: (Jerry Goldsmith) Originally set to be an
ABC television production, the potential of Irving Wallace's story of
pushed the release to Paramount for a theatrical debut
instead. With input from Rod Serling, the 1972 tale postulates about the
political chaos that would erupt if an African-American were to suddenly
become the United States President. (Wait, really? Yes, in 1972, nobody
could have conceived of either black or orange men in the White House.)
In this scenario, the President and Speaker of the House are killed
(unfortunately off-screen) in a building collapse overseas, and a
cranky, terminally ill Vice President refuses to take command of the
country. Hence ascends the fourth in line, the Senate president pro
temp, a respected, moderate senator and statesman who happens to be
black. The script shows the immediate and persistent resistance to the
new President Dilman, with many in his own white cabinet members
scheming with a racist senator to either control the man or force him
out of office. The appeal of the movie is the combination of the choice
dialogue and James Earl Jones' restrained but powerful performance in
the lead role. The position of music in the movie is highly limited,
perhaps as a result of the production's origins as a lesser television
project. But Jerry Goldsmith tackled television films with the same
intelligence as those for the big screen, so it's not surprising that
his music for
is substantially large at its most
prominent moments. The biggest complaint listeners will have about this
score and film is the relatively poor spotting of the music in the
picture. Only roughly 16 minutes of score made it into the movie,
dominating a few scenes in broader spaces with resounding force but
diminishing into the background or nothingness for most of the
conversational scenes. There are times when Jones performs fantastic
lines from the script and a musical reference at that moment could have
reinforced the importance of the moment. But silence in the background
is often preferred, marking a missed opportunity for both compelling
drama and suspense from the music.
The short score is dominated by brass and percussion,
with no violins employed. (Violas are the highest in that section.) A
vibraphone and flutes are used to create a synthetic-sounding dissonance
at the darkest moments. The tone of the major thematic portions is a
little too over-the-top, but every moment of the work is steeped in the
composer's typical tonalities and meters. Goldsmith's almost omnipresent
main theme for
The Man exists in two different personas, the
first as an ultra-patriotic fanfare of almost Roman vista size while the
second explores a softer, blues-inspired version of similar three-note
progressions for the main character's personal moments. The six-note
phrases for the importance of the office are somewhat challenging and
not memorable, though the last phrase ends in heroic form. This idea is
heard immediately on brass over timpani in "Douglass Dilman (Main
Titles)," reduced in that cue to just the timpani alongside snare by the
end. It opens "They Want a President" with the slightly bluesy answer to
its main phrase, and the character version of the theme really adopts
the ethnic swing to its halting movements on woodwinds, closing on
trumpet in a hanging refrain. Fragmented on flute at the outset of "The
Lincoln Memorial," the main theme follows different lines thereafter;
this secondary brass fanfare material previews the composer's 1990's
patriotism mode while also appropriately hinting at the forthcoming
Logan's Run. The idea stews in "The Oval Office" before its
six-note formation guides the ultra-important middle of the cue, the
bluesy secondary phrasing returning in the latter half and yielding a
new melody. The bluesy form extends on woodwinds at the start of "An
Invisible Man" while the primary variant provides some stark
contemplation at the outset of "Mrs. Blore" and barely guides the latter
portions of the action in "Let Him Loose." This main, six-note version
extends immediately out of the source recording of "Hail to the Chief
and End Credits," returning the idea to its performance from "Douglass
Dilman (Main Titles)" and featuring a more upbeat ending that previews
the resolutions of
Capricorn One and
The Swarm.
Among the few secondary motifs in
The Man is a
gravity motif built from a note repeated four times on discordant brass
with aggressive brass rhythm underneath, as heard late in "The Lincoln
Memorial" and opening "The Oval Office." Also unique in the score is an
action motif of propulsive enthusiasm in "Let Him Loose," with good
Goldsmith layering of lines and unusual meter changes in a cue extended
for better listening on the album. Dissonant strings during the first
half of "Fishing" offer the most suspense, followed by a spritely
character motif. The dramatic string lament in "Will They Make It?" is
then countered by a challenging action burst for brass and percussion in
"Protests." None of these moments of action lasts long enough to really
appreciate, though, and the same can be said of the sparse moments of
the bluesy character variation of the theme for the president. Overall,
the score is too short in and out of the movie, Goldsmith exploring
challenging but appropriate musical avenues that leave you wanting far
more development. The work, both on paper and in its original recording,
were lost during the 1970's and will presumably never be released, but
Intrada Records commissioned a crowdfunded reconstruction of this score
and a subsequent re-recording made in October 2021. Goldsmith expert
Leigh Phillips once again performed an excellent reconstruction by ear
(he has undertaken this process several times with Goldsmith scores,
each with impressive results), which was tough given that some of the
score's action material fell under a significant amount of vocal ruckus
on screen. Performed flawlessly by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
and in perfect sound quality, the 16 minutes of music from
The
Man was appended to the same group's concurrent performance of
Goldsmith's reasonable but not really flashy 1957 Western score for
Black Patch, which remains the main attraction on the 2022
combination product. Anyone seeking that album will likely be wanting
the longer Western, and
The Man is a decent but underwhelming
inclusion for the same price. The 1972 score could have and should have
been so much more impactful when not overplaying its power in the
story's exterior scenes, however, instead content to being a footnote
along with the film itself.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.22
(in 141 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.24
(in 154,884 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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