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| Goldsmith |
First Knight: (Jerry Goldsmith) Outside of Sean
Connery's casting as the famed King Arthur, nearly everything about the
1995 film
First Knight was both an artistic and intellectual
disaster. So embarrassing was director Jerry Zucker's mutilation of the
Arthurian legend that Camelot became humorous in parts where it was not
intended. A ridiculously dumb script, poor special effects, the lack of
magical elements, and absolutely wooden performances by Richard Gere and
Julia Ormond rounding out the love triangle were the doom of
First
Knight. Aiding in the discontentment were comparisons at the time to
the more fiercely original
Rob Roy and
Braveheart,
increasingly realistic, vivid movies still fresh in the minds of
audiences and critics at the time. Worldwide grosses helped
First
Knight fare reasonably well despite scathing reviews, and after the
dust settled, the production was widely remembered with more forgiveness
by film score fans for Jerry Goldsmith's heroic music. The project
marked the second time in the matter of two years that Goldsmith would
replace Maurice Jarre in the action and adventure genre, confirming
(among other factors) Jarre's slow and unfortunate descent into relative
obscurity at the end of his career. The assignment was one of extremely
short scheduling for Goldsmith, who tackled his return to the mainstream
action genre with a good sense of humor and only three and a half days
in which to record the music. What he provided for
First Knight
is so epic in proportion and noble in tone that some might have
wondered, given the suspect quality of the film, if the composer was
subconsciously writing a parody score. But with his tendency to tackle
substandard projects with the utmost serious enthusiasm, it's far more
likely that Goldsmith was over-compensating for a film that lacked scope
and nobility in its other production elements. His music is quite
memorable in its blatant statements of each of its ideas, with several
extremely obvious primary themes typically sounding off amongst many
smaller motifs of equal power. It's a score dear to the hearts of many
Goldsmith fans if only because it is saturated with fondly remembered
techniques that span from
The Wind and the Lion and
The
Omen in the mid-1970's to
Air Force One and
The 13th
Warrior later in the 1990's. While
First Knight may not be
packaged quite as well as those other scores, it nevertheless entertains
fans of the composer with unyielding bombast and romanticism.
The greatest strength of Goldsmith's approach to
First Knight is his plethora of easily recognizable, often
intertwined themes. His handling of each of these ideas is extremely
well considered, even going so far as to assign Arthur and Camelot
identities with common progressions to suggest their shared interests.
The overlapping of themes in counterpoint roles is frequent and well
executed in a variety of circumstances. Most often referenced in this
form is Arthur's fanfare, the film's primary identity and an ultra-noble
brass idea that would seemingly influence Goldsmith's forthcoming theme
written specifically for Academy Awards telecasts. Nearly everything in
First Knight is permeated by its easily-identifiable,
octave-spanning structure, its high tones on trumpets occasionally
becoming obnoxious in their source-like applications. Straining itself
to almost parody levels is the theme's bubbly and upbeat rendition over
oddly mixed metallic percussion at the end of "A New Life." Also larger
than life is Goldsmith's theme for Lancelot, an idea often missed
completely even by Goldsmith collectors because of its curious absence
from the original 1995 soundtrack album for
First Knight. Sharing
the first three notes as Arthur's fanfare, the Lancelot theme is heard
in swashbuckling tones throughout the first half of the score, heard
only in its first phrases until bursting forth with exuberant
playfulness in "The Gauntlet/No Kiss." Befitting a vintage Errol Flynn
film, this idea injects the score with wide-eyed enthusiasm but also
fails to really provide anything other than a cartoonish identity for
the character. As the character hands over his loyalty to Camelot, the
theme is eventually overtaken by broader representations, but it remains
an intriguing footnote in this score. Often connecting Arthur and
Lancelot is the overarching theme for Camelot, one that could in many
ways be considered an interlude to Arthur's fanfare. Heard at the very
outset of the film and in full glory in "Camelot," the additionally
ultra-noble theme is plain fodder for trumpets and snare drums in
outright royal mode. Appended to this theme is sometimes a closing
fanfare sequences marking Guinevere's role as queen, and after Arthur's
death, this pair of Camelot identities close out the score with an
overwhelming sense of honor. The final main theme is the beautiful
representation of Guinevere's allure to both leading men, a throwback to
the gorgeous high string romance themes from Goldsmith in the 1980's.
Constantly teasing the listener with its smooth, melodramatic
progressions, this theme culminates in "Never Surrender," where it
reminds of the elegant finale of
Total Recall and foreshadows the
more fluid movements of the composer's later
Star Trek
scores.
While the four aforementioned themes dominate
First
Knight because of their hand-fed representations of the main love
triangle, some of Goldsmith's most interesting music in the score comes
in the various themes for the villains, Malagant and his army, and the
totalitarian action cues that contain them. All of these elements are
paraded early (starting in "Raid on Leonesse") and are dedicated to the
evils of the movie in each of their appearances. A devious theme for
Malagant is eventually overshadowed by a rhythmic motif representing his
army that would play an important role in setting the pacing in the
score's later action cues. It wouldn't be surprising if a snare drum was
damaged during this recording, for its sharp pronouncement of each note
also gives these action cues a distinctive, deliberate sense of
movement. Much positive banter can be found about the robust "Night
Battle" and "Arthur's Farewell," though each of these sequences features
stock Goldsmith action material, perhaps betraying inspirations while
the composer was attempting to complete the score in extreme haste. Most
of this music points back to
Lionheart, Goldsmith providing a
somewhat refined version of the pompous and loquacious form that
impresses with volume rather than unique substance. With the pride of
Camelot at stake, Goldsmith pulls all the stops in the bombast
department in "Arthur's Farewell," a scene originally to feature Carl
Orff's "Carmina Burana" but eventually re-written by Goldsmith with
Latin chanting that resurrects
The Omen and makes for a
stunningly deep and massive climax. This cue would serve as compilation
bait, The City of Prague Philharmonic and Crouch End Festival Chorus
offering a very impressive performance of this piece on their
best-selling Cinema Choral Classics album (under the title "Never
Surrender"). Ultimately, the entirety of
First Knight is the kind
of listening experience that force-feeds its personality in the same way
as
Air Force One does, but it is exceptionally good at that task.
It's fun but predictable, and it would make a great bridge in a
compilation with
Lionheart and
The 13th Warrior. At only
40 minutes on the 1995 album, fans have always grumbled about its
brevity, and after years upon years of bootleg activity, La-La Land
finally issued 78 minutes of the score (along with the original
presentation and many alternate takes) in 2011. While the score itself
may skirt the edge of parody too closely to receive a full five stars,
the 2011 album can be rated with nothing less. Perfect sound quality, an
abundance of impressive new cues revealed, and detailed analysis finally
explain and replace Goldsmith's very poor personal rearrangement of the
score for the 1995 product. For collectors of the composer's works, it
doesn't get much better than this.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1995 Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2011 Set: *****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.28
(in 113 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.31
(in 142,798 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts of the 1995 Epic and 2000 Camelot albums include no
extra information about the score or film. That of the 2011 La-La Land
set includes detailed notes about both.
