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| Horner |
Dad: (James Horner) A story about the
self-discovery and reaffirmation of an average, contemporary American
family,
Dad 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 and the story shows the audience about how older folks can
learn to cope with their illnesses and other age-related ailments. The
1989 film dances without finesse between the realms of drama and comedy,
perhaps to a level of fault that it cannot recover from. Written and
directed by Gary David Goldberg,
Dad represented his first
feature film after years of directing TV's popular "Family Ties" show.
Critical reaction to
Dad 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
Grumpy Old Men 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
An American Tail and
The Land
Before Time to prepare himself for these kind 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
Dad and would lead to
several similarly curious projects involving 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,
Dad 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. There is
nary an offensive moment in what some may find a pedestrian tackling of
the topic.
Horner collectors familiar with
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
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. 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 (a moment that ruined the film for some
critics, it should be added). The consistency of 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, for which he switches to a wild bluegrass/jazz rhythm performed by
bass string 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 curious moments in Horner's career that you almost wish the
composer would explore 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 work,
Dad measures up to
nearly the level of
The Spitfire Grill in its ability to involve
the listener with just enough substance 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
compared to
Dad. Despite being badly out of print, the album has
remained relatively easily attainable and will be 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 3.16
(in 103 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 193,139 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
The text on the packaging is very difficult to read.
