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The Edge: (Jerry Goldsmith) If you like seeing rich
businessmen and socialites stranded in the Alaska's wilderness and
chased by nasty wildlife (and each other), then
The Edge was a
film that was far more likely to amuse you than thrill you. Even more
impressive than Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin battling the elements
and their distrust of each other is the Alaska landscape, and it is this
natural element that guided Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film. For
long time collectors of the composer,
The Edge is a satisfying
listening experience, but is more importantly an unusual score for
Goldsmith in that era of his career. While the score may, on the whole,
resemble most of Goldsmith's other action scores from the 1990's, it has
a few distinct characteristics that set it apart. First, despite the
film's highly concentrated character development, none of the main
principals receives any kind of theme (or even any motif, really).
Second, Goldsmith treats his title theme quite differently in
The
Edge, with much more significant airtime provided for the broad,
graceful theme than in his usual writing. Third, director Lee Tamahori
instructed that Goldsmith not employ his usual array of synthesizers,
and as a result, Goldsmith would largely orchestrate the score himself
(a task he had not accomplished in many decades). Finally, with a little
extra recording time left at the end of the sessions, Goldsmith and
Tamahori decided it would be fun to manipulate the grand title theme
into an intimate jazz rendition. The result of all of these little
quirky aspects of
The Edge is a score that is just as intriguing
to study (as a collector of the composer) as it is to sit back and
enjoy.
The downside of the score, conversely, is that the
action and suspense material in
The Edge is not up to Goldsmith's
usual high standards, leaving several non-thematic cues as filler music
that will do little more than remind you of other Goldsmith efforts. It
should be noted, however, that this is one Goldsmith score that works
brilliantly in its film, though most of that credit needs to go to the
title theme. Molded from Trevor Jones' sparsely grand
Last of the
Mohicans brass title (once again a Tamahori request), Goldsmith's
primary theme for middle-range brass is a noble and spectacular
accompaniment for the aerial shots of the wilderness. More interesting
is Goldsmith's extreme loyalty to that theme throughout the score; it
can be heard in full no less than in five cues on the 10-cue album, and
its presence in the film is unmistakable. Part of that credit goes to
the very simple and thus memorable movements of the theme (a carryover
from the Jones theme, to some degree), and part goes to the bold
statements of that idea without much interference from counterpoint or
other orchestral activity. The most delicious area of study in
The
Edge, though, relates to the lack of synths. Ironically, in the
electronics' requested absence, Goldsmith orchestrates several key cues
in ways that imitate his normal bed of electric accompaniment. You can
easily tell where Goldsmith had his tingling synths originally in mind,
for he uses a piano, trumpet, and high woodwinds to attempt to recreate
them organically. First, over the plane ride in "Lost in the Wild,"
Goldsmith forces the dexterous piano and trumpets into the precise,
quick imitations, eventually adding the woodwinds into the mix in
"Mighty Hunter." It's a curious, but delightful enforcement of
Goldsmith's personal style into a handicapped situation. The trumpets
and piano would play a very small role in the rest of the score.
The only other thematic use in
The Edge
represents the grizzly bear, with a brute brass slur, falling one note,
appearing in "The Ravine" and "Stalking." It's not as creative as the
faintly related use in
The Shadow, but it gets the job done. The
rather bland underscore in chase sequences sounds like leftovers from
Goldsmith's (and his son's) suspense cues in
Star Trek: First
Contact, with occasional references back to the tumultuous string
movements of
Poltergeist and a few foreshadowings of woodwind
usage that we'd hear in
The Haunting. A singular, jumpy string
motif unconnected to the rest of the score exists in "Bitter Coffee."
The final cue on the album is a jazz performance of the title theme by
piano, bass, and percussion that the three musicians stuck around to
perform at the end of the sessions. The effect of having this cue
attached to the project is as odd as the similarly sudden jazz appeal at
the end of Goldsmith's
The Vanishing a few years earlier, and,
quite frankly, even the biggest fans of style from
The Russia
House will find this cue a little tough to chew on after a
completely unrelated score. Overall,
The Edge is a solid score
because of it's thematic integrity, though don't expect Goldsmith to
impress you with vibrant action sequences. Even the vast simplicity of
the title theme's construct, as well as its straight forward
performances, could leave you wanting more. The album's mix is strangely
heavy on the treble regions, with noticeable hiss in the trio's jazz
performance at the end. That mix does, though, aid the cause of those
funky attempts to recreate Goldsmith's synthesizers with the orchestral
players.
****
| Bias Check: | For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.22 (in 111 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 120,040 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
