Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,401
Written 6/12/01, Revised 6/26/22
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Buy it... on Varèse Sarabande's obscure release only if you
are an avid collector of Cliff Eidelman's works, for the adequately
attractive but ultimately average score is slightly overrated.
Avoid it... on that album if you seek Mark Adler's ethnically rich
replacement score of equal quality that was used in the film.
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| Eidelman |
Picture Bride: (Cliff Eidelman/Mark Adler) Writer
and director Kayo Hatta labored for five years researching the period in
Hawaiian history during which immigrant workers from East Asian
countries called upon women from their homelands to join them as brides
on the islands. The historically accurate depictions of 1995's
Picture Bride tell of the hardships that women faced when they
traveled to the island to marry men of whom they had only seen a
picture. Many became understandably disillusioned, and only through
their friendships with each other could the women emotionally survive.
From 1907 and 1924, more than 20,000 picture brides made that fateful
trip, producing a significant portion of the population of the islands
today. The film, despite some problems with the fictional narrative used
to convey the larger story (which likely would have been just as well
served in the form of a documentary), was critically praised and led to
awards consideration, but the project was one of dissatisfaction for
fans of composer Cliff Eidelman. One of the biggest disappointments in
the early career of Eidelman was the rejection of his recorded music for
Picture Bride, replaced in the final edit of the film by a
similar score by Mark Adler, who long remained best known in the film
score genre with 1988's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The
Adler score for the movie was commercially released on album at the same
time as Eidelman's unused effort, and perhaps the most interesting
aspect of the two works is that both of them would have worked just as
well in the context of the story. While some sources of information
indicate that the post-production scheduling conflicts of Picture
Bride caused Eidelman to be unable to finish the score, other
accounts of the collapse are less kind to his composition. In any case,
the film's location required a flavor of the Far East while also
catering to the ears of Western audiences. Both scores accomplished this
task with sensitivity, but Eidelman and Adler went about doing so from
different directions. The final Adler score is a much more ethnically
precise work in its sparsely percussive and woodwind instrumentation,
resulting in an arguably superior score in terms of authenticity within
its surroundings. Adler's themes, however, are not as compelling as
those by Eidelman, and they may seem inadequate to for the gravity of
the story to some listeners.
Eidelman incorporates a moderate amount of the same
instrumentation as Adler for
Picture Bride while swaying more
heavily towards the accessible, motific development that was destined to
appeal better to Western audiences. As much as most film score
collectors will side with Eidelman on this debate, the Adler score for
the film is also a strong and listenable work, and the ethnic elements
resulting from his interpretation of the story are commendable.
Eidelman's composition was handled by a decent, though spiritually
lacking performing group in Seattle, with one soloist responsible for
most of the ethnic performances on two instruments. The pan pipe and
bamboo flute offer some of the best moments in Eidelman's take on
Picture Bride, with the suite at the beginning of the album
containing the lengthiest of those highlighted performances. It is
interesting, however, to acknowledge that Eidelman's best use of unusual
percussion and woodwinds at the time was still in
Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country, which raises questions about why he did not
approach
Picture Bride with the same ethnic power and raw
emotion. Where Eidelman's score may be lacking in a sufficient dose of
ethnicity, this fault is well compensated for by the lush and often
intense themes that the composer incorporates into nearly every cue. A
similar motif to the opening of John Williams' main identity for
Born
on the Fourth of July appears, especially in "Tragic Loss," but the
themes are otherwise a refreshing burst of power compared to the
oft-subdued nature of Eidelman's other scores of the middle to late
1990's. Once again, it's both a short score and a short album pressed by
Varèse Sarabande, most likely due to the fact that Eidelman never
finished the work. The Adler album, which has been better available on
used markets through the years, is much longer. Without the suite of
themes presented at the start and Eidelman's typical piano solo at the
end, the rejected score runs barely over twenty minutes. That piano
plays a key role in the rejected
Picture Bride score, which is no
surprise given the fact that Eidelman works it into nearly every
dramatic score he did in that era, but it sounds slightly out of
character for this particular situation. Overall, with the exception of
the vibrant "Running for the Ocean" cue (which lights up the entire
score), even Eidelman collectors may find little excitement in
Picture Bride, an adequately attractive but ultimately average
work. Adler's replacement remains best for a more subtle and
intellectual appreciation.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Cliff Eidelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2
(in 8,876 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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