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| Goldsmith |
The Shadow: (Jerry Goldsmith) Who knows what guilty
pleasures lurk in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows... And apparently
director Russell Mulcahy thought he knew as well. Unfortunately, the
1994 adaptation of comic book character Lamont Cranston, long in
development and once under the guidance of Robert Zemeckis, was a
popular failure despite its many redeeming qualities when compared to
other ridiculous comic inspirations on the big screen in the 1990's. The
lavish production suffered from a somewhat incoherent plot, Cranston
mentored by a Tibetan mystic during the "nomad period" of his life and
thus given the ability to cloud men's minds and exercise superhero
activities back in New York City. Meanwhile, sophisticated Mongolian
villain Shiwan Khan uses the same training to stage a takeover of the
city using mass hypnosis and an atomic bomb. A fantastic cast of B-rate
stars litters
The Shadow, with several vintage comedians placed
in somewhat serious cameo roles to maintain levity. Likable performances
by John Lone, Peter Boyle, Jonathan Winters, Ian McKellen, Tim Curry,
and Penelope Ann Miller balance Alec Baldwin's efforts to be both
mysterious and heroic in the lead, a role built primarily around the
actor's distinctive voice. The production's loyalty to the 1930's
setting and the legend of the original Orson Welles radio show from that
era, not to mention some outstanding art direction and sound effects
editing, have allowed
The Shadow a limited cult following.
Contributing to its mystique is a memorable and surprisingly
accomplished score by Jerry Goldsmith that went largely unnoticed at the
time due to the fact that the film competed against
The Lion King
in cinemas. In fact, if there were ever to be the need to identify the
ultimate, relatively obscure "score of guilty pleasure," then
Goldsmith's
The Shadow could very well be it. The quirky
personality of both the film and score, led by the movie's unstated
charge to parody the very superhero genre it belonged to, caused the
pair to be an undeniable romp for enthusiasts of comic book dramatics.
Aided by the music, the film's highlight is its remarkable layers of
sound, whooshing through a Gotham-like setting with a classical yet
electronically modern touch. It's hard to imagine that such a dominant
synthetic edge to Goldsmith's music could function so well in the
noir-like streets of the 1930's, but the composer infuses his style very
well with both the film's lighter plot elements and the impressive sound
effects.
Overblown and silly at times, Goldsmith mocks everything
from
Batman to
Lawrence of Arabia in
The Shadow,
exercising a youthful exuberance not always heard in the composer's
darker scores. Just like those who created the wacky story and visuals
for the film, you get the sense that Goldsmith had more fun scoring
The Shadow than he did for the typical romances and children's
films he had otherwise been engaged with at the time. That sheer
enthusiasm can be heard in the faster than usual tempo of electronic
rhythms that Goldsmith employs throughout the score, as well as the
complexity with which he develops his countless themes and motifs. There
is no doubt that
The Shadow did not deserve the complicated
layers of motifs that Goldsmith afforded it, such intelligence defied by
the substandard screenplay, but his effort for the genre is easy to
appreciate when heard outside of context. The title theme for the film,
originally hoped by the studio to be the identity for an entire
franchise to follow, is as simplistic and heroic as you can get while
also preserving the basic concept of duality that runs through the
entire score. The duality, of course, represents the masked and unmasked
personalities of the Baldwin's mysterious Cranston (whose face literally
transfigures depending upon the character's mood), and the idea
manifests itself in the music through the constant shifts between major
and minor keys, sometimes as frequently as every other measure of music.
It was a tactic that Danny Elfman so masterfully manipulated for his
classic
Batman score and Goldsmith's theme for
The Shadow
is largely an exaggerated and extended brass version of the same basic
minor/major progression. Since the occasionally nebulous time frame of
the film (once again, a la
Batman) displays numerous elements of
a more innocent decade long past, the noble and bold brass theme is a
perfect statement of campy triumph during the scenes of comic book
heroism. Goldsmith's loyalty to the idea carries it into innumerous
softer incarnations throughout the score, often introduced by a
distinctive rhythmic figure that becomes its own motif much like the
bass string rhythms prior to John Williams'
Superman theme serve
their own anticipatory purpose. This bouncing rhythmic motif often
exists before, under, and after statements of the main theme, and even
it can be boiled down to a descending major third progression that
becomes a calling card of its own. The rhythm turns mysterious when it
is lightly plucked by harp or delicately performed by others in
conversational scenes.
The sweeping string interlude during the primary theme's
major performances in
The Shadow is eventually revealed to be a
lovely romance motif that only receives true recognition in a handful of
sequences. Given that the relationship between Cranston and Margo Lane
isn't particularly well developed in the film, the lack of fuller
expressions of this idea in more cues is perhaps understandable, though
the swelling finale performance in "Frontal Lobotomy" is outstanding.
