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Review of Domestic Disturbance (Mark Mancina)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a surprisingly enjoyable ten minute tribute
to Jerry Goldsmith's title theme to Basic Instinct, translated
for warmer, organic instrumentation.
Avoid it... if you expect to hear anything of merit outside of those Goldsmith influences on a frightfully short album.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Domestic Disturbance: (Mark Mancina) Early in 2001,
the film Domestic Disturbance was mentioned as one of Hollywood's
most anticipated autumn releases. It was to be a film of an intriguingly
suspenseful plot that would carry it to deep riches at the box office.
Unfortunately for Paramount Pictures, two deadly blows struck down
Domestic Disturbance with a resounding thud. First, the film was
just plain awful, predictably playing every cliche in the sub-genre of
"thrillers involving insane family members" and providing no unique
perspective to this already tired equation. With John Travolta as a
boatmaker whose role isn't as extensive as the movie poster would make
you think, Domestic Disturbance is the typical "your ex-wife
marries a wealthy creep, your troubled kid knows the guy is a murderer,
but nobody believes the brat until everything gets really suspenseful"
kind of flick. Secondly, it was released just before the first
Muggle-treasured film about a little school named Hogwarts. Thus,
Domestic Disturbance disappeared off the charts after only one
week of marginal theatrical success. Also problematic was the situation
regarding Jerry Goldsmith's assignment to score the film. The composer
had collaborated with director Harold Becker for Malice and
City Hall many years prior, though after he had begun writing
material for Domestic Disturbance (the extent of which is not
known), his appendix ruptured and his subsequent hospitalization
precluded his further involvement with the production. Stepping in to
replace him was contemporary artist Mark Mancina, who provided at least
a functional score for the film. It was one of those projects that fit a
very familiar scoring formula for whomever would end up composing for
the story, and Mancina (who performs the bazouki, guitar, mandolin, and
piano in his recording) did a decent job in producing more than what was
expected.
The most interesting aspect of Domestic Disturbance is easily the irony that Mancina wrote a better Goldsmith-like score for the film than Goldsmith himself may have been able to provide. So thorough are the Goldsmith influences in Mancina's finished score that there has been speculation about the possibility that the younger composer adapted material written by the veteran one for the film. That rumor, however, has never been confirmed. What is easy to confirm, however, is that the score for Domestic Disturbance is highly influenced by Goldsmith's Basic Instinct. Even the label for its album release, Varèse Sarabande, went so far as to mention the similarity on its press kit for the product. Another certainty is that Mancina has clearly claimed that there was no temp-track imitation at work here; he has maintained that the director did not thrust Basic Instinct (or any score, for that matter) upon him. So that means that either Goldsmith resurrected the Oscar-nominated score himself and Mancina adapted it into his own replacement material, or Mancina alone decided to pay tribute to Goldsmith by conjuring that resurrection himself. In any case, Mancina produced both a title theme and a smooth rendering of the idea that mirror much of the suspense of the motifs and instrumentation in Goldsmith's Basic Instinct title tracks without laying on the heavy sexual undertones and synthetic effects. It is, strangely enough, a low-key organic variation on the prior score. To this end, Mancina added a few more contemporary touches to the Basic Instinct equation, incorporating an acoustic guitar and bass to accompany the woodwinds and strings that do much of the comparatively straight imitation. The performance is equal to Goldsmith's to such an extent that Mancina even employs the percussion to produce echoing waves that follow each phrase of the theme. Mancina arranged this material into roughly nine minutes near the start of the album and this music, combined with the upbeat "Guys Sailing" in between, will alone be enough to warrant some appreciation from Goldsmith collectors. Unfortunately, aside from these sequences, the rest of the score contains only run of the mill suspense music. With the normal techniques of various brass blasts, quivering strings, and drum pounding filling most of the time in the score, there isn't much to write home about when it comes to the handling of suspense. The "Fight/Aftermath" cue is devoid of much climactic development, and the two "Fire" cues prior are anonymous in personality. Mancina does pepper these cues with references to the title theme, but that's not enough to save them. Cynics could extend the comparisons to Goldsmith here as well, given that his thriller music of this era (including Along Came a Spider), tended to be disappointingly dull. It does its job, but the film definitely could have used a fresher angle. The album from Varèse is a well organized presentation of Mancina's contributions. At 29 minutes in length, it fails to generate much of a consistent mood, though the ten minutes of thematic representations of Basic Instinct are grouped for convenience at the start of the product so that you can easily dismiss the rest. For veteran film score collectors, the cross between the theme of Basic Instinct and the piano work of Randy Edelman's The Skulls in these tracks will be unmistakable, and if such blatant imitation bothers you as a listener, then the Domestic Disturbance album will likely drive you up a wall. Still, what Mancina has done with Goldsmith's style is quite commendable; the orchestration and fine recording quality (especially emphasizing the tingling percussive effects) will impress. The bland 19 minutes of suspense material that follows won't be of any interest by comparison, even for those who appreciate material that does its best to reach the same ambient success that Christopher Young has established for similarly poor films. Unless the ten minutes of Goldsmith tribute music is enough of a reward to tolerate the remainder of this product, then Domestic Disturbance is the kind of asterisk or footnote that is best left on a dusty shelf. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 29:14
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information
about the score or film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Domestic Disturbance are Copyright © 2001, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/30/01 and last updated 2/14/09. |
