 |
|
| Williams |
|
|
Stanley & Iris: (John Williams) Nestled in between
composer John Williams' lofty and adventuresome scores of 1989 and 1990 was
Stanley & Iris. It was one of Williams' relief efforts from his fully
orchestral exercises in bombast that he would take once every two or three
years. Unfortunately, his respite in the soft warmth of light character
drama would not contribute any success to the film itself. Slammed by
critics left and right,
Stanley & Iris lost the interest of audiences
almost immediately. With a screenplay written by husband-and-wife team
Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., and directed by Martin Ritt, the film
reunited the team that brought
Norma Rae and, more recently,
Murphy's Romance to the big screen. The purpose of the film was to
make a statement about illiteracy, with Jane Fonda as a working class widow
attempting to befriend and teach Robert DeNiro, a working class illiterate,
how to read and write. With a stock supporting cast of actors typecast from
previous films (
Moonstruck,
Parenthood, etc), the film was
sunk by Fonda's unrealistic and unsympathetic performance in a title role.
Poor dialogue and predictable plotlines have continued to cause laughter of
a mean-spirited nature even 15 years later, and while many John Williams
fans may not want to hear it, the score doesn't help
Stanley & Iris
much either. Basically, the film lacks spark, personality, and any kind of
memorable touch to distinguish itself from other character dramas. The exact
same statement can be made about Williams' score. Over the years, the
collectibility of the score on album has caused an aura of desirability that
many fans seem to feel towards
Stanley & Iris. Some film music
critics hail
Stanley & Iris as a superior effort from the maestro,
but let's put it in perspective. Williams did nothing to inject much-needed
inspiration into the film.
Without a doubt, Williams' score for
Stanley & Iris
is pretty and respectful. It reminds of a more innocent time and place, just
as scores like
A Patch of Blue and
Raggedy Man exist in the
same role for Jerry Goldsmith. But Williams' subdued character scores, with
The Accidental
Tourist most recent at the time, fluctuate greatly between the magical
and the mundane, and
Stanley & Iris gravitates towards the latter.
Designed for piano, woodwinds, and strings, the score's tempos are relaxing
and volumes are restrained. Its two sweet themes are simple and repetitive,
drawing similar performances from piano and flute in several cues. The piano
is the heart of the urban piece, often setting a soothing rhythm in the
background while a woodwind performs a central theme in the middle ranges
and a moderate string section provides your elevator music accompaniment in
higher ranges. An occasional trumpet and French horn repeat the same themes
again, with the same rhythms. Then it's the cellos. Then it's back to the
piano. Only once does Williams' piano spur the score into showing signs of
life; at the start of "The Bicycle," the faster, more ambitious piano
performance from the opening of
E.T.'s end titles/"Over the
Moon"/concert piece get the cue rolling with gusto. Williams is certainly
capable of providing truly magical music in the form of small character
themes. There were restrained sections of
Hook that did just that, and
from the same year, the family theme from
Presumed Innocent, which
shares many characteristics with the
Stanley & Iris theme (as heard
in the opening and closing cues on the album), presented similar ideas with
much more authenticity. The usual, brilliant twists of key and rhythm aren't
present in
Stanley & Iris; it is about as simple-minded as the
composer can get, and compared to his usual level of complexities, the score
fails to maintain much interest. The album from Varèse Sarabande is
only 29 minutes in length, and fell out of print only a few years after
production. It's curious to see collectors shell out over $50 for
Stanley
& Iris, because it is among Williams' most underachieving and
ineffective scores in the modern era.
**
| Bias Check: | For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.79 (in 54 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.76
(in 297,840 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
