Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #974
Written 12/13/96, Revised 8/21/08
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Buy it... if you're prepared to hear a zany side of Jerry Goldsmith's small
scale comedy writing rarely employed with such zeal by the composer during the
1990's.
Avoid it... if you expect any continuity whatsoever with John Du Prez's
superior and more explosively wild score for A Fish Called Wanda.
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| Goldsmith |
Fierce Creatures: (Jerry Goldsmith) When it was announced that
a pseudo-sequel to the modern legend A Fish Called Wanda would be made by
the exact same starring and supporting cast, the peasants of the world rejoiced.
John Cleese's writing talents are among the best in the world, and both critical
and fan response to the first film were overwhelming. With A Fish Called
Wanda gaining more cult status with each passing year, Cleese created Fierce
Creatures, a film that presents the original actors in nearly identical roles
with equally bizarre character flaws. Unfortunately, Cleese's story wasn't as sharp
as that of the original, and the sequel slipped into relative obscurity while the
original continues to impress. The composer of the first film's score, John Du
Prez, had been associated with Cleese since the Monty Python days, and had a knack
for scoring dumb, if not cultish comedy films that resulted from that troop's
endeavors. Du Prez had provided a perfect musical fit for the earlier film, with
snazzy urban rhythms yielding occasionally to cello solos for short scenes of drama
and remorse (and one phenomenal orchestral cue for a memorable sex scene). As with
A Fish Called Wanda, Cleese and the other producers preferred to keep the
playing time of music in the film to a minimum, allowing the cunning dialogue to
rightfully hog all of the attention. The same philosophy applies to Fierce
Creatures, and Du Prez was originally hired to reprise the thematic feel of the
first film. With visions of grandeur and a bit of money to spare, the producers
replaced Du Prez with composing legend Jerry Goldsmith, who was more than eager to
take a slice from the A Fish Called Wanda pie. Even so, Goldsmith's music
had to be minimal in ensemble size and only be featured in about twenty minutes of
the final cut. Despite that short running time for the film edit, Goldsmith
enthusiastically recorded half an hour of music, all of which appearing on album.
Some material was arranged and recorded by Goldsmith specifically to round out that
product.
The result of Goldsmith's quick effort is a quirky comedy piece
that stands alone in the composer's great career, mirroring the frantic, jazzy
styles of early Danny Elfman more than that of any of his other scores. There is
really nothing to compare
Fierce Creatures to in Goldsmith's accomplishments
(except, perhaps, the tango driven
6 Degrees of Separation and the smaller
portions of the outrageous comedy style of his little-known
I.Q.), for his
comedy music usually utilizes an orchestral ensemble of some size. For
Fierce
Creatures, Goldsmith makes use of mostly a quartet of strings (for Cleese's
pompous nature), a jazz band, and especially a piano, with little orchestral
accompaniment (a few woodwinds, perhaps) or electronic enhancement. His score
tackles the story's central zoo and its human and animal life with a baby elephant
walk approach that sends the piano rumbling along a clumsy, but lovable motif for
much of the score. The light, spirited rhythms of the percussion are often
paralleled by simple themes for the one-dimensional characters. Two or three lesser
subthemes, along with the rolling piano motif, provide a more than adequate
ambience for the ridiculous happenings on screen, and you have to credit Goldsmith
with maintaining a jazzy atmosphere without allowing the score to degenerate into
complete silliness. Also of interest are a few similar scoring choices to those
that Du Prez used in the first film, from the electric guitar rock for action
scenes to the somber string quartet for the ones of misery. There isn't much press
about Goldsmith's thought process for
Fierce Creatures, so those
consistencies between the films may either have been the producers' requests or
mere coincidence. The composer's recording of the end credits contains a theme and
motif summary that is worthy of any compilation of his works, starting with a slow
variant of the elephant walk motif and finishing with it at full speed (with a
single, bursting note of punctuation at the end). It's certainly more deceivingly
complex than Du Prez's original score, though Goldsmith fans should be aware that
Fierce Creatures is about as far from the composer's established styles as
he could get.
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Bias Check:
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23
(in 139 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 154,744 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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