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The River Wild: (Jerry Goldsmith) While the
collaboration between composer Jerry Goldsmith and director Curtis Hanson
would be best known for yielding the popular
L.A. Confidential
several years later, their work together began with
The River Wild in
1994. If the classic film
Deliverance was the guys' late-night,
squeal-like-a-pig version of the "city folk go into nature only to discover
that man is the true enemy" formula, then
The River Wild is the
somewhat family friendly mid-day interpretation of the same idea. Instead of
Appalachia, the scene this time is Montana, where a former river guide from
the area (Meryl Streep) takes her now city-dwelling family on a rafting
vacation to her old haunts. Lucky for them, three goons get into another
raft and follow the family like a group of predators. Eventually there are
hostages, unbelievable and frustrating twists of plot, and ultimately, of
course, the need to run the Gauntlet, a particularly nasty portion of river
that only professionals can navigate. Then again, if you're going to rid
yourself of those pesky badguys, led by Kevin Bacon, then you'll need to
provide the audience with that inevitable feat. Despite the film's gorgeous
scenery and a heady performance by Streep, the holes and stretches in the
plotline doomed the picture. Unable to save the day this time was Goldsmith,
who would provide similar, but more compelling music for the outdoors in
both
Medicine Man and
The Edge in the mid-1990's.
Understandably, for the purposes of this plot, Goldsmith would be required
to write a sensitive theme for the family, and use it to bookend the moments
of tension in the middle and later portions of the picture. To popularize
the film, the light rock/country group "Cowboy Junkies" was brought in to
arrange and perform Goldsmith's main theme in a move that was starting to
become typical of studio mentality in the 1990's. Ironically, the vocal
performances in the case of
The River Wild aren't the reason for the
score and album's relative unpopularity.
There is nothing structurally wrong with Goldsmith's score
for
The River Wild, but problems with it arise because collectors of
the composer recognize that he has produced far superior variations of every
aspect of this score in other projects. The primary theme for the family is
the usual flute and string-based affair with a light heart and a solo
trumpet performance at the end of the film when the heroes escape. It has
the sentiment of
Rudy and
Matinee rolled into a predictable,
soft package and leaves little in merit to discuss. Goldsmith abandons the
theme as the score progresses towards its suspense motif, which itself is
also lacking of particularly interesting structure compared to similar ideas
that would mature in
The Edge. He creates suspense with short bursts
of rhythm in brass following by extended whole notes, and without any unique
instrumentation, the process becomes tiresome after just a few minutes. In
"Little Niagra," however, Goldsmith does allow the blasts to succeed with
similar effectiveness to Michael Kamen's climax to
Die Hard, but once
again without particularly interesting instrumentation. Perhaps it's fitting
that Goldsmith decided not to score 'nature' itself to the same degree he
would do in
The Edge, but then again, he didn't tackle the
malevolence of the evil humans with the same electronic bombast that he used
so effectively in
Medicine Man either. Overall, Goldsmith was flat
with this one. There remains one controversial issue, however, and that
involves the Cowboy Junkies. Goldsmith wrote over an hour of music for this
film and the Junkies occupy two tracks on the 39-minute album. While many
Goldsmith collectors consider their light guitar, electric bass, harmonica,
percussion, and vocals an unnecessary distraction, it is actually their
presence that distinguishes
The River Wild beyond a minimal level.
Keep in mind that the song, "The Water is Wide," is Michael Timmins'
adaptation of Goldsmith's theme --not vice versa-- and this is a rare event
for Goldsmith. The song, with Margo Timmins' soft, inviting vocals, fits
well with Goldsmith's family theme, and the mixing of the song edit and the
orchestral ensemble in the final cue is very well arranged. With the superb
transitions between orchestra and song in that end titles track, the album
is recommended to Goldsmith collectors who can spare a few extra dollars
despite low expectations.
***
| 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
(in 120,002 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
