: (James Horner) So the question is this:
when one of the two lead stars of your film dies in an accident shortly
before the completion of principal photography, do you can the film
permanently and collect upon the actor's insurance, or do you make the
necessary rearrangements to release the film to the public anyway? The
1983 Douglas Trumbull film
had much more going for it
than simply the publicity of actress Natalie Wood's death in a boating
accident in 1981. The plot of the science fiction thriller postulated
about the ethical implications of a mechanical invention that records
the sensory experiences of one individual and allows for the playback of
those feelings to the brain of another person. This technology not only
attracts the most intense scientific minds but also the attention of
corporate and government interests. The situation gets complicated when
one of the scientists realizes that she is having a fatal heart attack
and records the last moments of her life, leading to speculation about
whether another person feeling those end of life recordings would also
die or, more fantastically, learn about what happens upon death. The
idea behind the plot is universally admired, but the execution of it
yielded a finished film that concentrated mostly on the machine itself
and marginalized the characters. A creative combination of varying film
sizes and vibrant special effects were dazzling, an expected feature
given Trumbull's own credits in that area (
is only remembered for Wood's
death and the speculation about co-star Christopher Walken's involvement
in that incident. While the producers of the film sought to scrap the
entire venture and collect the insurance, the contract for the film gave
Trumbull the ultimate say in the matter. He re-wrote a handful of
scenes, changed a few camera angles in revised shooting, and dedicated
his finished product to Wood. The two-year delay and the publicity
surrounding the post-production and accident controversy couldn't save
from the fact that it had flaws in its character
setup, but at the very least it accomplished the goals of making the
audience think and allowing one last glimpse of the popular Wood on
screen. Trumbull was so distraught by the entire production that he
never directed a Hollywood film again.
Almost as a sidebar at the time,
Brainstorm also
gave a 30-year-old composer an opportunity to expand his horizons in the
science-fiction genre. Outside of his work on B-rate sci-fi schlock,
James Horner was really only known for his incredibly surprising score
for
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at the time. His assignment
to
Brainstorm allowed him to redefine similar sounds and conjure
new ones for both the ethereal and horrifying elements of mechanized
telepathy. Unlike the Horner projects to follow (with a more
family-oriented tone of orchestral majesty and vintage jazz),
Brainstorm is a work that very strikingly alternates between the
grandiose mystery of the concept's possibilities and the horrors of its
downside. Thus, Horner's score sways dramatically from gorgeous choral
harmony to excruciating symphonic chaos frequently and sometimes
violently. Even in the score's moments of beauty, there is a sense of
raw brutality lurking in the secondary performance elements (and
therefore the tone of the composition). Because
Brainstorm does
contain a love story, Horner offers a lovely crescendo of melodramatic
choral progressions that eventually develops into a curiously baroque
theme for strings and piano. Hints of the choral introduction to this
theme are struck down by dissonance in "Main Title," though the idea is
offered in extended format in "Michael's Gift to Karen," a scene in
which Walken's character summarizes his life with Wood's character in a
touching but slightly creepy mental recording. This theme is revisited
at the end of the picture, and while it's rather unique in Horner's
career (a rarity for the composer in the 80's and 90's), the theme's
distinctly classical presentation in "Michael's Gift to Karen" and "End
Titles" is an odd choice. The story of
Brainstorm doesn't really
fit with the sound of a rambling baroque piano and string quartet, but
perhaps Horner was attempting to accentuate the other-worldliness of the
scenario with this disparate style. Moments of intrigue in
Brainstorm are handled with extensions of the choral
performances, often times floating detached from the ensemble in an
appropriately disembodied mix. The choir's role is important to the
score's darker half, too, in which Horner forces the singers to exclaim
and sigh in a fashion not unfamiliar to Jerry Goldsmith's groundbreaking
work for
The Omen (and its sequels). At times, the women in the
choir outright yell and shriek wildly without regard to pitch, a
technique which is an effective but highly disturbing.
The horror and thriller elements in
Brainstorm
are truly where the score's heart resides, and it is in these moments
that a collector of the composer's works will find both the most
interesting and exhilarating material. As previously mentioned, the
horror cues in
Brainstorm are extremely frightening. Horner
employs "organized chaos" in three cues to allow certain parts of the
symphonic ensemble and choir to follow linear lines of harmony while the
rest simply pluck, bang, strike, blurt, and puff in seemingly random,
atonal performances. Heard in "Main Title" and the two later playback
cues, this effect is a precursor to some of the harshest, bass-heavy
material in
Vibes. The last minute of "First Playback" and first
two minutes of "Final Playback" would make Elliot Goldenthal proud, the
latter degenerating into a messy mixture of what sounds like an ensemble
warming up indiscriminately. These parts of the score are, without a
doubt, unlistenable. Appreciate themÉ use them to annoy your roommates
or neighborsÉ but don't expect to revisit them often. On the other hand,
Horner's more cohesive action elements in
Brainstorm are the true
treat of the score. Building upon a determined piano rhythm in several
cues, this material transforms from its
Apollo 13-like,
timpani-pounding suspense with tingling treble accents and notable muted
trumpet usage in "Gaining Access to the Tapes" to full fledged brutality
with ripping snare drum, banging chimes, and extremely harsh brass
rhythm-setters in "Race for Time." The latter cue's forceful
personality, emulating both Goldsmith's sense of conspiracy from
Capricorn One and Horner's own raw rhythms representing Khan in
Star Trek II, is nothing less than a highlight in Horner's
complete career filmography. When you hear collectors of the composer
lament the loss of the edgy brass and percussion dominated tone of
forceful rhythmic power from early in his career, this single cue from
"Race for Time" stands as perhaps the best embodiment of that
discussion. A more singular cue of note (but an equally compelling one)
is "Lillian's Heart Attack," a brilliant representation of the dying
scientist's struggle to record her own death with a combination of
snarling bass tones and desperate exclamations of Horner's famed
four-note motif of evil from the entire brass section. This cue's
massive ensemble crashes are among the best of Horner's career. Overall,
Brainstorm is an admirable score that remains a daunting
challenge on its only (short) album. Something has to be said for the
nervous, menacing energy that Horner stirs in this work, even if it is
truly insufferable in its most thrilling explosions.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on Album: ***
- Overall: ***
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,346 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
