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| Jones |
Kiss of Death: (Trevor Jones) The legacy of the
classic 1947 film noir thriller
Kiss of Death was tarnished in
1995, when 20th Century Fox attempted to remake the movie under the same
title. The crime story similar to both films is centered upon an unlucky
ex-con who is attempting to live a normal life with his family in New
York but eventually is drawn into a single crime job that fails, leading
him back to a long prison sentence. In the 1995 version of
Kiss of
Death, David Caruso's lead takes the fall for the botched job, and
after his wife (Helen Hunt) is killed, he is convinced by Samuel L.
Jackson's detective to help law enforcement capture the local crime boss
(Nicolas Cage) responsible in part for his ills. Allegiances are tested
and characters meet unpleasant fates in this noir-like atmosphere, one
that the filmmakers spent special attention in creating to pay tribute
to the original 1947 movie. Unfortunately, the film's pacing betrayed
its impressive ensemble cast, and with mediocre response came struggles
at the box office; Fox failed to recoup even half of the production's
budget from domestic returns. Director Barbet Schroeder made a career
out of pursuing questionable contemporary thrillers, only a couple of
them achieving notable success. For his entries in the 1990's, he
alternated between Trevor Jones and Howard Shore for the composing
duties, the former tackling the music for
Kiss of Death and
Desperate Measures three years later. Jones was already well
established as a mainstream name by this point, and lost in all the
hoopla about his massive and dynamic orchestral powerhouses is a side
career writing music for a wide range of suspense and crime thrillers.
Jones is the type of composer who seemingly excels in nearly every
genre, turning even the most hopeless cinematic situations (those in
which a movie is destined to receive an extremely bland, workmanlike
score) into opportunities to explore interesting and often accessible
ideas. In
Kiss of Death, his score would have to contend with a
substantial number of song placements, only about a third of which
appearing on the soundtrack album. These songs range wildly in culture
and tone, gravitating towards the rock genre but failing to congeal
outside of context. Jones, meanwhile, took his normal approach to such
assignments at the time, combining his usual London orchestral
recordings with distinct synthetic lines with skillful precision. While
he sometimes utilized voices in these types of assignments, he bypasses
that avenue for
Kiss of Death and instead references hard rock
elements to open and close the score.
One certainty that you can count on in nearly every
Jones score, regardless of genre, is a strong thematic core, and
Kiss
of Death is no exception. There is no soaring romanticism here,
however, his ideas gritty and somber. But he is extremely loyal to their
development, referencing them in practically every cue with melodramatic
effect. There are expected passages of striking dissonance for the
action sequences in
Kiss of Death, but even in the middle of
these portions, Jones frequently returns to tonal renditions of his
themes. When combined with his propulsive meters, the breakneck cues
have a touch of Jerry Goldsmith accessibility to them. The primary theme
is somewhat convoluted but is developed well enough to suffice. Its
ballsy performances by electric guitar in a purely rock-like environment
in the "Main Titles" and "End Credits" are not to be missed by
enthusiasts of vintage Hans Zimmer attitude (
Point of No Return
comes to mind), and listeners may find themselves disappointed that
Jones did not expand upon that instrumentation within the meat of the
score. Aiding in their appeal, these slapping percussion and ripping
guitar credits sequences do enjoy compelling accompaniment by stylishly
distorted keyboarding and the full orchestra, which lends satisfying
brass counterpoint to the theme in usual Jones fashion. Notable
performances of this theme include the excitement of "Illegal Convoy,"
which translates the theme to a purely orchestral atmosphere with
impressive results. Another extensive reference of this idea comes in
"Rosie and Corinna," which hands the melody off to the creepy
Synclavier, oddly oriental plucked guitar, and noir-like trumpet. The
synthetic keyboarding is the primary personality of the score's
secondary theme, that which represents the main character. In "Jimmy's
Dilemma" and "Jimmy's Resolve," Jones' cold but pretty identity raises
distinct memories of the saxophone theme over electronics in James
Horner's
Unlawful Entry. Other motifs in
Kiss of Death
include pairs of notes for the lead's daughter, hinted under the main
theme in "Rosie and Corinna" and developed clearly in "Corinna is
Kidnapped." The villain also receives a stomping and chopping orchestral
motif, culminating in the surprisingly organic "Junior's Arrest." There
are, outside of these highlights, passages within the 22 minutes of
non-rock original material from Jones that does drag, making the overall
score a mixed bag. But the brazen rock personality of the opening and
closing tracks in the score portion of the soundtrack album salvage the
whole. There isn't as much pretty material in this Jones suspense and
thriller entry as you hear in its siblings, but the main theme's various
guises in
Kiss of Death are well worth investigation by a Jones
enthusiast.
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| Bias Check: |
For Trevor Jones reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78
(in 18 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.44
(in 26,088 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The otherwise sparse insert includes a note about the composer's career.
