: (Jerry Goldsmith) Several
filmmakers learned just how difficult it can be to adapt Ray Bradbury
stories to the big screen, especially when the author wasn't consulted
about the screenplay. Attempting to wrangle several of Bradbury's 1951
short stories into one film is 1969's
, which
enjoyed all the intrigue and imagination of the original concepts but
butchered the execution so badly that Bradbury himself distanced himself
from it. In choosing three of the short stories in the envelope of "The
Illustrated Man," the production boosted the shock value of each entry
for cinematic reach. The core idea of the tale involves a heavily
tattooed man whose body art was executed by a witch and has the ability
to hypnotize people into witnessing the stories of each section of the
art. In this case,
wraps the backstory of the
tattooed man into three stories associated with the art, the beholder of
the spectacle eventually coming to realize that he can see his own
future in the one non-tattooed section of the man, and that outcome is
not so desirable in the short term. The three short stories are like
serial television episodes, the connective portions for the two men in
the early 20th Century a launching point for the exotic visions of the
far future. Ultimately, it's a witchcraft and monster movie, really, and
one that would have been better on the small screen over the course of
an entire season of episodes. The serial aspect of the film was a huge
attraction for composer Jerry Goldsmith, who had written for television
series and really enjoyed the practice of weaving common musical threads
into completely disparate musical styles along the journey. Such a
format allowed the composer immense creativity around central ideas that
led him to some of his more own experimental ends. In this case,
is also an ultimate "gotcha" score with the two
revelatory horror cues at the end reinforcing the unhappy culmination of
each sub-story as well. The common personality of all these portions of
the work is random atonal impressionism at its height for Goldsmith,
with rarely tonal relief along the way. Moments of madness utilize
modern (for the time) avant-garde techniques that are frightfully
unpleasant while the rest of the work is soft enough in its rendering
that it's not too unlistenable.
Make no mistake about it, however;
The Illustrated
Man is easily one of Goldsmith's most challenging listening
experiences in and out of context, an unsettling accompaniment to an
equally unnerving story. While potentially a chore for many collectors
of the composer's albums, there is significant intelligence at work, and
it starts with the extremely broad ensemble of instruments. An orchestra
of around 50 members at most without trumpets or tubas is totally
dominated by woodwinds in fascinating performance techniques. Those
woodwinds are sometimes Echoplexed for uncomfortable textures for the
tale's mystery tone. Strings can be reduced to quartet sizing
intentionally for style and location. Specialty contributors include
Goldsmith's common sitar of the era, probably electric, along with
celesta, electric bass flute, gut string guitar, vibraphone, tree bells,
antique cymbals, maracas, glass wind chimes, slide whistle, and
xylophone. A rough female vocal for the opening and closing cues
represents the witch of the tale, and light chimes also lend a magical
feel to the character. Post-production manipulation was accomplished
through edited tape overlays as done later with
The Mephisto
Waltz and others. The electronic cues for "The Veldt" sequence were
purely accomplished by Goldsmith himself, recorded in mono sound and
live in a continuous take. Some keyboarded motifs utilize the 12-tone
format from other cues in the score, but they are often free form
atonality and sound effects. A few of the effects are purely ridiculous,
the kind of noises that were consiered "futuristic" in the 1960's but
are badly dated now. Much of this experimentation in
The Illustrated
Man matured to even more challenging sounds in
Logan's Run,
and they are extremely tough to appreciate on album or in the film.
There are times when the composer tries so hard to be unique that the
end result distracts rather than supplements a film, and these moments
in
The Illustrated Man are among the more obnoxiously pretentious
despite Goldsmith's pride in them. He struggles to adapt his thematic
base into these electronic portions, unfortunately, despite the fact
that one theme otherwise connects every facet of the score in very
different guises. Aside from a destiny motif of overlapping string
phrases late in "The Illustrations" and "Frightened Willie," which
captures well the insanity of the tattoos' supernatural effects on
others, Goldsmith remains remarkably loyal to his primary
identity.
The one dominant theme for
The Illustrated Man
isn't actually all that memorable, but its common 12-tone phrasing
connects the score's wider structures. Anchored by a repeated, curious
three-note phrase with other notes altered around it, the theme may
imply through its expression of trios that it represents the three
sub-stories presented throughout the movie. Despite the difficult
renderings of the theme at times, it's actually fairly accessible in the
first third of the score. Heard immediately on solo voice at the outset
of "Main Title" and joined by woodwinds and harp, this idea shifts to
playful strings in between the various vocal interludes. This cue is the
only long exploration of the theme's secondary lines by the voice. A
sitar carefully explores the melody with the witch-appropriate string
whines in "The House," with ghostly echoes warning of danger in
distorted pitches at the cue's conclusion. Those high-pitch witch
strings tease against runs of other instruments in "The Illustrations"
and carry over to "Felicia," which achieves better warmth on woodwinds
in its second half. A lightly plucked version with woodwind pleasantries
in "The Rose" is as happy as theme gets. It's then cyclical on sitar and
horrific strings in "The Lion," doesn't figure significantly in the cues
of "The Veldt," and is reduced to quiet, unnerving electric guitar
plucking in "Skin Illustrations" before switching to sitar again. The
theme is sad on strings at the start of "The Rocket," adding evocative
woodwind layers, and it's badly interrupted by Echoplexed bass flute
effects for standard Goldsmith suspense. The theme barely guides the
structures in the cues of "The Long Rain" but is better utilized in the
pair of "The Last Night of the World" cues in eerie ambience. Some
moderately dramatic development awaits in the long "Almost a Wife" while
a recorder solo over harp opens "The Morning After," picking up after a
viola solo. The dissonant crescendo of horror that closes this cue is a
hard and cheap shift of tone. The theme opens "The House is Gone" in
mystery mode over the witch's light chimes before devolving into frantic
phrases of disorganization to close the cue. That action continues in
the chasing panic of "Frightened Willie," which concludes with a brief
reprise of the female voice over resolute strings for the brief coda at
the very end. Altogether, the pieces of
The Illustrated Man
struggle to really congeal as a score, but Goldsmith at least put
significant intelligence into each part. On the single album release, a
limited 2001 Film Score Monthly CD, the only truly necessary cue for a
Goldsmith collector is "Main Title." Otherwise, be prepared for a wildly
unsettling and disjointed work of focused madness.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.18
(in 150 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.21
(in 155,794 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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