: (James Horner) A story about the
self-discovery and reaffirmation of an average, contemporary American
family,
is another lesson on how to and how not to take care
of your parents once they reach the frustrating age of senility. A busy
banker in the big city is forced to take leave to attend to his ailing
parents, and the "coming together" experience helps heal years of
distant relationships. The story shows the audience about how older
folks can learn to cope with their illnesses and other age-related
ailments as well, if even via a fantasy world. The 1989 film dances
without finesse between the realms of drama and comedy, perhaps to a
level of fault from which it cannot recover. Written and directed by
Gary David Goldberg,
represented his first feature film after
years of directing TV's popular "Family Ties" show. Critical reaction to
pounced on this inexperience and often related the problems
with the film to the pitfalls typical to sitcom comedies. All of the
actors in the production would go on to better representations of their
characters in subsequent films (especially Jack Lemmon in the
movies), and the same could arguably be said for composer
James Horner as well. Best known for his adventure and high drama scores
in the 1980's, Horner used his budding efforts in children's genre
entries like
to
prepare himself for these kinds of syrupy, small-scale human drama
pictures that would become associated with his sound over the rest of
his career. His collaboration with Steven Spielberg's Amblin
Entertainment came into play once again in
and led to several
similarly curious projects for the composer during the following few
years. Of his efforts in the intimate human drama genre, many of which
become redundant after you evaluate three or four such similar scores,
remains one of the more personable and enjoyable works,
building a consistently easy-going listening experience around the
foundation of one of Horner's very typical children's-styled themes of
the era.
While
Dad isn't exactly a children's film, of
course, the composer handles it as such by applying equivalent
sensibilities in his light touch and friendly instrumentation, the piano
frequently guiding the strings and woodwinds of the orchestra. A solo
saxophone occasionally infuses contemporary style. Synthesizers handle
the fantasy world of Lemmon's character to distinguish it from reality,
though the usage remains tasteful and typically continues the piano
employment. There is nary an offensive moment in what some listeners may
find a pedestrian tackling of the topic. Horner collectors familiar with
scores like
Searching for Bobby Fischer and
To Gillian on her
37th Birthday will recognize the scope of
Dad immediately.
While those other scores lay on the drama more heavily during their
melodic performances,
Dad dribbles along in a more contemporary
style. Horner's primary theme is a combination of two melodies
interspersed with each other liberally throughout the work. The main
melody is a merging of
An American Tale ("Somewhere Out There"
lives on...) and
The Land Before Time, following familiar chord
progressions and alternating between performances of sweetness in
strings and woodwinds that will remind listeners of Jerry Goldsmith's
innocent themes of the years to come, not to mention Horner's later
Casper. In the opening cues, as well as "Dad," Horner's main
theme is accompanied by light rock elements, and in the latter track,
Jay Gruska's arrangement of Horner's material allows the saxophone to
carry the tune to much of the same degree as in Goldsmith's
Forever
Young. Later in the score, this theme adopts a more strictly
orchestral personality, culminating in a "Goodbyes" cue that mirrors
The Land Before Time in its string usage. The opening bars of
"Taking Dad Home" feature perhaps the most explosive outburst of
emotion, as heard during a pivotal sequence in the film during which
Lemmon's character is literally carried out a hospital by his son (Ted
Danson) with Hollywood flair. This cue was cited by some critics as
ruining the film, an ironic twist given that the cue was a replacement
for a less obvious original recording for the scene.
Despite its controversy in context, "Taking Dad Home"
does provide extended life to the composer's secondary melody in the
main theme, one that better reflects the introspection of the work. The
consistency of stylistic and thematic variations makes
Dad an
easy and nearly uninterrupted experience. The one exception is "Mopping
the Floor," Horner's lone comedy cue from the film (aside from the
rejected "I Think It's White"), for which he switches to a wild
bluegrass/jazz rhythm performed by bass and steel drums with a catchy
violin melody over the top. While some listeners might be turned off by
this significant departure from the nonstop charm of the rest of the
score, it is another one of those offbeat moments in Horner's career
that you almost wish the composer had explored to a greater degree at
some point. (
Field of Dreams the same year also featured a cue or
two of this kind of material). Amongst Horner's more subtle works,
Dad measures up to nearly the level of
The Spitfire Grill
in its ability to involve the listener with just enough substance and
warmth while maintaining appropriate restraint. It is at the opposite
end of the scale from something like
Class Action, which suffers
from a striking lack of personality by comparison. Despite being badly
out of print, the original album remained relatively easily attainable
for many years, but Quartet Records presented an expanded and limited,
2-CD set of the score in 2023 that features the film presentation of the
score in proper order on one CD and Horner's preferred album arrangement
on the other. The original album version does contain a few moments that
are purely unique in performance, including the "Main Title" sequence
and "Goodbyes," which is a long and endearingly lovely summary of the
whole score in either variant. The full film version of the score
doesn't add anything major or significant to the experience, but the
alternate cues included as a bonus do show that, aside from "Taking Dad
Home," Horner had originally envisioned the score as having a heavier
and more obvious dramatic touch in several important scenes, and these
cues are a pleasure to hear. The sound quality of the two albums is not
noticeably different, and either will serve as a welcome addition to any
Horner collection.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| 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.
|
