: (Trevor Jones) One of those guilty
pleasures that you often see on late night television with regularity,
showcases the vein-popping Sylvester Stallone as a
reluctant, mountain climbing hero who thwarts a stereotypical plot of
terrorist hijacking gone awry in a spectacular remote setting. For
Stallone, the film represented a return to blockbuster stardom
desperately needed at that point in his career. For viewers, the film's
campy characteristics and fallacies of logic are more than compensated
for by a few key positives; first is John Lithgow's delightfully wicked
performance as the treacherous ringleader of the terrorists attempting
to steal massive amounts of cash from a plane that instead crashes in
the mountains when the plan goes awry. Second is the remarkable
photography of the peaks on which the story unfolds, shot in the Italian
Alps under very challenging circumstances. Finally, Trevor Jones'
soaring orchestral score is a prominent aspect of the film's soundscape,
standing alone the overall audio mix for extended sequences. Still,
while the film landed with an international splash in 1993,
insurmountable competition from
to fade somewhat into the ranks
of lesser-known action blockbusters. And though it was difficult to
compete with John Williams' adventurous score as well, Jones was hot at
the time. He had just emerged from a disjointed project with Randy
Edelman,
, which had ironically turned into
an incredible success in sales of the album for that score. In fact, the
award-nominated
would continue to sell so
well on album in the subsequent decade (and almost completely due to
Jones' music and not Edelman's) that the immediately following
has been further forced into relative obscurity.
Partly because of the insistence of director Renny Harlin,
Jones has proven in the years since
Last of the
Mohicans that he is indeed one of the kings of lofty, major-key
string themes, and although many of them do indeed sound much alike when
you compare them, their incredible sense of majesty often outweighs
their faults. For listeners who believe
Last of the Mohicans to
be sacred, then the thematic overlap could very well ruin the
Cliffhanger score in sum despite the composer's original
inclination to write music more in tune with Jerry Goldsmith's
Rambo franchise. Such dismissal would be an enormous disservice
to the remainder of the 1993 work, most of which is quite invigorating
and harmonically pleasing. Anyone who has seen
Cliffhanger will
have the title theme imprinted upon his or her memory for quite some
time. Its expansive, melodramatic structure serves two purposes.
Obviously, its major-key performances are a perfect fit for the stunning
footage of the peaks you witness in the opening sequence. Throughout the
film, Jones continues to insert snippets of this magnificent theme
whenever a great vista shot is presented. Additionally, it has a tragic
element to its strictly translated minor-key variations, representing
the incredible loss that the primary character faces at the outset of
the film and his bittersweet return to the same mountains during the
terrorists' activities. A lovely string interlude in this theme is
rarely heard in the meat of the score, but its appearances in the
opening title sequence are not to be missed. The most effective
minor-key dramatics with the main theme's primary sequence grace the
middle portions of "End Credits." A crisp and expansive recording of the
London Philharmonic adds a vibrant sense of importance to this theme and
several other major cues in the score. When the tempo is increased in
between primary trumpet statements of the idea, Jones inserts an
strangely gregarious sequence that hints strongly of James Horner's
The Rocketeer (listen for it at about 2:15 in the opening cue).
Darker variations of the title theme act as interludes for the tense
situations in the plot, as well as an extension of the somewhat
downplayed romantic undertones of the story.
A theme for Lithgow's crew of criminals in
Cliffhanger has a twist of Michael Kamen's
Die Hard music
to it, but Jones takes this tonal motif through ominously clever
rhythmic variations with bold brass tones to match the bad attitude. It
occasionally expresses its sinister tones through bass woodwinds as John
Williams is fond of doing. This theme is presented fully in "Rabbit
Hole" and, to a loftier extent, in the entertaining "Sunset Searching,"
a delightfully menacing cue (if such a thing can exist). It can also be
heard in fragmented forms in "Being Tracked," "Icy Stream," and
"Helicopter Flight." Its own rising interlude sequence, evoking a
feeling of mischief, is all-too-infrequent as well. While the thematic
merging in the former track is more masterful from a technical
standpoint, the "Helicopter Flight" cue is a powerhouse that moves with
rambunctious, percussion aided rhythms familiar to Goldsmith's career
(in fact, several parts of this score, including the title theme, would
seem to have influenced
The Edge) and deliberate brass accents in
that rhythm that are a trademark of Alan Silvestri's work. The
connections to Goldsmith continue into "End Credits," which features a
middle section that will juggle the thematic ideas with a sensibility of
class and instrumentation that Goldsmith fans will appreciate. Jones
competently overlaps the primary and villain themes with greater
frequency as the score progresses (especially in the rabbit sequence),
perhaps an expected maneuver but still one of interest. He also has a
habit of concluding full statements of the title theme in the latter
half of the score with sudden ensemble stingers, which takes some
getting accustomed to. The middle sequences of the score, particularly
after the crash landing of the terrorist plane, are irregular in their
quality. Jones was asked to score practically every moment in the film,
so some of the interior sequences feature less than stellar atmospheric
material. It is in these passages that the composer applies his
synthetic layers. In a cue like "Bats," Jones uses these devices to fill
space with uncertainty, and while none of the techniques is particularly
offensive (or even substantially dissonant), they add little to the
overall score. A seemingly synthetic choral effect in "Frank's Demise"
is an exception.
For the scenes of brutal, almost cartoonish violence in
Cliffhanger, there are some obnoxious moments of blaring brass
and dissonant shrieks on strings. While the more non-descript cues of
treachery and endurance are miles away from the sincerity of a score
like
Thirteen Days, they fit the simplistic characters of
Cliffhanger's plot well enough. In the end, though, there is no
doubt that those who will seek this score on album are likely motivated
by the memorable title theme. No matter your view on recycled
identities, Jones' main theme for this film stands on its own as a
remarkable piece, and an oft-enjoyable action underscore will maintain
your interest in between the theme's statements. On album, the
commercial Scotti Bros album of 1993 featured about 51 minutes and fell
out of print in the late 1990's. In 2011, Intrada Records issued an
expanded edition of 93 minutes, limited to 2,000 copies that sold out
within a week. While the commercial product contained all the major
highlights, the Intrada offering presents a better balance of action
cues. Strangely, however, the mix of the orchestra and synthesizers,
which was reportedly redone to some extent for the 2011 album, is
sometimes lacking in mid-range depth. Instruments are spread to
unnatural channels and the synthesizer and percussion overlays seem
heavily trained to the left channel. Strings are often underpowered,
yielding a disappointingly shallow presentation overall. Parts of the
score sound so muted that most of the life is drained completely from
the recording. Additionally, the ambience is extremely dry on parts of
the Intrada product, another detriment to the scope of the music.
Ultimately,
Cliffhanger is an entertainingly solid score worthy
of the kind of presentation that Intrada intended to afford, but the
major problems with the mixing of the score on the label's expanded
album make it difficult to recommend. Fortunately, La-La Land Records
offered a similarly expanded product of another 2,000 copies in 2017,
and this presentation completely re-mixed the score (and the original
1993 album's arrangement as a bonus) to a pleasing, naturally balanced
state. Quartet Records re-issued another 1,000 copies of that same
program in 2023. Regardless of the album,
Cliffhanger is
continued proof that it's a mighty shame that Jones chose to limit his
assignments in the decades since.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Trevor Jones reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78
(in 18 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.44
(in 26,057 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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