: (John Barry) In his first directorial
effort after contributing scripts for such popular movies as
,
Lawrence Kasdan ventured into the realm of film noir imitation and
critics and audiences generally considered his efforts to have been a
great success. For viewers who can't handle films that try too hard to
saturate themselves in the dark sets, cigarette smoke, identity
intrigue, and jazzy scores of the 1940's,
floated its
appeal with a few remarkable plot twists and an element not allowed in
the movies of the earlier era: gratuitous nudity and sex. Despite
whatever tired elements were squeezed into the project to accompany (or
justify) the erotic displays of flesh,
would launch the
names of lead actors Kathleen Turner and William Hurt, not to mention
Kasdan himself, into stardom. The story of the film isn't particularly
clever until you reach it's latter half, where all the nasty twists
occur. Essentially, Turner's rich, lonely housewife uses her allure to
tempt Hurt's sleazy lawyer into a lustful and deceitful series of acts
that inevitably leads the man into a plot to kill Turner's husband.
Despite knowing that there's probably a bleak outcome for all of this,
Hurt goes forward with the manipulation, never revealing just how much
he knows about what he's getting into. If there's any doubt that Turner
will win in the end, then you don't know your noir well enough. After
consulting with four composers about the project, Kasdan settled upon
John Barry for the assignment based upon their common stylistic goals
for the plot. Coming at a transitional phase in Barry's career,
would require a score overtly faithful to the genre, drawing
upon some of the skills from the composer's jazzy roots in the 1950's
while also straying into the weightier dramatic tones already beginning
to redefine his evolving personal style in
. Because of the influence of his 1980's string
melodramatics, the end result from Barry in this case wouldn't sound
like any of his early 50's recordings, though, for the
score is ultimately weighed heavily by the film's more contemporary
sexuality and suspense, aided by not only the string section but also
hints of synthetic accompaniment.
While for some listeners Barry may not have captured in
Body Heat either the essence of noir or brute lust as well as
Jerry Goldsmith accomplished in
Chinatown and
Basic
Instinct, respectively, his entry was a well balanced exploration of
the two genres together. This memorable combination, while really only
constructed out of Barry's usual set of structures, has given
Body
Heat a longevity in popularity for Barry's fans well beyond most of
the composer's other scores. The consistency of lasting praise for this
work is testimony to the score's remarkable effect in the film, more so
than just its merits on its own. As per usual, any strong Barry score of
the 80's and 90's makes for an easily harmonic listening experience on
album, but
Body Heat goes a bit further because of the film's
heavy reliance on the score's presence. Significant scenes in the
picture offer only Barry's score over dramatic silence, including the
strikingly powerful opening seduction scene concurrent to the cue "I'm
Weak." In a technical sense, the learned Barry collector will be able to
point to several later scores from the composer and place each element
into context with his other works. The important attribute of
Body
Heat to remember, though, is that it came before most of these
references, causing it to be a far more fresh combination at the time.
Two or three of the primary themes will remind of Barry's tribute work
to 50's soft jazz in
Playing by Heart, with chord progressions
extremely familiar to a multitude of his famous themes. This is
especially true of the main theme for Turner's conniving character, her
theme twisting mysteriously but retaining allure in its movements.
Spinoffs of this idea are motifs specifically taunting Hurt's lawyer
with the agony of loneliness or the urges of desire. The ensemble is
roughly the same as in Barry's equivalent works: sax, piano, light
percussion, and string bass in the forefront with a full string section
and other accents (led by noteworthy trombone and flute solos in several
cues) for occasional depth. Also of note is the same delicately tingling
synthetic keyboarding that would be prevalent in
My Life a decade
later, used in
Body Heat to establish a seductive rhythm ahead of
the main theme, its slow progressions in a style faintly but eerily
similar to parts of
The Black Hole and replacing the need to
state the full theme by the score's second half.
