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| Goldsmith |
Sleeping with the Enemy: (Jerry Goldsmith) Movies
about sexual obsession and formulaic stalkers have rarely started as
well as
Sleeping with the Enemy does in its opening scenes. In
her first major role after
Pretty Woman, a timid Julia Roberts is
emotionally and physically brutalized by her financier husband. He
flaunts her beauty at parties while abusing her as a servant at home,
and the early beachfront scenes in the film are filled with the promise
of a dramatic and thoughtful plot. But after the wife flees several
states away, tries to change her identity, and is confronted by the
terror of her husband coming after her, the film unfortunately morphs
into one of those cheap thrillers that hopes you actually believe the
villain is dead when he's got one last stab to go. Despite directing a
few cult favorites in previous years, Joseph Ruben missed the mark with
Sleeping with the Enemy, providing a stereotypical plot
reminiscent of
Fatal Attraction and filled to the brim with
outrageous fallacies of logic. After being shunned by critics, the movie
still made impressive returns due to its star power. One element of the
film that was arguably somewhat awkward in the finished product was
Jerry Goldsmith's mostly upbeat score. The legendary composer had
transformed his horror scores from the grand scope of the
Poltergeist and
The Omen franchises into electronically
assisted, less obvious variations for the smaller, more seedy horror
projects he would accept in the early 1990's. Surprisingly, despite the
film fitting this mould quite well,
Sleeping with the Enemy has
little to do with the prevailing attitudes of scores like
Malice
and
Basic Instinct that were composed at roughly the same time.
The narrative of the 1991 movie required its fair share of suspenseful
moments and thud-inducing horror twists, but it is, at its core, a
melodic work that seems to indicate that Goldsmith was feeding off of
the beauty and hopefulness of Roberts' character rather than the
literally dark shades of Patrick Bergin's anger as his character
conducts his creepy pursuit.
As a result of the constant pull of the innocence of
Roberts' character on Goldsmith's attention,
Sleeping with the
Enemy is a score with conflicting personalities. The dominant theme
that Goldsmith provides for the wife is as consistently charming as any
the composer had ever written. That is, for a drama or a children's
film. And he doesn't try to fool you with its personality. The lofty
woodwind solos over tingling electronics and high strings (and other
lightly pulsating woodwinds) are just as gorgeous and soothing in the
opening scenes as they are in "A Brave Girl" and at the finale of the
picture. The theme and its instrumentation are absolutely trademark
1990's Goldsmith in style, and the simplicity of the melody, along with
its repetitive use, will cause it to remain in your head long after the
score is over. Some listeners are likely to associate its instrumental
tone with the love theme from
Star Trek: Insurrection. Goldsmith
sometimes allows a slight variant of this woodwind theme to be carried
solely by string layers, as in the middle portions of "The Funeral," and
the dramatic progression of these performances will remind you of John
Barry's shamelessly consistent dramatic techniques of the early 1980's
(with similarities to
High Road to China, coincidentally). The
same cue also begins with a token nod to Bernard Herrmann's classic
Cape Fear score, one of the greatest stalking/thriller entries
ever in its effectiveness, including meandering, rising string lines,
the tolling of chimes, and eerie pulsations from muted brass (seemingly
French horns pushed to their highest ranges rather than the more
conventional trumpets). The chimes in particular are an interesting
device of cohesion in the score, mixed prominently and heard frequently
at the forefront of the mix in the suspense sequences as perhaps a
spooky reminder of broken marriage vows. Unlike Goldsmith's straight
horror scores, in which the drums and brass often punctuate horror jabs
with rowdy hits, the moments of horror in this circumstance are treated
to abrasively groaning electronic clanging instead, with "The Carnival"
and "Remember This" relying on uncomfortable textures from Goldsmith's
synthetic library that he would rarely utilize in his other
scores.
The challenging cues in
Sleeping with the Enemy
by no means represent Goldsmith's better half of suspense or horror
scoring; in fact, you'll likely forget the ten minutes of suspense
writing in the latter portions of the score, cues like "Home Alone"
offering nothing of interest for the listener. The only exception may be
"The Ring," which does stoke a fair amount of panic in its rhythmic
figures, dissonant layers, and harsh tones. The final cue returns to the
deliberate beauty of the opening sequence, but with an even faster and
thicker bed of electronics. One aspect of the theme that deserves
special mentioning is the composer's ability to write subtle differences
into its statements to solicit important changes in performance emphasis
from the ensemble. In cues like "Spring Cleaning" and "The Disguise,"
you can hear the theme literally become tired, a technique of pacing and
instrumentation that shouldn't go lost in the score's overall flow. On
the other hand, the husband's music is smartly static, synthetic, and
uniform, "Thanks Mom" and "The Towels" conveying the various thumping
sound effects for his character that really don't develop beyond their
necessary, primordial duties. On both the 1991 Sony and 2011 La-La Land
albums representing the score, you'll be able to pull at least fifteen
minutes of great main theme performances for your carefree enjoyment.
You'll have to put that material on a compilation completely exempt from
the horror genre, however, due to its counterintuitive insistence upon
unfettered beauty. For those long familiar with the 1991 album, the expanded
2011 product subtracts the Van Morrison song but includes a decent rounding
out of the narrative in its newly released material, some of it (like
the horn counterpoint to the theme in "No Problem") pleasantly
surprising. While the sound quality has always been crystal clear with
this score, the La-La Land product seems to exacerbate a tinny aspect to
the mix of the electronics and piano in a few cues ("A Brave Girl" for
the former, "Remember This" for the latter), yielding an occasionally
treble-heavy sound. Overall,
Sleeping with the Enemy will defy
the expectations of those approaching it blindly. It's a mixed bag in
the film due to its understated and synthetic handling of the suspense
portions, but the considerable airtime for the primary theme makes
either album a safe investment for Goldsmith collectors.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.26
(in 124 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 153,454 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert of the 1991 Sony/Columbia album includes no extra information
about the score or film. The 2011 La-La Land album's insert includes an extensive
analysis of both the score and film.
