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Written 1/30/12
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Buy it... if you have endless patience for Cliff Eidelman when he
expresses innocuous, restrained, and tepid character drama for smaller
orchestral ensembles, aided here by a subtle layer of ethnic
percussion.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear Eidelman return to the orchestral
grandeur or outward, lush beauty of his work in the 1990's, replaced
once again here by sparse renderings.
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| Eidelman |
Big Miracle: (Cliff Eidelman) A media sensation was
caused in October, 1988 when three gray whales became trapped in
encroaching pack ice in Point Barrow, Alaska, leading to an
international effort to save the animals as popular opinions about
whales in general grew more protective. When Inupiaq hunters first
discovered the whales, small-scale efforts were made to hammer
additional holes in the ice and use pumps to circulate enough water to
maintain those openings. When the media became involved, numerous state
and national agencies turned their attention to the matter, attempting
several futile measures until cooperation from two icebreakers from the
Soviet Union finally proved partially successful. Ultimately, much
criticism resulted from what became dubbed "Operation Breakthrough"
because of the media's adverse impact upon the whales and the amount of
money the government spent to save animals that have perished in such
conditions for centuries without intervention. The 2012 movie Big
Miracle is based upon Tom Rose's book about the incident, "Freeing
the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event," and
was originally titled "Everybody Loves Whales," a declaration that
obviously didn't consult with Captain Ahab's point of view. The $30
million production is a hopelessly fuzzy, feel-good children's movie
with Drew Barrymore in the lead, and with director Ken Kwapis at the
helm, one of the beneficial results is another film score from Cliff
Eidelman. Once considered one of the industry's rising stars in the
early 1990's, Eidelman's career languished in the 2000's, and if not for
his collaboration with Kwapis, the composer's career during this period
could scarcely be deemed active. Their works together have spanned the
dramatic, comedic, and romantic realms, and for Big Miracle he
would be required to reach back to revive some of the orchestral gravity
that impressed listeners so thoroughly at the start of his career.
Kwapis was specific in his desire to avoid too much saccharine melodrama
in the score, including the addressing of the whales with their own
overblown identities. The movie follows so many subsets of characters
that thematic attribution could have become a nightmare, so Eidelman
chose to keep his identities closer to instrumental and rhythmic
applications rather writing more than one memorable theme. On top of the
multitude of characters, Eidelman was also tasked with addressing the
expansive natural obstacles in that region, the culture of the Inupiat
people, and the Russians involved in the plot.
Eidelman succeeds in covering all the basic needs of
Big Miracle in his score, but he fails to meet the high
expectations that listeners may have when initially hoping to equate
this music with
Free Willy 3: The Rescue. His orchestral ensemble
is restricted to about 60 players, aided by native percussive layers and
occasional accents like a solo female voice and acoustic guitar. None of
these contributors, unfortunately, seems to have much passion written
into their music or expressed in their performances, however, making
their size seem significantly diminished. Eidelman's scores, since his
initial burst onto the scene, have all tended to sound smaller and more
intimate than they perhaps need to be, and
Big Miracle is
definitely another case in which the score seems too sparse and tepid
for its topic. The softer character cues don't connect emotionally as
you would expect, and the full ensemble expressions of force for the
last few scenes in the film are not orchestrated and recorded in such a
way as to boost the resonance of the full group. A lack of gravity in
the entire work is its greatest weakness, the unique percussive effects
and ethnic woodwinds not mixed prominently and the solo voice
constrained to just a short cameo in the "Main Title" cue. The
performances feature absolutely no convincing sincerity or warmth beyond
their basic tones, and the dissatisfying atmosphere is topped off by a
seemingly intoxicated trumpet player at 1:45 into "Pressure Ridge." All
of that said, however, Eidelman's composition does cover enough of the
necessary bases for the music to be basically functional. A few of his
trademarks are apparent and serve their purpose, including his usual
piano solos ("Bam Bam is Gone") and agitated string figures ("Answering
the Call"). When the latter develops into an aggressive stance for the
Russians, the score gains another dimension. The highlight of
Big
Miracle is Eidelman's main theme, its primary five-note phrase
reminiscent of
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and
conveyed during the score's only cue of grandeur, "Freedom." The
remainder is muted and conservative, the acoustic guitar, string, and
woodwind "Where Are They Now" closing out the score with forgettable,
innocuous restraint. The soft suspense material in the first half of the
score is equally tentative, bordering on inaudible in some sequences.
Collectors of Eidelman's works have long awaited the composer's return
to orchestral magnificence (or, at least, some more outwardly empathetic
warmth), and
Big Miracle unfortunately does not deliver. While
there is nothing technically wrong with the work (aside from the sparse
rendering), it has to be considered an underachievement.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2
(in 8,876 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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