 |
| Gordon |
On the Beach: (Christopher Gordon) A largely
unheralded remake of the 1959 version of
On the Beach staring
Gregory Peck, this 2000 adaptation was produced in two parts for airing
on the Showtime cable channel. Because of its limited viewership, and
despite its considerable quality, the Russell Mulcahy update received
very little notice. While both the 1959 and 2000 films are based upon
the same Nevil Shute novel of 1957, the 2000 revision takes inspiration
mostly from the liberties taken with the plot in the 1959 adaptation,
expanding the romantic love triangle of the story into the central
focus. More interesting is the shifting of the source of the nuclear war
to a conflict between the United States and China, with the Americans
receiving the blunt of the blame. That war has caused a cloud of nuclear
fallout that is slowly enveloping the world and killing its inhabitants.
With Australia the last continent still alive, a lone American submarine
launches from Melbourne to make one last effort to search for signs of
life in the States. What they find in Alaska and California is death,
and they ultimately are forced to the deal with decisions about how to
spend the remaining weeks of their lives. The concentration on the
romances in the 2000 film lend it a more personal touch, whereas the
concept of annihilation in 1959 (along with an immensely accomplished
cast) was alone compelling enough float the picture. Most of the crew
for television remake of
On the Beach was, naturally, Australian,
and native composer Christopher Gordon was assigned the music for the
film. To the film music community, his career has largely been tied to
two things: television and the open seas. Prior to this project, he had
made a splash with the 1998 Hallmark television production of
Moby
Dick, for which he had written a vibrant and engaging score with a
soaring title theme. His work for
On the Beach is of equal
quality, but is obviously rooted far more deeply in tragedy and is thus
a weightier listening experience. Despite the score's quality, it went
down as one of the most unsuccessful album releases in the history of
the Varèse Sarabande label, struggling to sell just a few hundred
units. This poor showing on record store shelves was likely due to the
production's anonymity on Showtime rather than any problem inherent with
Gordon's music.
Above all else, Gordon's interpretation of the
circumstances of
On the Beach is grounded in an extremely melodic
mindset. He writes two primary themes, one of heroism for the submarine
and a standard romance theme for the character interactions. But his
score extends its motifs to several other concepts, including an idea
for the tragedy of impending death, one for mournful remembrance of the
world that once was, as well as a distinctly robust war-related theme in
the opening cue to accompany the film's quick summary of how the nuclear
holocaust was initiated. The combination of the war theme and the
overarching melody for the heroic attempts of the American crew to find
hope make "The World at War" a powerhouse of dissonant magnificence;
Gordon takes grand ensemble majesty and twists its into a distinctly
unpleasant result until the heroic theme explodes in the final minute of
the cue. The theme of impending doom is explored on solo strings in the
"Melbourne" suite on album, returning to inspire several sequences in
the final "The Burial Cloud" suite. The heroic theme for the submarine
is heard in harmonic beauty in the first two cues of the "Message from
the North" suite, including an elongated mid-range brass performance in
"Voyage North." The war theme is given another rendition for the special
effects-laden scene of destruction in San Francisco (heard during "Alien
Landscape"). The two darker themes of doom and remembrance are strongly
restated in lengthy string performances of considerable anguish in the
final suite, which is punctuated by two perhaps overly melodramatic
choral pieces, first for ensemble and then for boy soprano. The most
enjoyable suite on album is ironically "On the Beach," the most flighty
and positive romantic representation. Both "Moira and Towers Meet" and
"The Great Ocean Road" are flourishing and exuberant rhythmic
expressions of the love theme that defy the serious tone of the rest of
the score. Overall, Gordon's version of
On the Beach is a
superior work, and it definitely deserved a better showing on the album
sales charts. But its downside exists in its necessary sense of gravity;
there's only so much doom and gloom you can tolerate before returning to
the attractive cues in the "On the Beach" suite. It's an extremely
effective score that remains among Gordon's best, but be prepared for
its inevitable despair.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert contains a short about the score from the director.
