: (Jerry Goldsmith) From a practical,
logical standpoint, the entire premise of popular 1976 film
(and others like it) seems a bit silly, though commonly held
fears of the Antichrist certainly do present fantastic opportunities
when entering the realm of horror motion pictures. After all, why spend
half your screenplay establishing a strong villain when you can rely on
the one that organized religion has already utilized successfully to
scare the wits (and money) out of unenlightened people for centuries?
The exact circumstances of the birth of the Antichrist are the topic of
, inflicting terror on a affluent couple that has
unknowingly adopted the child of a jackal and who will, naturally, pay
the ultimate price through the supernatural powers of their demented
little boy. Although
was a restricted by a surprisingly
low production budget, it experienced a tremendous critical and popular
response, and subsequent box office grosses of over $60 million all but
guaranteed the two cinematic sequels to follow within five years. The
first two films of the series feature similar storylines, showing the
frustrating pursuit of Damien, the young Satan, by Italian
representatives of the Church while the innocent families housing the
little brat learn about his identity too late in their own emotional
turmoil to kill him with the necessary daggers. In
, the
formula was both fresh and excruciating, because not only was the
nobility of Gregory Peck on the line, but the child was so vulnerable as
a young boy compared to his older forms seen in the sequels, by which
time he was self-aware and could defend himself in supernatural ways
very easily. Several shocking and sudden displays of violence punctuated
these films, with impaling and beheading scenes as memorable as any in
the history of cinema. One of the unique challenges facing producer
Harvey Bernhard in his endeavors to bring these three films to the big
screen was an inherent lack of continuity. With Damien played by
different actors in every film and an extremely limited number of
characters carrying over through the narratives (oh, the joys of
death!), the films had no guaranteed cohesiveness in what audiences
would see and hear on screen. Even director Richard Donner would not
return to more than an executive role after his success with
, understandably. Enter composer
Jerry Goldsmith.
didn't
have the necessary funds available to hire Goldsmith, who was already at
the top of his game. After hearing the composer conduct one of his
famous concerts, however, Donner and Bernhard confirmed their interest
in him and specifically sought a special budgetary allowance from 20th
Century Fox for his hiring. That money came directly from the top, and
Goldsmith was launched on a course to his only Academy Award win. The
composer's music for the films of this trilogy doesn't reflect much of
anything else in his career. The oppressive tone of liturgical chanting
at its most menacing is a style that he would later touch upon briefly,
as in
, but not with the kind of
development he had utilized in these works. Goldsmith admitted that he
was a bit rusty in his skills at choral writing, though with some help
from his faithful orchestrator, Arthur Morton, he managed to produce one
of the most memorable choral-related scores in film music history. Never
one to shy away from the chance to revisit his material in a sequel
(even in franchises with very poor follow-ups), Goldsmith extended the
general sound of his music from
before taking the same tone of orchestral and choral colors
in a different direction for 1981's
. Despite a
lack of overarching musical continuity in the rigid structures of the
three compositions, Goldsmith did pepper all three with the same style
of relentless religious extroversion, applying similar choral techniques
in particular throughout the separate scores. The foundation work for
the franchise that was conceived and cemented in
includes its striking title chant, a piece of music so powerful that it
was actually nominated separately from the score for its own "Best Song"
Oscar. The chilling brutality of "Ave Satani," whispering and shouting
the Latin translations of "Hail Satan!" and "Jesus Christ!" (among other
things) over a muscular and deliberate orchestral churning in the bass
region, is effective in part because Goldsmith staggers the progression
of the theme at differing rates in the treble choral performances and
the underlying orchestral bass. This off-kilter merging of the two
halves of the theme produces a very unnerving effect without the need to
resort to obvious dissonance or outright pounding to achieve the same
ominous fright level in the audience. The same instrumental elements
eventually provide the plucky suspense of later cues as well.
The forceful chanting of "Ave Satani" would eventually be
revealed by the second score as the theme for Damien himself, a fact
that was not entirely clear in
The Omen because of the entire
film's bitter personality. One of the more ridiculous claims that you
hear from mainstream listeners is that this Goldsmith theme was inspired
by Carl Orff's famous "Carmina Burana." While the composer did indeed
look to inspiration from the past for the general tone of this theme,
Orff was not among the references. In fact, nothing in
The Omen
sounds anywhere near as similar to Orff's music as, for instance, the
climax to James Horner's
Glory or half a dozen others in the
modern age. If anything, Goldsmith's music for this franchise has a much
more curious source of consistent inspiration: John Barry. Not many
younger listeners recall that Barry went through a period in his career
during the late 1960's and early 1970's, after his spirited jazz and
before his lush romanticism, when he wrote extremely heavy and
occasionally brutal music for domineering orchestra and chorus. The
interesting connection that Goldsmith's three scores related to
The
Omen have to Barry starts with 1968's
The Lion in Winter. The
stomping movement of "Ave Satani," its bass string progressions, and
style of chanting that divides the men and women are all highly
reminiscent of the opening title theme of
The Lion in Winter, and
this similarity carries over significantly to
Damien: Omen II. By
the time Goldsmith mutates his theme for Damien into an entirely new,
expansive form for the character's maturation as a grown man, the
resulting thematic identity for
The Final Conflict is remarkably
reminiscent of Barry's 1970 score for
The Last Valley. Where
Goldsmith excels beyond these more simplistic works of Barry, of course,
is in the devious complexities and snarling nastiness of his take on the
same general idea. Any composer can simply pound out grandiose horror
music that retains a fair amount of harmony to appeal to our guilty
pleasure senses, but Goldsmith creates a difficult environment that
challenges the listener rather than placating expectations or the needs
of album presentations. That said, the concluding seconds in "The Dogs
Attack," using timpani and harmonious orchestra hits on key, remind of
John Williams in a more conventional sense. Without resorting to
dissonant noise, Goldsmith offers truly a mean-spirited work that is not
only unnerving in its explosions of a liturgical nature, but also in his
ground-breaking employment of whispering from the choir that defines
this particular score.
