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| Goldsmith |
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| Fiedel |
Gladiator: (Jerry Goldsmith/Brad Fiedel) The
underground boxing scene is the backdrop for the character drama of the
1992 sports film
Gladiator, telling of disadvantaged youth who
are driven by family hardship and gang violence into illegal boxing
bouts that threaten their health. The main protagonist of the tale,
Tommy, is a high school drop-out who tries to recoup the money of his
father's gambling debts by participating in this racket. Other young men
sucked into this world become his friends, and he must contend with
their injuries and familial situations as well. Eventually, the evil
operator of the boxing league, who has engineered the entire situation
with Tommy and his father's debt, forces the talented fighter into the
ring against his good friend who is already suffering from concussion
symptoms. When they refuse to fight, the operator himself steps into the
ring. That villain, Horn, is played by none other than Brain Dennehy,
whose performance is really the only point of interest in the terrible
film. When it became clear late in post-production that
Gladiator
was going to lose significant amounts of money, the project made a few
futile changes, one of which to the soundtrack. The film always utilized
a pop song soundtrack consisting of sports-appropriate rock music that
punctuated scenes on the streets of Chicago and the end credits. Dumped,
however, was Jerry Goldsmith's entire recorded score, with a last-minute
replacement provided by synthesizer expert Brad Fiedel. No stranger to
troubled post-production nightmares, Fiedel provided the movie with a
very basic emergency score that contains none of the presence or
thematic complexity of Goldsmith's original approach. The Fiedel work is
not featured prominently in the picture but acquits itself rather well.
He devises his typical keyboarding and drum pads for the occasion,
keeping the ambience surprisingly tonal and utilizing fake oboe and
strings at times. A few electric guitar accents are employed in scenes
of boxing heroics, but he generally opts for understatement.
The accessibility of Fiedel's music for
Gladiator
comes in his one, primary theme, an ascending structure that owes much
to his classic theme from
The Terminator and offers keyboarded
renderings similar to those for that classic theme at the end of the
franchise's second film. The Fiedel score was never released on album,
failing to land a single track on the song compilation at the time of
the film's debut. The rejected Goldsmith score for
Gladiator
could not be more different from the demeanor of Fiedel's replacement.
It's an expressive, dynamic, and sometimes pretty work that would have
stood out far more in the finished picture. One has to assume that
Goldsmith's music was refused because it saw itself in the kind of
prominent duties that made
Hoosiers and eventually
Rudy so
successful. While the composer didn't often write for the sports drama
genre, those two popular scores are proof that he knew extremely well
what he was doing in that realm. When you heard him on speaking panels
lamenting novice directors who had no clue how to judge the proper
impact of music in a film, it was situations like
Gladiator that
he was talking about. While Fiedel's music was basically sufficient in a
conservative way (the director continued his collaboration with him on
another film), Goldsmith strove to make a significant emotional impact
on a movie that badly needed that infusion of energy. He provided punchy
sports action attitude, a redemptive character theme with a touch of
blues spirit for the cultural element, and a strikingly modern tone to
his fight, suspense, and inspirational cues. The blues element is a
particularly interesting and dominant force in his recording for
Gladiator, addressing the African American cultural subtext and
the Chicago setting in ways that Fiedel totally ignored. Goldsmith's
regular orchestra and synthesizers were recorded together live, per his
usual methodology, and the soundscape is significantly expansive. He
treats the sports topic with acoustic drum section, synthetic drums,
bongos, electric bass, and marimba, using a synthetic saxophone effect
that combines with wild piano lines for bluesy style in the beefier
cues.
The bongos and electric sax are the most interesting
additions to Goldsmith's equation in
Gladiator, though the latter
can be annoying in tone at times, as in "Stop the Fight." The percussive
array is more creative than usual, too, especially in all the tingling
and banging sounds utilized. A pulsating electronic tone on key comes to
represent the gravity of the villain, Horn, by the third act. Some
listeners expecting a soundscape as purely dramatic as those in the
composer's other sports scores may be surprised by the uniquely raw edge
that he brings to this work, supplementing his wholesome passages with
truly ball-busting, contemporary appeal. While the fight sequences may
be challenging for these Goldsmith enthusiasts, they are no less
melodically complicated in their development, and they are sometimes
remarkably rousing. Goldsmith supplies the movie with three themes and
rarely explores material outside of their influence. The main identity
for Tommy and his relationships has a long and tortured history for
Goldsmith. It's an offshoot inspired from his beloved theme from 1991's
The Russia House, Goldsmith's personal favorite from his career,
itself taking a winding path to fruition. That theme was first written
in 1987 for Oliver Stone's
Wall Street, and after his departure
from that project, he finally recorded it for 1988's
Alien
Nation, which itself was rejected. Even after the maturation of that
idea in
The Russia House, he immediately adapted its style and
core progressions to form this bluesy main theme for
Gladiator.
Upon this score's rejection, he transferred an almost identical
adaptation into
The Public Eye within a year, a setting perfect
for the noir mannerisms of the idea's performance. When his music for
The Public Eye was rejected as well, he moved that exact theme
and its jazzy inflection into a somewhat odd but satisfying position in
1993's
The Vanishing, gracing that score's end credits with an
uninhibited performance. While some may assume that the theme solely
represents the love affair between Tommy and the lead female in this
story, it really comes to define all the sensitive moments in the tale
regardless of the woman's involvement. The theme stews around in the
margins in "Good Luck/The Real Thing" before a high clarinet introduces
it formally. Here, Goldsmith retains the sports-oriented synthetics and
percussion, even adding the synthetic saxophone.
