefitted the redemptive conclusion in The Prince of Tides quite well. Instead, Barry was replaced by James Newton Howard (which would happen multiple times in the decade), whose career in film scoring was still in its developmental stages and containing a fair number of innocuous dramas requiring instrumental filler music of a purely background purpose. Outside of the realm of film music, Howard was also very well connected in the pop industry, a long-time keyboardist for Elton John and conductor of backing orchestral material for numerous mainstream artists, including Streisand. Whether that experience or reports that Howard was Streisand's "companion" at the time led to his assignment on The Prince of Tides is unknown, but the score he produced sounds very consistent with the kind of anonymously pleasant backing you'd expect to hear in a Streisand song. With the exception of some bubbly moments of exuberance ("Daddy's Home") and straight pop romance ("The Fishmarket" and "Love Montage"), the majority of The Prince of Tides is treated to tonally accessible string layers with occasional brass support and piano solos. A few tingling piano lines are reminiscent of James Horner techniques of the era. Howard contributes many themes to the film, including individual identities for all of the major characters, but two of them stand apart. The primary theme is for the main family and the Nolte character's bonding with it; anchoring "Main Title" and "End Credits," this theme is expressed with full sincerity in "They Love You Dad" and "The Reunion," representing the film well but not distinguishing itself from a typical Marc Shaiman idea. The love theme for the two leads is a nice diversion in the middle portion of the score, providing optimism in "The Hallway" and "Love Montage." Other ideas foreshadow Waterworld ("Tom Comes Home") and are occasionally expressed with striking instrumental colors (the trumpet solos late in "Tom's Breakdown"), but none of them is particularly memorable. These melodies do inform the second of two Streisand songs recorded specifically for the album, "Places That Belong to You," accompanied by orchestral backing that would fit nicely with the rest of the score. One of the knocks against the music for The Prince of Tides is that its affable demeanor is too consistent from start to finish, not really attempting to underline the development of characters in the movie. The multitude of oboe solos do begin to shine in the latter portions, but on the whole, the score is consistently saccharine to a fault. His work for The Prince of Tides earned Howard his first Oscar nomination, though the recognition was more likely due to the film's success than the conservatively streamlined nature of the music. The composer has written several scores similar to this one (many of them unreleased because of their generic nature), and while the album is a pretty and effortless listening experience, the two Streisand songs at its end, both crispy recorded and well performed, are the lasting highlight. That said, Howard achieved his task with ease for this project, and while it isn't as overblown as Barry's music would have been, it's a charming mood-setter. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 54:06
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