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Review of Somewhere in Time (John Barry)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you find yourself regularly apologizing for the
inherent simplicity and hopelessly sappy melodrama of John Barry's
trademark romance scores of the 1980's.
Avoid it... if you subscribe to the understandable "once you've heard one Barry romance score, you've heard them all" line of thinking, because this massively popular work is among the composer's most conservative, albeit lovely string-dominated entries.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Somewhere in Time: (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
Somewhere in Time 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,
science fiction leanings, and insufferably slow pace, Jeannot Szwarc's
oddly fashioned romance eventually gained a significant cult following
on cable television, producing even an organization devoted to the
concept. That interest was likely related to a combination of the
bizarre premise of Somewhere in Time 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 irreparably 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 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 for Somewhere in Time makes perfect sense given the weight the filmmakers wanted to give the film; Barry opted to take a cut of album royalties in lieu of a more traditional fee for the low-budget production, a wise choice. The movie's 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, though. Both are applied 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 context. 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 the composer 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 basic 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. This is unfortunate, as the variant of the theme for Seymour's actress is an underutilized idea, conveyed well in "The Grand Hotel," "The Old Woman," and "The Man of My Dreams" but not suggested meaningfully for the character's younger self. A suspense motif occupies "June 27th" and "Room 417," and "Attic," reflecting fairly conventional Barry mannerisms in this mode. But the main theme is everywhere else in the work. 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 outside of the plentiful source music. Despite the inherent problems with Barry's unyielding formula in Somewhere in Time, 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 main identity in Somewhere in Time at least flows far more smoothly. The only cue on the long popular but short, roughly 30-minute album presentation of Barry's music that convincingly separates itself from the main 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 became a platinum best-seller, Barry's most popular album of all time, despite its relative brevity, 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 long-awaited 2021 expansion by La-La Land Records on a limited CD adds many incidental cues, source material, and several alternate takes of the main theme. The most interesting additional cues are those like the two "Coin" variants, as they provide the much-needed suspense element in the narrative. The score's most ardent enthusiasts will absolutely love to have the film version of the gorgeous, conclusive "Return to the Present" finally released. That said, the 76-minute presentation is even more redundant on the whole. 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 repeat 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 would have been widely awarded along with his earlier and later classics. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
All 1985-2003 MCA Albums:
Total Time: 31:52
2021 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 76:18
* performed on piano by Roger Williams ** written by Sergei Rachmaninoff
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of MCA albums include no extra information about the score or film.
That of the 2021 La-La Land album includes notes about both.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Somewhere in Time are Copyright © 1985, 1993, 2021, MCA Records (Original), MCA Records (Gold), La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/29/09 and last updated 9/14/21. |