The main theme's underlying chords are powerful with
pounding timpani in "The Crowd," and those chords inform the victorious
fight motif with splendor late in "Knock Out." It extends out of the
suspenseful fight material to expose gorgeous piano and strings in "He's
Mine," twists into full rock mode with overbearing force in "Repayment,"
and once again returns to only its chords for the latter half of "I'd
Rather Walk." The piano and clarinet offer the idea with tenderness in
"My House," including its secondary phrasing, and those secondary lines
provide substantial warmth to the theme's deconstruction in the
lamentation of "Romano's Dead," eventually emerging a changed tune. A
straight, bluesy piano performance in "Tommy & Dawn" with smooth synth
and string accompaniment is typical to Goldsmith's sensitive character
themes. Another similar variant of that performance on the piano,
synths, and strings appears separately on the album as "Tommy & Dawn
Love Theme." As
Gladiator reaches its climax, Goldsmith continues
injecting his main theme into the cues of increasing presence for the
other themes. The idea barely informs the brooding keyboard and clarinet
meanderings of "That's Enough," the same techniques applied to the
foreboding of "Jackpot/Take a Look" and "No Gloves/Refund." At the end
of the film, the composer follows the action climax with redemptive
tones for the main theme in "Get Him," including the only trumpet solo
for the identity that reminds of
Hoosiers. Factoring heavily in
the score are the themes for adversity and the fights themselves, the
latter also a representation of the glory and downfall of Horn, the
villain. The adversity motif supplies the darkest moments earlier in the
picture as Tommy is regularly confronted and hassled by thugs. Its a
trio of rising three-note phrases sometimes extends to a resolving
fourth descent, and Goldsmith intriguingly allows this idea to
eventually adopt the Lincoln character (Cuba Gooding Jr.) in later
scenes. The adversity material in
Gladiator uses Harold
Faltermeyer-like bass keyboarding in "I Owe" before turning to ominous
piano, dwelling at similar depths in "The Diner" before previewing the
fight motif just like the previous cue. The adversity motif expresses
defiance from bass, piano, and synth sax in "I'd Rather Walk" and opens
"A Favor" in slower, softer shades of bluesy contemplation, leading to a
fight theme variant. It turns a bit panicked in "Stop the Fight,"
becomes accelerated and worried in "Jackpot/Take a Look," and swaggers
against the bass pulse on key in "No Gloves."
The fight theme for the bouts and Horn himself in
Gladiator consist of three-note phrases that serve ominously in
early confrontation scenes, expending out of the adversity motif late in
"I Owe" and "The Diner" with bright percussive shades. The idea receives
full ensemble confidence, even early in narrative, exploding in the
first minute of "Knock Out" in its final form. In this remarkable cue,
the fight theme raises the sound of Bill Conti from years before and
uses the chord progressions of the main theme for its great performance
late in the cue. The last minute of "Knock Out" is one of Goldsmith's
most inspiring career moments, sports genre or otherwise. The fight
theme extends from that cue to low keyboarding and synth drones in "He's
Mine," and an earlier incarnation bursts in "A Favor" with hyperactive
percussion, piano, and strings. The theme turns positive again in a
bright, propulsive preview of the film's climax in "My Baby," and it's
streamlined into its Conti form again for excitement in "Finish Him"
even though it is abbreviated for needed suspense at the end of that
cue. The fight theme takes a more dramatic, slower stance in "No
Gloves/Refund," culminating in a glorious, major-key victory at 3:03. By
this point, rambling background synth lines are more familiar to
Hoosiers, but the trios of notes remind heavily of
Explorers in this elongated, upbeat version. At 4:21, Goldsmith
slows the fight motif into fanfare pacing in another nod to his
techniques in
Hoosiers. With intelligent intermingling of these
themes and a strong narrative flow, Goldsmith's approach to
Gladiator is impressive even if his instrumentation and attitude
can sometimes grate on the nerves. The composer clearly gave this film
more consideration than it deserved and wrote his hardest sports score
to match the story's nastier elements. But the underlying smarts of his
approach can't be ignored, and while collectors may seek this score for
its main character theme, don't overlook the several surprisingly
entertaining fight sequences. Unlike the Fiedel score, the Goldsmith one
did receive an official release. This 2013 album from Intrada Records
supplies an economical 36 minutes from the recording in superb sound
quality, and the only obnoxious cue on the album, "Stop the Fight," is
brief. Although Goldsmith's electronic sax and synths can be tough in
places, it's no surprise that the limited album eventually sold out and
became a moderate collectible. This work is Goldsmith's most distinctive
amongst his immense production for 1992 movies, and it serves as a
reminder that he was indeed correct about the incompetence of some
directors.
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- Music as Written by Jerry Goldsmith for the Film: ****
- Music as Written by Brad Fiedel for the Film: **
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.27
(in 122 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
(in 150,403 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the Intrada Goldsmith album includes detailed
information about the score and film. It also indicates the following on
the back cover: "This album does not contain original score by Brad
Fiedel."