The instrumental colors of
The Omen are somewhat
predictable, including the use of chimes to represent church bells. The
extremely creative use of the choir is perhaps the most memorable aspect
of the music for
The Omen, including the agonizing slurring of
performance pitch to denote a sinking feeling, though more credit needs
to be given to Goldsmith for his method of developing his ideas
throughout the picture. The use of foreshadowing impending doom is
masterful in these regards, serving as a basis for the eerie moments of
uneasy calm a few years later in
Alien. For casual listeners
enjoying an album for
The Omen for the first time, there might be
some surprise in the discovery of one of Goldsmith's most charming
family themes in its ranks. This theme of hope and romance, representing
Peck's ambassador and his wife's love for each other (and their
affection for their son), which occupies almost as much air time as the
liturgical material for the boy, is obviously deceptive in its
application. But its existence in the early scenes of
The Omen
accentuate the difference between the usual, peaceful atmosphere of a
family and the horrors of this particular one. Performed on piano,
strings, harp, and woodwinds, this theme is as lovely as any that the
composer wrote, occupying "On This Night" and "The New Ambassador" and
extending to a pretty performances of relief on high strings in the
latter half of "Where is He?" Hearing Goldsmith break this theme down
through the use of slightly atonal hindrance is a treat, starting with
the opening of "Safari Park" and extending through "The Bed." By "Don't
Let Him" and "A Sad Message," the theme has mutated into one of tired
and scared desperation, its primary melodic line never again accompanied
by complimentary, harmonious bass. It's possible, if not likely, that
listeners weary of being beaten into submission by the "Ave Satani"
theme in
The Omen will find solace in this family theme's six or
so minutes of purely major-key optimism. While Goldsmith originally
wrote a massive incarnation of the "Ave Satani" chant for the final
scene of the film, as the ambassador takes Damien into the church to
execute him, this cue was replaced with a tortured variation on the
family theme for the final cut. Unfortunately, this piece of music was
lost in its master form and does not exist on album. The theme is not
revisited in the sequels, confirming that it was attached solely to the
Antichrist's adopting parents and their false perception of innocence in
the boy. The original score's conversational scenes conveniently
accessed this theme in various layers of discord, and while the first
sequel featured its own brief family theme, that one never receives the
same kind of smart development heard here.
Despite the effective handling of the family theme,
listeners inevitably grasped onto the "Ave Satani" variations throughout
The Omen and attributed the score's success to those portions.
For each of the killing scenes, Goldsmith very effectively increases the
intensity of this chant until the chorus reaches a perverse climax. Even
after several of these explosions of energy,
The Omen fails to
cease impressing. In fact, by "The Alter," the score's momentous power
and inevitable march to doom is difficult to pull away from, despite the
difficulty such sequences present in terms of accessibility. Without a
doubt,
The Omen is not a soothing experience on album, and
archival sound quality on all its album releases will be disappointing
for some listeners. So disturbing is the demise of the family theme and
the brutality of the "Ave Satani" variations that
The Omen is
easy to classify as a classic composition worthy of study but only
occasional appreciation on album. Its ultimate attitude is so nasty that
listeners may be attracted to the more streamlined version of the same
ideas in
Damien: Omen II or the somewhat operatic tone of
The
Final Conflict. Still, in its purpose and execution,
The Omen
remains the superior of the three. The score has experienced a limited
but ultimately rewarding life on album. Goldsmith was asked to prepare a
song version of his family theme specifically for the LP record, and
this song, performed by his wife, is as lovely as it is out of place.
It's the kind of redeeming Goldsmith song that belongs in
The Secret
of N.I.M.H., not
The Omen. Still, it is a worthy piece when
pulled aside along with the two early cues of family bliss. The LP and
Varèse Sarabande's identical 1990 CD both included it in the
middle of the jumbled presentation of 34 minutes of music from the
score. In 2001, the same label offered expanded, remastered editions of
all three scores, including a chronological arrangement of
The
Omen that added fifteen minutes of material. The first score does
still sound a bit archival in its range, especially compared to its
successors, but since it is a work to intellectually appreciate rather
than casually play for a good time (unless you're one of those sick
exceptions), that lack of expansive soundscape isn't a major blow to
even the 2001 album. A 2005 repackaging of all three "Deluxe Editions"
together for less than $30 made them very affordable until the set went
out of print and became a pricey collectible. In 2016, Varèse
offered a fuller
The Omen presentation, adding six relatively
short cues (though "Mother's Death" is a key sequence) and a resounding
2009 Diego Navarro-conducted re-recording of an 11-minute suite from the
score. Overall,
The Omen is a necessary inclusion in any
Goldsmith collection, but a highly disturbing one at that.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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