| CLOSE WINDOW |
|
FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Twister (Mark Mancina)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the vastly superior 2017 album presentation if you
enjoy adventurous symphonic/electronic hybrid scores of significant
bravado, for Twister is one of the more rousing entries in the
disaster genre.
Avoid it... on the badly arranged 1996 album at all costs or if you can never accept the idea of wailing electric guitars interspersed with Aaron Copland-inspired Americana spirit in this context.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Twister: (Mark Mancina) Written by Michael Crichton
and his wife, Ann-Marie Martin, the preposterous but entertaining
Twister competed well with the likes of Independence Day
and The Rock during a busy 1996 summer season. The disaster film
contained the same nonstop pacing as Jan De Bont's previous adventure,
Speed, and through the sheer energy of that tempo and a few
mind-boggling special effects, Twister was eye candy at its best.
The affable duo of Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton lead a group of storm
chasers on a mission to release a scientific instrument in the eye of a
tornado that promises to yield incredible new information about the
storms. Extraordinary measures to film scenes naturally with giant fans
and real explosions stand convincingly even decades later. While the
disaster flick achieved mainstream success in both the short and long
term, the music for the film was equally attractive to audiences. For
the most part, this attraction led to the high sales of the rock song
compilation album for Twister. As per De Bont's desire, the film
was heavy with rock song applications, mixing the songs and hyperactive
orchestral score in an often choppy moment to moment set of transitions.
The song compilation album immediately hit the charts at the film's
opening, while score fans were forced to wait several months to enjoy
Mark Mancina's work for the film on its own. Not only was the summer of
1996 a bonanza for big budget action films, but it also served as a
formal introduction to the Media Ventures breakthrough in scoring
technology. The previous year, Hans Zimmer had introduced his electronic
action scoring mastery for the first time in Crimson Tide,
arguably in its most successful and masculine historical form. The next
summer, both The Rock and Twister would extend that sound
into the mainstream for good. Much of the post-production crew for the
two scores overlapped. On Mancina's part, he built upon his propulsive
style in Speed and combined his pronounced percussion and guitars
with an orchestral, Aaron Copland-inspired style of Americana that
flourished when allowed to breathe in the film. For traditional
orchestral score fans, the resulting sound was easier to grasp than
The Rock due to an overriding loyalty to orchestral and choral
coloration.
The trick to appreciating Mancina in his action mode is accepting the accentuated rock percussion elements, occasional electric guitars, and the somewhat simplistic orchestration of brass that causes his melodies to sound rather generic or synthetic at times. For some listeners, his music fails to excel at neither the orchestral nor the electronic realms, but the composer, like other early colleagues of Zimmer, occasionally does flash greatness. To his credit, though, Twister remains superior in intelligence to both the composer's Speed scores, at least making a substantial attempt to weave melodic and textural complexity into the otherwise rather stale sound of slapping percussion and staccato string rhythms. Mancina applies woodwinds extremely well in the score, everything from flutes to bassoons performing whirling motions to reflect wind. And the electric guitar, while sometimes exposing itself as a simple tool of masculinity (it's hideously out of place in "Walk in the Woods"), embodies a keen sense of dread in a cue like "Cow" that melds well with the orchestra to reach the desired, gut-sinking effect. There exist several themes and secondary motifs in Twister, the main Copland-inspired theme matching Bruce Broughton-like Western bravado with snazzy appeal in the score's highlights. Heard immediately in "Wheatfield," a favorite cue of the composer, this idea permeates several later cues and switches to minor for suspense purposes. The theme, representing the landscape's immense beauty, introduces the most impactful secondary idea in the score, Mancina's noble action theme, at 1:24 into "The Hunt Begins." By "House Visit," this second theme takes on a purely militaristic tone in its percussive marching. These two themes are interwoven into nearly every cue in the score, and they are frequently joined by the composer's third identity, a bass region growl at 1:58 into "The Hunt Begins" that is often the domain of bass strings as a tool of instilling a feeling of doom. While Mancina does rely heavily upon these identities in between the songs, he does offer the theme some diverse development at times, as in the softer tones for the main theme in "Futility" with the help of acoustic guitar. The chorus supplies a two-note motif of wonder at times ("The Sky" and "Drive-In Twister") for shots of ominous clouds, and the choral shades become more traditionally apocalyptic as the story proceeds. The groan bass motif remains more effective to the very end, however, at conveying fear at any synchronization point necessary. While most listeners are likely to remember the score for Twister by the snazzy electric guitars in the rousing chase scenes and the occasional choral majesty, the more subtle orchestral touches are certainly the real attraction in the work. These ominous sounds often resemble snarling creatures when merged with the final sound effects within the film and are a fantastically smart use of music for the advancement of the story. The technique ends the film with a faint, dying performance that reminds us well that there will indeed be another tornado season next year. Mancina's use of tingling electronic rhythms, akin to Jerry Goldsmith's of the era, is handled beautifully in the full "End Title" cue at 1:07. The original 1996 album for Twister was presented badly, several notable cues missing and those included out of order and ending with a hideous duo of concluding tracks. The comical "William Tell Overture/Oklahoma Medley" cue is an unacceptably stupid and barely tolerable minute of mutation between the William Tell Overture and the title song to the musical Oklahoma. Why it was necessary to include this terrible vocal performance here instead of additional Mancina cues was beyond reason. Likewise, the Van Halen written and performed track at the end of the album (one of two such contributions to the film), while beginning with a promising transition from orchestral and choral style to hard guitars, is simply too long. It languishes in false dramatics for a whole eight minutes of guitars that don't match any of those used in tandem with the other players throughout the score. In 2017, La-La Land Records supplied a proper release of Mancina's score, really allowing the composition and sharp recording to shine. The quality of the mix on both albums is strong, but the expanded product especially exposes the nuances of the recording. The guitars and chorus in "Cow" are particularly layered magnificently. The 2017 album is highly recommended, and it will help Twister cement its place as one of Mancina's most memorable and defining scores. The raw enthusiasm of "Wheatfield" (which features an abbreviated opening and some stage sounds at the start of the 1996 album; this is supplied as a bonus on the 2017 product) and beauty of "Downdraft" ("The Big Suck") were a surprisingly impressive introduction to the composer for listeners who never caught on to Speed, and the score still remains a fan favorite. The score gets caught in a whirlwind of noise with the sound effects and songs in context, but the 2017 album finally clears the skies on this somewhat repetitive but impressively enjoyable hybrid work.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1996 Atlantic Album:
Total Time: 51:08
* written and performed by Edward and Alex Van Halen 2017 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 63:54
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material *** written and performed by Edward and Alex Van Halen
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1996 Atlantic album includes no extra information about the score or
film. That of the 2017 La-La Land product features notes about both.
Copyright ©
1996-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
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 Twister are Copyright © 1996, 2017, Atlantic Classics, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/24/96 and last updated 1/12/18. |