Goldsmith's applications of the theme are most frequently fragmented and
barely audible, tenderly expressed by solo woodwinds or piano in less
active cues. He manages to create a constant sonic battle between hero
and villain within the instrumentation and structures of the score, and
while the noble title theme's obvious placements in the movie are
certainly crowd pleasers, equally powerful are the Mongolian-styled
outbursts for Khan. For this character's larger than life personality,
Goldsmith offers the bloated presence of Taiko drums, as well as his
The Wind and the Lion-inspired array of metallic and wooden
percussion, to rock the soundscape with equal force. No better an
alternating, orchestral battle of wills is conveyed than that between
the grand, brass theme and raw, percussive pounding at the end of "Chest
Pains." The actual woodwind theme over these sequences for Khan is
completely overshadowed by its underlying rhythm, suggested in several
places throughout the score (and introduced in particular in "Don't Open
It!") but dominated by the villain's more forceful musical elements. The
"Frontal Lobotomy" finale showcases the Mongolian percussion and theme
in, ironically, its fullest form, followed by the heroic brass title
theme and string-dominated romance interlude all in succession, yielding
a fantastic conclusion to the score and film. Aside from these three
major themes (four, if you include the rhythm under the main theme to be
a separate entity), Goldsmith unleashes a number of secondary motifs,
all of which explored several times in the work. The Monolith Hotel and
the concept of brainwashing receive a creepy, brass-slurring identity
that is first heard after massive gong early in "The Clouded Mind" but
shines later in that cue, throughout "The Hotel," and at the end of
"Fight Like a Man." A separate motif for chasing and movement in "The
Sanctum," "A Mission," and "Get Dr. Lane" often launches into the main
theme. A dedicated fight motif highlighted at the start of "The Mirrors"
is pure Goldsmith action at its best, and when slowed down for high
drama, as in "The Call" and the conclusion of "What I Know," which
accompanies the film's nightmare sequence, the tumultuous personality of
Poltergeist is resurrected.
Goldsmith's instrumentation is key to defining several of
the uniquely individual motifs that represent technology (for the atomic
bomb and the lead character's sanctum organization) and hypnosis (for
both the prime characters and mystic at the start of the film) in the
plot. To balance the traditional comic book heroism and the bizarre
mental and futuristic mechanisms within the film, Goldsmith makes fine
use of his usual array of synthesizers and library of sound effects. The
resulting combination of organic and synthetic in
The Shadow
stands among the best of the composer's career, not as obvious as in
works like
Legend and
Hoosiers, but in purely
complimentary bliss that allows the electronics to effectively aid both
major facets of the score's personality. Two specific applications of
the synthetic pitch-altering effects are frequently referenced in the
score, and both are integral to its success. Heard at the very start of
the film (in "The Poppy Fields") is the first of these two mini-motifs,
a rising tone in the treble that denotes mystery and the psychological
elements of the plot. It is the opposite of the all-too-common "sinking
feeling" effect that dominated film scores in the 2000's, a lightly
ascending treble tone rather than a deeply descending bass one. While it
may seem indiscriminately applied at times, Goldsmith actually starts
its rise on a specific harmonic note and often matches the orchestral
material to its pitch later in the effect. The other major electronic
motif utilized throughout the score is a descending but still
treble-rooted swooshing that resembles both a cymbal roll and the
passing tires of a vehicle on a wet street, again accentuating the noir
style of the film. Goldsmith provides this effect as an extended
substitute for traditional cymbal crescendos, such as the introduction
of the title theme in "The Poppy Fields." Additional synthetic effects
include deep bass thumping for the descending major third pairs under
the main theme's rhythmic counterpart, highlighted in "I'll Be There"
and sometimes suggested alone to solely represent a hint of the Shadow.
The composer's more common, tingling, rambling electronic tones
accentuate that main rhythmic figure. Less obvious is the soft
keyboarding that Goldsmith provides for the love theme at the start of
"Secrets" and elsewhere. On the whole, "I'll Be There" is a good place
to study the various electronic elements, and you'll also encounter some
of the score's only snare usage there as well (at about 1:30). For
enthusiasts of the flying theme from
Forever Young, Goldsmith
reprises the electronic and woodwind rhythms from that cue (and even
hints of the theme on brass above) for roughly half a minute at 2:45
into "The Tank."
The enhanced role for electronics in
The Shadow
is made all the more impressive by the composer's employment of the
traditional orchestral players. In some cases, as in the use of muted
trumpets to accentuate the noir atmosphere, the choices are intuitive.
