: (John Barry) It's unusual for
period romance films to bomb immediately upon reaching the theatres and
then develop a cult following in subsequent decades; instead, they
usually flourish in their initial limelight and fizzle as they melt into
the pool of similar cinematic entries. Universal's disastrous
left audiences bored to death in 1980, moving
deliberately and with a level of self-importance rarely able to carry a
film to success. Soundly rebuked by critics for its gaping plot holes
and insufferably slow pace, Jeannot Szwarc's oddly fashioned romance
eventually gained a significant cult following, producing even an
organization devoted to the concept. That interest was likely related to
a combination of the bizarre premise of
and the
popularity of its two leads. Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour are the
love interests in an impossible fallacy of logic that is never even
remotely explained in the plot, living a love affair through time travel
that never really establishes itself as reality or hallucination.
Reeve's contemporary Chicago playwright becomes dissatisfied with his
life despite his success, visiting a countryside hotel resort and
falling in love with a local 1910's actress in a photograph on the walls
of that building. After performing exhaustive research, the man learns
that the actress, as an unrecognizable old woman, actually gave him a
watch and a message to "come back to her" at a Chicago performance on
the night she died. The playwright's obsession with Seymour's younger
self leads him to a pseudoscientific psychology professor (i.e. a
quack!) who convinces him that he can hypnotize himself back to 1912.
Upon doing this, the young pair enjoy the pleasures of the flesh while
being harassed by the actress' stage manager, the always imposing
Christopher Plummer. Their encounters are brief, and after returning to
the present, the film (which dissatisfyingly never drops the bombshell
in the past that the playwright is from the future) never explains if
any of this time travel actually happened or was just a figment of the
imagination.
Such monumental absence of logic in the story of
Somewhere in Time is bad enough, but the incredibly ponderous
interactions between the leads, as well as extended periods of hopeful
contemplation, are exacerbated by the choice of music for the film. In
retrospect, the employment of composer John Barry makes perfect sense
given the weight the filmmakers wanted to give the film, though the use
of Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" as a
secondary love theme for the actual scenes of Reeve and Seymour together
is comparatively puzzling. Both are utilized to a fault in
Somewhere
in Time, drawing repeated scorn from critics tired of hearing what
sounds like the same two pieces of music repeated over and over in the
film. In the case of the Rachmaninoff piece, there is really no good
excuse for its insertions; it only bloats the ego of the film, dragging
it towards parody territory, and it is similar enough in style to
Barry's likewise pretty and lofty romance material to make one wonder
why Barry couldn't have written an original, secondary theme specific to
the purpose of the easily recognizable Rhapsody. As it is, Barry's score
will be in peril of greeting you as largely a monothematic bore if
you're not entranced by his usual, lush 1980's romance sound. Heavy on
strings, deliberate in tempo, and utilizing harmony that extends to
melodramatic cello and bass lines under aloof violins, the primary theme
of
Somewhere in Time is a precursor to both
Raise the
Titanic and
Out of Africa, together with the latter score
becoming popular apart from the film. Secondary lines of melody are
sometimes explored by Barry, but he always manages to come back to his
title theme in every major cue. Harps smooth out the shifting of chords.
Broad strokes of brass are applied as usual by Barry to lend additional
gravity to the strings, though a few wayward horns seem to miss the
proper pitch at times (especially in "A Day Together"), negating their
appeal. Performances by viola in "Is He the One" are the only attempt to
address the stereotypical sound of the period.
Despite the inherent problems some will have with this
format, there are several positives. First, the dramatic tone is a
perfect fit for the film, regardless of the subsequent pitfalls they
share. Secondly, although the score is violin-centered, Barry does
rotate between other instruments in the carrying of the theme, including
a tender flute in "Return to the Present" and lovely piano in "Theme
From 'Somewhere in Time'." Thirdly, Barry managed to largely avoid his
habit of repeating each section of a theme twice; by comparison to other
famous Barry themes that dwell too heavily on each phrase of its run,
the title identity in
Somewhere in Time at least flows far more
smoothly. The only cue on the short, roughly 30-minute album
presentation of Barry's music that convincingly separates itself from
the title theme and its various interludes is "The Journey Back in
Time," which quietly churns with the same suspense as the middle
portions of
Raise the Titanic and features an eerie, minor-key
series of phrases at about 3:20 into the cue. Not even a hint of this
sense of trepidation is heard for the playwright's return journey.
Overall,
Somewhere in Time is truly a score to define your
affinity or tolerance of Barry's trademark 1980's romance sound. There
is no middle ground here, which is probably why so many reviewers found
the work obnoxious in context. The score has become a staple of most
Barry collections despite its brevity on album, a glorious stereo
offering that sounds infinitely superior to the mono mix that plagued
the music in the finished film. An emphasis on the soloists at the front
of the ensemble is well handled, especially the piano. A fantastic
15-minute suite from
Somewhere in Time awaits rearrangement by
any casual Barry enthusiast, though with the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody
reflecting such a similar tone, don't be surprised if you discover the
legions of Barry apologists placing the entirety of the album on their
stereos' repeat function for lengthy periods of time. This was, after
all, Barry in his prime, and if only the film hadn't been such a dud,
the score could have been awarded along with his earlier and later
classics.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.85
(in 27 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.56
(in 26,681 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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