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| Silvestri |
Cast Away: The Zemeckis/Silvestri Collaboration:
(Alan Silvestri) Collaborations between directors and composers can
often span six or seven films over many decades, and while it is no
record, the highly acclaimed 2000 film
Cast Away represented the
tenth pairing of director Robert Zemeckis and composer Alan Silvestri.
Even though their first project together was highly disappointing
Romancing the Stone, Zemeckis and Silvestri became famous with
their monumentally successful
Back to the Future and its sequels.
The remarkable result of
Forrest Gump was unparalleled critical
praise for the two, and that praise once again arose for
Cast
Away. Zemeckis and Silvestri are very close friends, and the trust
that the director has for the composer is evident through the wide
diversity of the genres that the two tackle together. Even while they
were preparing and recording
What Lies Beneath in early 2000,
they were hard at work with
Cast Away, which figured to be the
blockbuster hit of the holiday season that year. And, without a doubt,
Cast Away was a success. Tom Hanks' portrayal of a man stranded
on a small island for an extended time was equaled by the sensitivity of
Helen Hunt's short performance as his grieving wife. Even more
interesting for film score fans is the fact that Zemeckis chose to
include less than 15 minutes of music for the entire duration of the
film (a film which is, surprisingly, quite long). It was an effective
choice, enhancing the feeling of alienation that Hanks' character
experiences on the island. Only once he begins his attempt to leave that
island does the slight string, woodwind, and piano theme begin. When he
loses Wilson (a ball he has desperately befriended) on that journey, the
theme announces the arrival of the emotionally traumatizing final
act.
A few of Zemeckis' choices for
Cast Away weren't
as clear; the plane crash itself went unscored, which was a more curious
choice. But in the last half hour of the film (the extended epilogue),
Silvestri's score makes just a few select appearances. In these late
scenes, it works brilliantly, proving that sometimes, less is indeed
more. The theme for
Cast Away is very simply constructed. It's
not particularly noble; instead, it's appropriately humbling and
detached. There are progressions and sensibilities that could be
compared to the feather theme of
Forrest Gump. The "End Credits"
cue repeats the same statement of theme heard in the actual film, but it
is in this slightly longer performance that the piano joins the
woodwinds and strings for an additional layer of elegance. Roughly half
of this cue actually consists of interludes that solely feature the
sounds of crashing waves and whispering winds through the trees. This
mixing of Silvestri's on and off again strings with the sound effects is
a thoughtful touch in "End Credits." It is equally delightful,
therefore, that the full performance of theme and subsequent mixing of
those sound effects were made available on a album released in 2001 by
Varèse Sarabande. The seven and a half minutes presented on that
product offer the essential music from the film, since earlier
performances of the title theme are practically the same (lacking the
piano). The much-requested Russian choral piece heard near the start of
the film was not composed or even recorded by Silvestri, so it doesn't
appear on this album. It is a traditional Russian song written by Lev
Knipper called "Oh, My Field" ("Polyushka, Polye") and it is available
on various collections of Red Army hymns.
To fill out the album, Varèse Sarabande producer
Robert Townson compiled original selections from each of the ten scores
that Silvestri has written for Zemeckis films. These are the actual,
original soundtrack recordings from each film, so the album acts as a
very effective tribute to their collaboration. The lighter
Romancing
the Stone and
Death Becomes Her are a glimpse of the
composer's pop and comedy side, while
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is
a flamboyant score that was long difficult to obtain on its original
Touchstone album. The three
Back to the Future scores are
well-represented, though it's easy to say that any fan of the original
film and score would rather have heard something other than the suite
that was already available on the film's commercial song compilation.
The beloved
Forrest Gump and
Contact both feature
wonderful and delicate themes, and their back-to-back appearance on this
compilation provides for over sixteen minutes of uninterrupted beauty.
Just before
Cast Away,
What Lies Beneath is certainly the
weakest score of the ten, and an unfortunate detraction from the
listening experience on this compilation (but since the album is a
chronological presentation of each collaboration, it has to be there).
Overall, the
Cast Away "End Credits" cue is a pleasant listening
experience, albeit short. Fans who seek the complete 20-minute score for
Cast Away on bootlegs aren't likely to find anything
substantially different (other than the Russian material not by
Silvestri). Most of the other selections on this compilation have their
virtues, but since they cross over several genres and are placed
chronologically, they don't always flow well into each other.
Nevertheless, it's a competent compilation of Silvestri's work and
merits some consideration.
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| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.39
(in 36 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 33,921 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a note from producer Robert Townson about the
collaboration between Zemeckis and Silvestri. The theme for Cast Away
appeared in a 2003 spoof advertisement of the film for FedEx. It was also used
by the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama in some of the biographical
films produced on his behalf.
