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| Edelman |
While You Were Sleeping: (Randy Edelman) The smash
hit romantic comedy of early 1995 and confirmation of rising actress
Sandra Bullock as a genuine mainstream heartthrob,
While You Were
Sleeping was almost universally liked by critics and audiences. It
contains one of those heart-warming premises that is difficult to
disparage, partly because of the realistic loneliness and awkward
introversion of Bullock in the lead role. She plays a dispirited token
collector for the "L" trains in Chicago and maintains a crush on a
handsome lawyer who regularly passes through her station. When that
lawyer is mugged one day and pushed onto the tracks in front of a train,
she saves his life. After accompanying the comatose man to the hospital,
she is mistaken to be his fiancee and plays along with the charade in
part to save the family some grief and also because she loves how that
family adopts her without reservation. During this time, she falls in
love with the man's younger brother (Hollywood nice guy Bill Pullman)
and after some awkward misunderstandings and separations, the situation
resolves itself in the only way it really can. Bullock earned a Golden
Globe nomination for her performance. Pure escapism in the genre rarely
comes as effective as
While You Were Sleeping, and unreservedly
enhancing its brightly optimistic sentiments is Randy Edelman's score.
The movie contains a fair number of song placements, including numerous
Christmas-related standards, which steal the show regarding the
soundtrack as a whole, but Edelman's contribution is a fairly constant
force for good in context. The composer has never been known for writing
particularly complex film scores, his pop background tending to push him
towards contemporary styles even when employing a full orchestra. This
trademark methodology serves
While You Were Sleeping perfectly,
allowing Edelman to balance his work with the right formula of cool pop
atmosphere and sappy orchestral drama that breaks absolutely no new
ground. Employed are extremely easy and repetitive structures and an
abandonment of the electronic embellishments that the composer often
uses to stock some depth into his scores. It's extremely familiar music
in Edelman's career, and its consistency in this particular package
makes
While You Were Sleeping one of the easiest works in the
genre to represent Edelman's larger overall canvas.
Creativity in the instrumental applications in
While
You Were Sleeping may be lacking, but that matters very little in
this context. The orchestra is supplemented with the contemporary
elements of keyboard, organ, and percussion that lend a slight
atmosphere of funk in an otherwise pop approach. Swinging rhythmic
enthusiasm, bouncing its way through several cues of irresistible
cuteness, wouldn't seem completely foreign to a Randy Newman score. In
fact, many of the techniques utilized by Newman to achieve the same ends
are heard in
While You Were Sleeping, including the inability to
resist breaking out into spirited rhythmic explorations of the pop theme
in the score whenever possible. There are three identities at work in
the score, the first the modern, hip, and humorous phrases with the
soloists heard during roughly half of the cues. This is where the Newman
fans will feast. The second is a lightly dramatic theme introduced in
"Peter's Family" to represent the personalities thrust upon Bullock's
character and their slightly overwhelming presence. There's an
appropriately carnival-like demeanor to this theme that accesses some of
Edelman's faux Western-related structures at times. Extending out of
this material is the primary identity of romance in
While You Were
Sleeping, summarized in "Love Theme" and progressively dominating
the score as it reaches its romantic crescendo. Delicate piano and
woodwinds over swaying strings highlight this theme's fuller
presentation in "Jack and Lucy," and collectors of the composer's music
will note similarities in progression to several other Edelman themes
(and the forthcoming
Dragonheart in particular). The pop and
romance themes are summarized in "A Happy Ending," which contains the
obligatory culmination of the latter one, complete with cymbal crashes
and trumpet accompaniment. Ultimately, what you come away from this
score with is an effortless series of piano-centered ideas, the
instrument that remains Edelman's stalwart and one malleable enough to
cross into every facet of this work. The 38-minute score-only album is
one of those products that has remained readily available because it
failed to include any of the film's prominent songs and therefore
flooded the used-CD market. The only substantial omission by
Varèse Sarabande is Diane Warren's "Wherever I Would Be,"
performed by Dusty Springfield and Daryl Hall for the film's end
credits. A few problematic transitions in the album's presentation of
the score result from volume inconsistencies, but Edelman's smoothly
relaxing and endearing score survives with few other detriments.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Randy Edelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.05
(in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.16
(in 29,260 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