But in some cues, it's hard not to get the feeling that Goldsmith and
his orchestrators did everything they could to tinker with the
performance aspect of each orchestral element without causing them to
become dysfunctional. The trombones, for instance, perform some striking
synth-like slurs in "The Hotel" to cleverly reflect the brainwashing
concept, a technique that he would rarely touch upon again in his
career. In fact, so successful was Goldsmith in this task that no
subsequent performance of
The Shadow by another body of musicians
has ever been able to capture the same stylish personality. Even with
all of the strange instrumentation and eclectic performances, though,
the composer manages to maintain an airtight sense of continuity that
makes the score distinctive even within a long career during which he
utilized many of the same basic ingredients. Overall, you have to
remember that
The Shadow has a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek
attitude, both on screen and in its music. But Goldsmith's score remains
tremendously entertaining in its highlights and easy to appreciate for
its unnecessary complexities when heard in its fullest length. At 85
minutes,
The Shadow represents one of Goldsmith's longest scores
of the era, and this doesn't include a major 5-minute cue (the final
battle in "The Mirrors") that the composer re-wrote later in the
production process to match the completely rearranged scene. There is
very little filler material ("No Shadow" and "The Jumper" among the few
rather uninteresting cues) in the 90 minutes of the complete score, the
plethora of motifs and instrumental creativity keeping the work
surprisingly fresh from start to finish. The original 1994 commercial
album from Arista for
The Shadow only offered thirty minutes of
the score, but it features most of the essential pieces that you will
hate to love and your neighbors will love to hate. There is enough
action of significant, stereo-swooshing volume on this album, whether it
be noble, pounding, or just downright strange, to cause your neighbors
to become irate, even more so than something as masculine as the lion
sequences in
The Ghost and the Darkness. Included for good
measure on this album were two dialogue clips, the first of which, with
the slogan of the legend performed by Baldwin in a distorted mix, of
perfect length and substance to whip on telephone solicitors at the
highest possible volume. The other features Orson Welles' vintage
narration.
Not worthy of much discussion is the Taylor Dayne song
"Original Sin" meant for the end credits of
The Shadow. While
misplaced in terms of style and personality (and of no relation
technically to Goldsmith's score), it does at least utilize lyrics
relevant to the film and has a sense of pizzazz that lends it well to
appreciation in another context. The Arista album presented two mixes of
this song and compounds its presentation problems by separating
Goldsmith's opening cue from the rest of the score with an otherwise
reasonable vintage jazz song performed by Sinoa. The product disappeared
from the market quickly (within a year after its release) and has since
fallen badly out of print. Never to be daunted, however, are those
illustrious Goldsmith fans. An expanded bootleg album with only
Goldsmith's score appeared many years later, though the various versions
of the presentation typically offered only roughly an additional 14
minutes of material. Although the early packaging of this bootleg
suggested that it was a Universal Music-produced promotional item, don't
be fooled by its illegal status from birth. It's important to recognize,
though, that these bootlegs still lacked half of Goldsmith's total
recordings for the film and were often unsatisfactory in their sound
quality. While including the important nightmare sequence cue, they
still lacked the full "The Mirrors" and other vital music. At least
twelve short cues comprise the extra material, and many of them repeat
short sequences (0:15 or less in length) from the larger, better
structured tracks heard on the Arista album. Realistically, the expanded
bootleg was advisable only for seriously devoted fans of this score, and
Intrada Records finally made its existence moot in 2012 with a stunning
2-CD release of the full 90 minutes of sessions work, complimented by
two source pieces by Dennis Dreith and the original Arista presentation.
With outstanding, remastered sound quality, this set offers a wealth of
additional material that will tickle fans of this score, almost all of
which presenting worthy extensions of Goldsmith's many ideas for the
film. The title theme's renditions in "I'll Be There" and "Nice Tie" are
not to be missed, nor are the Khan and hypnosis extensions in "The
Clouded Mind" and "Don't Open It!" and the several love theme renditions
finally exposed in three or four cues. The highlight of this product is
the alternate version of "The Mirrors," which features some of the
composer's best career action material. While there have been several
outstanding expanded re-releases in 2012 (
Hook and
Star Trek:
The Motion Picture among them), this set of
The Shadow
competes favorably with those products. It represents Goldsmith
adventure and fantasy at its most affable, and despite the film's
questionable quality, it will be impossible to put this fantastic album
too far away.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: *****
- Music as Heard on the 1994 Arista and 2002 Bootleg Albums: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2012 Intrada Set: *****
- Overall: *****
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 115 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.32
(in 146,964 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The inserts on the Arista album and initial bootlegs contain
extensive credits but no extra information about the score or film.
That of the 2012 Intrada album features notes about both.
