 |
| Shaiman |
Patch Adams: (Marc Shaiman) Seen by some at the
time as a desperate attempt by Universal to turn around a dismal 1998 in
its final week,
Patch Adams was a film with high hopes of pulling
all the right emotional strings for audiences during the holidays. Made
by the directors of the two
Ace Ventura films and the remake of
The Nutty Professor, the movie once again asked Robin Williams to
reprise that fine line he walked in
Dead Poets Society and
several other films, allowing his free flowing comedy styles to
accentuate an otherwise straight, dramatic performance. The problem with
Patch Adams, though, is that it never succeeded in becoming
comfortable with either its comedy or drama. Williams plays a mental
patient who, at 40 and out of the ward, decides to become a medical
student with the intent of using laughter as a method of healing. He
obviously clashes with the establishment, and along the journey to its
surprisingly upbeat ending, the film offers moments of grandiose
speeches and decisions. Williams himself dissolves into some of his
typical comedy routines, but his performance is always tethered by the
film's almost fatal attempt to pull him back towards sappy and
predictable dramatic turns. The film failed critically, slammed for its
obvious attempts to manipulate audiences, and some of that endless
over-the-top sweetness is owed to Marc Shaiman's equally predictable
score. Like John Debney and David Newman, Shaiman often exhibited the
ability in the 1990's to write music both shamelessly optimistic and,
more importantly, technically anonymous. That anonymity, for all the
composers who make a living in the B-rate comedy and light drama genres,
is a characteristic that rarely inhibits the effectiveness of the music
in their films, but often causes listeners of the music on the album to
get that slightly uncomfortable feeling that he or she has heard the
music before. Shaiman, more than most others, gives you this feeling; no
matter how syrupy the product, you've tasted it before. And yet, it
works, and his score for
Patch Adams would be his third in four
years to take advantage of the expanded Oscar categories for music and
gain him an Academy Award nomination.
Strings, harp, chimes, and woodwinds are led by a piano
in most of the saccharine thematic development throughout the score.
It's the ultimate in feel-good scoring, with never a minor key strike to
interrupt the brief, but solid mood of the score. The primary theme is
introduced immediately and reprised endlessly throughout
Patch
Adams, allowing the score to retain a sense of moving harmony at all
times. No dull moment exists, with every cue pulling at your emotions
with a cymbal-rolling, chime-tapping crescendo of pure goodness. Short
bursts of jazzy style, as in the latter moments of "Ranch Reveal"
present a slur of the piano with a heightened acoustic guitar rhythm,
though these moments are so laced with the same positive spirit as the
rest of the score that you barely notice the shift in rhythm. The final
two cues on album present the most ambitious recordings, inserting brass
counterpoint and snare rhythms into the mix for a reprise of the style
heard in
The American President. Therein lies the problem with
Patch Adams for many score listeners; it's a highly derivative
score that creates problems when it uses quotations of style from other
Shaiman works (as well as those by other composers) and forces them into
the anonymous template heard in
Patch Adams. There are touches of
influence not only from Shaiman's own works, but from those of Randy
Newman, Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman, and Jerry Goldsmith. The jazzy
movements are reminders of Randy Newman's own ventures into the genre,
the piano work echo Silvestri's
Forrest Gump, the opening to "The
Ruling" is suspiciously similar to the end of Thomas Newman's
Little
Women, and there are thematic structures, mostly performed by
woodwinds, that conjure Goldsmith's
Love Field. Still, the
score's ability to twist all of those elements into a love-fest filled
to the brim with light percussion is pure Shaiman, and a solid recording
mix of the score adds to its easy lovability. The collection of songs
cheapens the product and, with the exception of the first two, aren't
that interesting. What remains are 21 minutes of score, and despite its
inherent flaws and short length, it's still a worthy used-bin find.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Music as Heard in Film: ****
- Music as Heard on CD: ***
- Overall: ***
| Bias Check: |
For Marc Shaiman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.33
(in 12 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.15
(in 19,613 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert notes contain lengthy credits, but no extra information about the score.
