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| Goldsmith |
The 'Burbs: (Jerry Goldsmith) If a person were to
rank the quality of director Joe Dante's satirical comedy films, the
pair of
Gremlins entries would likely top the list. At the other
end of the spectrum is
The 'Burbs. While the film struck the
right set of chords for a handful of critics, it was otherwise lambasted
for simply being "not funny" and the project fell quickly into the pits
of obscurity. Taking jabs at nearly every element of American suburbia,
the film follows the at-home vacation of Tom Hanks' character and his
reactions to the absurd neighborhood in which he lives. Caricatures of
the general types of people you find in real life, the personalities and
dwellings of the neighbors in
The 'Burbs are themselves the
punch-line. All sorts of eccentricities are on display, as are the
battles between neighbors, both real and imaginary. Dana Olsen's
screenplay is a puzzle that's not really meant to be understood or
solved, relying on the viewer's ability to underanalyze the film in
order to enjoy its pithy discourse. Although reviews of the film pounded
on that script and the movie as a whole when it debuted in 1988, even
mainstream writers recognized that composer Jerry Goldsmith's score was
one, if not the only, bright spot for the picture. Goldsmith and Dante
had already collaborated on five films at that point, beginning with
Dante's supervision of much of
Twilight Zone: The Movie and
including the immensely popular
Gremlins. While their projects in
between
Gremlins and
The 'Burbs had been of a more
serious, action-oriented kind, the comedy fire had already been started.
The 'Burbs kindled that fire into a roaring blaze, setting a
standard so high that even Goldsmith would have a difficult time
reprising it in his subsequent works for Dante, from
Gremlins 2 a
few years later through
Looney Tunes: Back in Action in 2003. The
success of Goldsmith's score resides in the fact that composer didn't
even try to approach the project with serious intent. The people on
screen are all ridiculous stereotypes, so instead of attempting to
straighten them out with dramatic musical representations, Goldsmith
went in the opposite direction; he made them even more ridiculous. Every
single moment in his score for
The 'Burbs is a satire of some
kind, even resorting to sensitivity during scenes that usually demand
suspense.
Before proceeding, though, it's important to mention
that
The 'Burbs was created at the very height of Goldsmith's
experimentation with electronics and sound effects in his music, and
while some fans of the composer might argue in favor of
Gremlins
2, Goldsmith never achieved the same hopelessly optimistic wackiness
from
The 'Burbs again. If you don't enjoy the sounds of shooting
guns, barking dogs, and shattering glass in your music, then stop
reading now. If you don't want to hear a parody of classic Goldsmith
themes of eras past, including the echoing brass motif from
Patton, then stop reading now. If you can't handle a score that
jumps from gothic organs to Western rhythms in an instant without
warning, then definitely stop reading now. Goldsmith's choice to score
each character on the street with not only a different theme but an
identity embodied by an entirely different genre altogether is the key
to success in
The 'Burbs. Apart from the film, the music is very
badly schizophrenic, a basic requirement of the story. Even Goldsmith's
usual sounds of the era, thematic constructs that he later developed
throughout the early 1990's, are exaggerated to parody levels. The theme
for the neighborhood overall could on paper be appropriate for half a
dozen light dramas that Goldsmith later penned, but with his ridiculous
instrumentation, yipping dog sounds, and overly-enthusiastic performance
of a narrow but dynamic ensemble, he twists it into the realm of the
bizarre. A seductive female voice and exotic jungle-like drums over pipe
organ in "A Nightmare in the 'Burbs," among a few other cues (the track
titles in this review refer to the 1988 release that features Robert
Townson's cue titles rather than Goldsmith's), is unlike anything the
composer would write elsewhere. Wild viola work in that cue resembles
Danny Elfman's more spirited ideas. A string motif in the previous cue,
"Neighborhood Watch," combines a waltz-like rhythm that is interrupted
on beat by the squeaking of a baby toy (a pull-duck, maybe?). The end
title cue exhibits the various genres and their lovable themes in
snapshot succession, leaving your head spinning in the fantasy world
that Dante intended to create in our own back yards. Only one serious
cue exists in the film, and Goldsmith provides "Storytelling" with a
caring string and woodwind piece while a grisly ghost story is being
told on screen, a smartly counterintuitive move that serves to only
increase the suspicions of the viewer.
Most film music critics, while praising
The
'Burbs as an above-average effort, have historically sold this score
short. Perhaps this ambivalence is because the work is too silly to
withstand, or maybe such opinions are influenced by the music's
historical scarcity on album. But
The 'Burbs represents the
pinnacle of Goldsmith's comedy talents, and it belongs among the top ten
classics in the composer's lengthy career. If this score doesn't bring a
smirk to your face, then you should immediately seek either happy pills
or the happy plant. The composer's joy is self-evident, and on album it
is the exact opposite of the intense labor that you hear from something
like
Basic Instinct. The album originally existed only as the
10th entry in Varèse Sarabande's first CD Club series, and it was
long considered among the three most valuable of that group. Bootlegged
forms of
The 'Burbs began floating around the secondary market in
the early 2000's but offered minimal extra material (consisting mostly
of short snippets of themes performed in full on the Club album) and
very substandard sound quality. Varèse revisited the score again
in 2007, including it as part of its second generation of Club titles
and expanding its running time considerably. The "Deluxe Edition" is
populated mostly with short, redundant performances of ideas featured on
the concise 1988 album, though longer cues like "Devil Worship" and "The
Wig" are outstanding additions. Following the sold-out Varèse
albums, a very limited 2022 expansion by La-La Land Records provided the
same presentation as the 2007 CD but includes another 15 minutes of
alternates that are charming additions. The sound quality on all the
albums is superb, with the soundscape sculptured so carefully in the
mixing process that various elements within the sound effects and
orchestral ensemble bounce with skill between the left and right sides.
The entire grouping of sound effects that opens the "New Neighbors" cue
enters the scene in only the right channel and slowly progresses back to
center as the strings build up to one of the expansive electric guitar,
bass string, and pipe organ motifs. (The score is quite generous in the
bass region for its otherwise smaller size.) All the albums present the
cues in film order, and the score therefore does switch genres and
themes seemingly at will. Such is the way of a Dante film, though, so be
aware and be prepared. If you're trying to convince your roommates that
film music is cool, it may not be the right choice. Playing portions of
it over a building-wide intercom will not only get you punished but
could punch your ticket to an asylum, a sign of a perfect satirical
score.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26
(in 124 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 153,454 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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