Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,921
Written 1/26/12
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Buy it... if you were specifically impressed by David Newman's
entertainingly quirky manipulation of Bernard Herrmann's suspense mode
in the context of the film.
Avoid it... if a wild collection of sound effects (led by slide
whistle), skittish woodwinds, mysterious harp and piano figures, and
constant Herrmann borrowings in undulating strings on album could
possibly make you contemplate killing someone.
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| Newman |
Throw Momma From the Train: (David Newman) The
night was sultry. In one of the two lead roles in the 1987 black
comedy Throw Momma From the Train, Billy Crystal plays a writer
struggling to complete that first sentence of his novel. While teaching
a writing class, he meets a hopelessly repressed Danny DeVito, and
through a set of unlikely circumstances, they follow the guidelines of
Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train on the path to murdering
an undesirable person in the other man's life. In the case of Crystal's
writer, the target of disdain is his ex-wife, who supposedly stole one
of his stories and became rich off of it. On the other hand, DeVito's
character lives with his insufferable mother who berates him constantly
and with colorful language. While Crystal originally has no intent to
murder the old woman, DeVito actually follows through on his murderous
intentions, putting the seemingly more sane man in the positive of
reciprocating the favor. After living with his student and her mother,
the writer decides that the latter is a work of evil and begins to
himself dream of executing the crime for real. With top talent spread
throughout the production, Throw Momma From the Train was a
financial success that led to several lucrative careers for those
involved. Two specific contributors excelled particularly well in the
film, the first being Barry Sonnenfeld, whose cinematography yields some
outstandingly creative shots that truly accentuate the concept's
connections to Hitchcock. And then there was Anne Ramsey in the role of
the mother, delivering a performance so wickedly entertaining that she
earned an Oscar nomination for her efforts. Several of her incredibly
rude, barked lines, culminating in "Get away from me, you horse's ass!"
to Crystal, have become pop culture favorites. These sequences may only
amount to ten minutes in the film, but they overshadow the clever script
and wild camera work to represent Throw Momma From the Train in
the collective memory. The film marked the first major studio assignment
for David Newman, too, and the composer initially had difficulty
striking the right balance of comedy and suspense in the quasi-parody
score. There was clearly an intention to emulate the style of Bernard
Herrmann's music for several Hitchcock projects, and Newman effectively
lightens that memorable sound to such an appropriate balance of sinister
dread and perky laughs that he launched himself into a career in this
genre that would include dozens of comedy projects over the subsequent
decades.
The most basic tool from Herrmann's trademark style
that Newman borrows and manipulates in
Throw Momma From the Train
is a sense of swirling surrealism. Mostly through strings, Newman uses
these skittish, rising and falling figures to define both the thematic
core and background personality of the work. Listeners encounter this
technique immediately at the start of the film, "Main Title" perhaps the
closest homage to
Vertigo in the score. You hear
Psycho,
Frenzy, and others influencing the remainder of the motifs, all
of them using the string section to dance with uncertainty through
elongated ostinatos. The main theme represents a more cohesive statement
of this down and up movement, sometimes layering multiple performances
of the idea from woodwinds on top of the major expression of the melody
in the forefront. Newman continues to run through several cyclical
motifs later in the score, one each for the two men's fantasies of
killing. These three and four-note motifs stew and agitate with almost
obnoxious persistence, a perfectly nagging reflection of their urges.
More often than not, however, Newman returns to his primary theme as an
extremely malleable tool with which to punctuate individual shots.
Equally important in
Throw Momma From the Train is the composer's
selection of instrumentation, which uses a standard orchestral ensemble
at its base but is really dominated by his unique application of funny
noises and rhythmic mayhem, some of which seemingly inspired by Jerry
Goldsmith. A slide whistle is the most obvious contributor, a silly,
whimsical element to represent the bizarre relationship between DeVito's
nerd and his mother. Occasional synthetic atmosphere boosts the eeriness
of the actual faux-killing sequences. Harp and struck percussion accents
are reminiscent of Alan Silvestri in "magic" mode of that era. Extreme
dexterity is exhibited by the woodwind section, too, all such players
rolling enthusiastically (with almost devilish delight) through Newman's
rhythmic waves. Perhaps not surprisingly, when removed from context, the
most entertaining portions of the music for
Throw Momma From the
Train come when Newman allows the bass strings to throw their weight
behind the Hermannesque figures, though these passages are relatively
few. The muscular brass renditions of the main theme in "Car Chase" are
also of interest. On the whole, it's a competent and affable parody
score, very well handled by Newman but ultimately better appreciated in
the movie. Long unavailable on album,
Throw Momma From the Train
was finally treated to a 35-minute release of only 1,500 copies by
Intrada in 2007, a likeable but not significant listening experience
that will please enthusiasts of the film's dark humor.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For David Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.17
(in 12 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 19,654 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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