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Ghost: (Maurice Jarre) It's hard to associate anything
related to the movie
Ghost without thinking of Demi Moore, sexually
suggestive pottery, or the song "Unchained Melody." Moore and the controversial
pottery aside, the tale of promised love and protection became a hit in 1990
partly because of the prominent use of "Unchained Melody" during several scenes
in the film. As a story,
Ghost is not the typical romantic comedy,
hindered by death, melancholy, and remorse. And yet, the mysticism of Sam and
Molly's love story was partly elevated to the level of cult status by the film's
music. The score rises from the depths of Maurice Jarre's long and storied
career, and many casual fans will be able to recognize Jarre's own theme for the
film along with the major song adaptation. Some people forget that "Unchained
Melody" was written for the film
Unchained by composer Alex North, and the
offshoot of that original instrumental writing was the Righteous Brothers
performance that became famous for decades to follow. The use of the Righteous
Brothers song in the film, while definitely the reason why masses of the world's
population rushed to the stores for many years to buy the album, is even
overshadowed by North's own instrumental version of the "Unchained Melody" theme,
which is more true to the original spirit of the composition and appears in the
film as well. Film score collectors can make fun of pottery all they want, but
nothing will cause Jarre's effort to stand at the same level as the song. That
said, Jarre's score is an interesting study in and of itself, combining an early
North-like orchestral simplicity of lofty string theme with an often curious and
disjointed effort to fill in the remainder of the underscore with electronics.
The resulting combination is one that fans found displeasing to an extent on
album, causing
Ghost to become one of the easiest used-CD bin finds in the
history of soundtracks (and a price of $1 for new copies in the 2000's). Aside
from saying that North's instrumental version of the "Unchained Melody" song is
equal to the vocal performance, there isn't much that can be said about the song
that isn't already widely known.
Jarre's score is the surprising element for many first time
listeners to
Ghost. Nominated for an Academy Award on the back of the
song, Jarre's score featured an equally romantic orchestral theme, one which has
received enough airtime that casual listeners may even recognize it as well.
Unfortunately, Jarre only hints slightly at the theme for the majority of the
score until, during the end titles, he finally presents a four-minute suite
performance of the lush orchestral idea in all its glory. Its harmonic grandeur
harkens back to the expansive days of
Lawrence of Arabia for Jarre, and
offers perhaps the last great theme of his career. While the composer has been
active for many years following
Ghost (and writing strong material), he
has never again achieved the same mainstream appeal. Not much in the positive
category can be said of the tense material, however, which consists mainly of
broken action cues and a great length of unpleasantly grinding and droning
electronic effects. Without any knowledge of the film, a listener to the album
could very well be confused into believing that score is for a horror mystery,
which wouldn't be too far from the truth, depending on your opinion of the film.
The dissonance and obnoxious synthesized clangs of this underscore continue for
lengthy sequences, causing the album to drag significantly in its middle
portions. The tone of Jarre's shallow samplings is badly dated, too. In fact,
without Jarre's "End Credits" and the instrumental adaptation of "Unchained
Melody," a two-star rating would result for this score. The music has been
released twice on album, first in 1990 by Varèse Sarabande (an album which
became an all-time top seller for the label), and then remastered with seven
extra minutes of Jarre's score in 1995 by Milan Records. The additional material
may not be stellar, but the remastering and additional packaging give the more
recent Milan album the edge (though this may be a moot point given that the
Varèse Sarabande album is out of print). At any rate,
Ghost is a very
mixed bag, with one grand, new orchestral theme and one great song surrounded by
mediocre underscore. Mainstream buyers should be aware that neither
Ghost
album is a collection of period songs similar to the Righteous Brothers
performance.
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The 1990 Varèse Sarabande insert includes no extra information
about the score or film, though the 1995 Milan version includes liner notes by
Daniel Schweiger. All tracks on the 1995 album were digitally remastered.
