In terms of the overarching style of the score, you can
simply state that if you are disturbed by the infamous "Horner
self-ripoff technique," then don't bother with
A Beautiful Mind.
At times, the similarities between his scores are too blatant for even
Horner supporters, such as a seemingly "composed on the same day"
melodramatic sound of
Bicentennial Man and
Deep Impact.
There are countless previous efforts in Horner's career that could be
cited as having directed the movement of this work, but essentially,
A Beautiful Mind is a score of two primary halves (a logical move
given the main character, of course), both of which reminiscent of
previous scores in his career. The part of the score with the most
airtime is the turbulent, but dramatic love theme for Nash and his wife,
with the prototypical Horner drama progressions that become the basis
for Church's song performance in "All Love Can Be." This theme doubles
as the identity for Nash himself, creating a sympathetic tone for a
character that desperately needs love and care. The other part of
A
Beautiful Mind is both its main attraction in terms of style and
detraction in terms of originality. When Nash's mind becomes lucid and
he engages in his flashes of brilliance, he is accompanied by a dancing,
creatively jumbled, and percussively diverse series of shifting
progressions that form a very distinct (though remarkably singular)
motif that Horner collectors heard in fragments in
Sneakers and
Searching for Bobby Fischer before it flourished in the opening
cue of
Bicentennial Man. This motif is one of the truly
distinguishing trademarks of Horner's career, and he expands upon the
idea for extended periods to accompany Nash's mind in this score. With
an enthusiastic set of pianos leading the way, this frenetic style of
development builds momentum through the constant shifting of key while
maintaining enough pleasant, major-key harmonies to establish the idea as
a theme in and of itself. It's a complex dance of the orchestra,
allowing a single rhythm to be passed from section to section with a
remarkably inspirational and upbeat tone. Substitute Church's voice for
the trumpets and woodblocks in the
Bicentennial Man cue and you
get a more delicate, elegant version of that motif (though the bass
strings are mixed so heavily this time that they drive more power into
the idea).
The four or five applications of this calculated
rhythmic idea in
A Beautiful Mind, despite reprising key shifts
heard several times before, are easily the highlight of the work,
gravitating towards the earlier portions of both the film and score. The
score's more dramatic half defies the orchestral dancing of the
mathematical genius of Nash, and the troubled self-discovery process
that nearly derailed his run to the Nobel Prize is handled in a much
more introverted way by Horner in the conversational underscore for the
picture. The painful and tragic inner-travels of Nash are tackled with a
heavy and broad string approach, leading to several very lengthy cues of
meandering and borderline depressing cues of a seriousness that Horner
employed often in
Deep Impact and
Bicentennial Man. While
pleasant to the ear, these cues extend for long sequences that may lose
the interest of the listener after several minutes. The magic of
Church's voice from the cues of mathematical triumph is replaced by
solemn solo woodwind instruments for these dark passages. With the
basses still mixed heavily, the cues offer a formidable, though
consistent tone of gravity. Although it may cause some awkward moments
in the listening experience, Horner's choice to expand upon the "dancing
key shifting" motif was a remarkably astute one to represent Nash's
brilliance, because there could be no greater a contrast than between
that and the broad bass string brooding that Horner was probably going
to employ for the darker half of
A Beautiful Mind anyway. The
precision with which the piano spurts its measures and the percussion
taps in tingling, metallic shades creates a sort of electricity that
seeks to match connections in the brain while Church's voice offers an
elegant sense of beauty to Nash's abilities. This technique in the more
subtle "Playing a Game of 'Go!'" may be faintly reminiscent of
Apollo
13 and several other Horner scores, but it's packaged here in
perhaps the best form ever to be heard. On album, it may be a little
disappointing to hear the rambling fun of the orchestra suddenly cease
without warning (which it usually does) and delve into the depths of
despair, but if you think about the personality of Nash, it's not only
appropriate, but clever as well. The superior mixing of the score, as
mentioned before, is alone a good reason to forgive Horner for his
regurgitation in this circumstance.
Ultimately,
A Beautiful Mind is, despite its
inherent flaws in repetitive constructs, a superior score. While Horner
has revisited the same ideas many times through the years, there are
certain scores that triumph with those motifs in ways that the other
scores cannot touch. For the four-note danger motif, that score was
Willow. For the ethereal ambience of light percussion, it was
The Spitfire Grill. And for the dancing key-shifting motif, it is
A Beautiful Mind. This score elevated not only that specific
idea, but a handful of others as well, shaping them into the best format
that the composer's collectors have heard. For that achievement alone,
A Beautiful Mind is not only one of Horner's more compelling
scores, but a top five competitor in the extremely competitive year of
2001. Will the score bother Horner's critics who can't tolerate the
recycling of ideas? Absolutely, because there really is no clear, fresh
new idea to be heard in the work. But you can't expect to hear scores
that travel wildly in a tangent, like
The Mask of Zorro or its
sequel, every time. You won't even hear the individuality of
Titanic on most occasions (a good thing for many listeners). If
you accept the fact that Horner resides in a comfort zone and will
occasionally blast out something as horrifically derivative as
Enemy
at the Gates, then
A Beautiful Mind is, by comparison, about
as good as it gets. On album, there is enough flash in the several
performances of the key-shifting motif to create that appeal. Buyers
should be aware, however, that due to the overriding seriousness of the
film's exploration of Nash's paranoid hallucinations, these cues of
mathematical dancing with Church's voice are limited to only about ten
minutes in length. The song performance by Church near the end of the
product is surprisingly mellow, not the kind of inspirational or
overwhelming effort that you felt was the intention behind the
Horner/Celine Dion collaborations. It relies on operatic tones rather
than those of pop, reaching towards a different crowd. The score holds a
consistent volume for a total of over seventy minutes, and it doesn't
feature a loud mood-breaking set of cues in any sequence. It's a clever
and momentous score in its highlights and a solid background listening
experience in its moodier explorations.
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