When placing Barry's jazz elements with the synthetic
and orchestral ones, there are parts of
Body Heat that will
stylistically remind you of another acclaimed Jerry Goldsmith work,
The Russia House. Barry's music here, by comparison, lacks the
same sense of bluesy movement, instead dragged to the muddy depths of
sexuality required by the film. There is much in
Body Heat that
will foreshadow the similarly rendered theme in
The Specialist,
though Barry doesn't utilize the orchestra's force with as much dynamic
range in most places. The exceptions are cues that include Barry's two
darker themes for
Body Heat, both of which utilizing thunderous
piano depth for the plotting and fright motifs. The high string jabs and
thunderous low piano barbs in the latter's statements (highlighted by
"I'm Frightened") preview
A View to a Kill and other 80's-era
Bond scores. In retrospect, some of these predictable Barry techniques
don't appeal as much as they did when the score first debuted. Still
powerful decades later, however, is the noir-like styling of the main
theme and its various supporting motifs. The muted brass performances
establishing the sleaze of Hurt's character, for instance, are
enduringly shameless and enjoyable. The exploding moment of realization
at the end of "Better Get Him" is about as melodramatically forceful as
Barry will ever get, too, a poignant way to wrap up the suspense of the
score and yet another exhibit of just how often the composer
intentionally leaves his thematic statements unresolved for this plot.
As mentioned before,
Body Heat makes for a very good listening
experience unless you psychoanalyze its somewhat predictable "Barryisms"
to death. The album situation for
Body Heat was not satisfying
for a very long time, unfortunately, though relief for Barry collectors
did sputter out through the years. The 1989 album release of the
original recording by the SCSE collector's label long served as the sole
formally pressed album for the score. Its 32 minutes feature only
moderate sound quality, which doesn't really do this score justice given
that the standout solo performances require a crisp mix to appreciate.
Barry himself disavowed this album, for it did not utilize the desire
suite format that he had originally intended. Nevertheless, the SCSE
release became a top collectible because of high demand and its limited
pressing of 2,000 copies.
In 1998, the Varèse Sarabande label contracted
for composer Joel McNeely to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra for a
re-recording of
Body Heat in a single day. As to be expected, the
sound quality on the Varèse release is vibrant at every level,
superior by most measures to the original recording. McNeely's touch
with Barry's material is almost as accomplished as Nic Raine's in this
recording, and most Barry collectors will be highly satisfied with the
result. The Varèse album also features six additional minutes of
newly arranged, previously unreleased music, including the snazzy "Ned"
and the expansive string introduction to Turner's estate in "Matty's
Place." Several cues were lengthened and restored to their film order on
the re-recording. Even with the superior commercial re-recording on the
market, though, there were Barry fans who would settle for nothing less
than original, and because of their desires, the SCSE release remained a
highly valued target for many more years. This finally changed in 2012,
when Film Score Monthly (as one of their final Silver Age Classics
albums) released a comprehensive 2-CD set featuring remastered original
recordings of
Body Heat in both the complete film order and in
Barry's initially intended album arrangement. The mix of the album
arrangement on this set is faithful to the composer's wishes and
different from that of the SCSE product. The 48-minute film order
presentation is joined by a couple of alternate takes, a wealth of
source material by Barry (most of which unused), and ten demo recordings
at the end of the second CD that fabulously convey the main quartet's
early explorations of the theme (becoming progressively contemporary in
each entry). In many ways, these ten demo renditions of the main theme,
the prime attraction in this score, are alone worth the price of this
"unlimited" pressing. There are a few downsides to the full set,
however, one being the continued, oddly muted quality of sound,
especially in the string section (which keeps the 1998 re-recording
relevant). The other truth of
Body Heat to remember is that Barry
did provide some filler suspense material in the second and third acts
that does detract from the poignancy of his two darker themes. Overall,
however, the FSM product is the outstanding presentation that this score
truly deserves, and, in the end,
Body Heat remains one of those
films extremely well matched to Barry's trademark sounds, regardless of
their structural predictability.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Score as Written for the Film: ****
- Score as Heard on the SCSE Album: ***
- Score as Heard on the Varèse Album: ****
- Score as Heard on the FSM Album: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.85
(in 27 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.56
(in 26,912 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
