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| Horner |
Cocoon: (James Horner) Despite starting in just his
twenties, Ron Howard's reputation as a bankable director of "feel good"
movies in the 1980's was aided significantly when he took over the
reigns of
Cocoon after production difficulties showed Robert
Zemeckis the door. A lovable parable about the fountain of youth,
Cocoon starred older actors and actresses in roles far more
prominent that usual, allowing their discovery of rejuvenation to turn
them as giddy as teenagers. This group of retirement home dwellers
stumbles upon a ship of aliens collecting the cocoons of their dead
comrades from the ancient colony of Atlantis and is given the choice of
immortality in return for their assistance and acceptance. The movie was
a significant hit in 1985, garnering Academy Award attention and leading
to an unsuccessful sequel three years later. Howard's collaboration with
composer James Horner began with
Cocoon and would lead to several
tremendous successes before the director turned to Hans Zimmer as his
regular partner in the 2000's. In the mid-1980's, Horner was immersed in
a period of his career when fantasy and science fiction were the norm,
this outstanding body of work ranging from his two
Star Trek
scores to
Aliens and
Brainstorm. Unlike his other
mainstream projects at the time,
Cocoon was an opportunity to
take a swim in the pool of drama, and in the process of exploring a more
fluid and graceful thematic identity, he wrote what is commonly
considered his first great dramatic theme. In the context of the more
developed dramas that Horner was destined to tackle in subsequent years,
Cocoon may seem somewhat predictable and conservative, but the
score was a discovery in 1985. Horner's set of primary themes for
Cocoon established a style that has led to countless successes in
following years, so even if you can't appreciate the score on a
technical level, there is a sense of affection towards it that remains
intact several decades after its recording. For much of its history, the
two most distinguishing factors of
Cocoon's score were the
somewhat sparse recording mix of its ensemble as initially available and
the rarity of its extremely early CD release. The flat sound quality
continued to detract from the score's appeal for some listeners until an
excellent remastering and release by Intrada in 2013, a product that not
only revealed the original quality of the recording but finally
eliminated the score from remaining lists of soundtrack
collectibles.
Thematically,
Cocoon is often mischaracterized
as a monothematic score, and while the film doesn't seem to make use of
different melodies for individual lines of plot, Horner's theme can be
divided into three distinct parts. Each of these is provided in
succession at the outset of "Theme From Cocoon" and are rotated between
in "The Ascension." The tingling seven-note prelude theme for mystery
opens both the suite and the entire score and represents the fantasy
element. Later development seemingly follows the lines of both the older
folks' enthusiasm and the aliens themselves. The ensemble performance of
the dominant title theme for the fantasy element at 1:45 into "The
Ascension" is countered by a sensitive and romantic counterpart at 1:15
into "Theme From Cocoon." The former brass-led theme, akin to the later
The Rocketeer, is offered in conjunction with the harshly
metallic sound that Horner often produced in that era, though the latter
theme for flowing strings is a striking foreshadowing of the weighty
dramatic style that would culminate in
Legends of the Fall. The
mystery theme is given an elegant horn solo at 2:40 into "Theme From
Cocoon," previewing some of the composer's writing in the children's
genre to follow. These ideas mingle so frequently they serve as
interludes to each other, so it's understandable that most listeners
don't separate them when enjoying
Cocoon. A few independent but
revisited progressions in the score are the early makings of the
saccherine ideas in
Casper. A few distinct aspects of creativity
in the score are worth mentioning beyond these motifs; the use of
woodwind instruments to imitate the call of an urgent telegraph message
is brilliantly played at 1:45 into "Theme From Cocoon." No re-recording
of the theme has ever effectively recreated the sixteenth notes merging
into one continuous whole note. Fans of Horner's early action music will
enjoy "The Chase," which heightens the fantasy theme with an assortment
of percussive aides and brass tones that will raise significant memories
of
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and
Krull. Synthetic
elements provide interesting accents as well; the use of a synth organ
effect for moments of a religious nature are heard in the middle of
"Discovered in the Pool House" and in "The Ascension." These synths are
used to produce a ghostly moment of suspense late in "The Lovemaking"
that resembles usage in Jerry Goldsmith's
Poltergeist. Horner's
application of metallic percussion as an accent to the various fuller
ensemble sequences is an effective method of infusing both a sense of
magic and watery fluidity into the equation.
Evidence of Horner's more playful side also exists in
"Discovered in the Pool House," with some exuberant rhythms that would
guide his later animation scores. The swinging jazz of "The Boys Are
Out" is also an early venture by Horner into a genre he would explore
several times with success. Along with the jazz, the understated
acoustic guitar sounds of "Sad Goodbyes" would combine to form a greater
portion of Horner's score for
Cocoon: The Return, though all of
the primary orchestral themes would be regurgitated as well. Additional
jazz and source rock pieces were recorded for the project, none of them
spectacular. On album, the
Cocoon score has spent 90% of its
existence as elusive as the aliens themselves. Forty minutes of the
score was made available on an extremely early and primitive Polydor CD
that, like many at the time, went very much out of print within just a
few years. Its value reached $250 in the mid-1990's before a re-pressing
in 1997 was made commercially available (and the bootleg CDr market
began taking off). Both albums offered identical contents, which
unfortunately broke Horner's score into two LP-styled halves with the
presence of an absolutely wretched and badly dated pop song that sounds
like a much better match for
Ghostbusters than this. Songs like
"Gravity" exist to remind us just how corny the 1980's were and,
inevitably, how much we'd like to ignore the fact that such music ever
existed. The 1997 pressing by P.E.G. (another Polygram branch) itself
fell out of print within only a short few years, and copies of that
album (along with the original 1985 run) eventually sold for as much as
$75. Despite its identical contents, the 1997 album was preferable for
its slight improvement in sound quality due to a remastering. For
audiophiles, however, the true reward of patience came in 2013 when
Intrada's expanded album for
Cocoon added nearly twenty minutes
of music and, more importantly, extensively remastered the score to
return it to its most pristine original state. The newly added cues
offer more source-like jazz ("Going to the Pool" and "Seduction"
featuring the same theme), exuberant playfulness ("Pool is Closed" and
"David Runs to the Boat"), subtle tenderness ("A Relapse" and "Sneaking
Away"), some intriguing suspense and horror ("Mysterious Dive" and
"Unveiling"), and two unfortunate source rock cues in the bonus section.
But the improvement in sound quality is where Intrada deserves the most
kudos, making this limited product a necessity for any Horner collector.
On the whole, with both
Cocoon and
Cocoon: The Return
suffering from a history of limited availability on album, Horner's
music for these films is often overshadowed and forgotten by collectors
of the composer's popular scores from 1988 and beyond. The original
Cocoon, however, offers at least twenty minutes of engagingly
dramatic music and remains one of Horner's important "discovery"
scores.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
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The 1985 and 1997 albums feature blank inserts. The 1997 album's cover has a purple tint to
the film's artwork, whereas the 1985 album featured the original blue tones. The insert of the 2013
Intrada album offers notes about the film, score, and recording. The track "The Ascension" also
appears on the "Ron Howard Passions and Achievements" retrospective compilation from 1997.
