While Williams did adapt the "Smoke Gets in your Eyes"
melody into two score tracks in
Always, these were replaced or
diminished in the film as to be of no consequence. The spotting of
Williams' music is surprisingly minimal overall, several opening scenes
existing without it, and Spielberg ultimately rearranged a fair portion
of the composer's recordings in the final cut. The score is unobtrusive,
uninspired, and uncentered, providing none of the excitement, romance,
or magic necessary to elevate the film beyond its mundane confines.
While swirling with promise by its conclusion, the work still fails on a
surprising number of levels. First, Williams doesn't capture the essence
of flight in
Always. Old bomber planes have always had a romantic
element to how they appear when flying, and Jerry Goldsmith very
effectively addressed this emotion in
Forever Young a few years
later. Williams, however, doesn't evoke any soaring element here, nor
does his limited action material stir up any significant amount of
excitement in the firefighting and crash sequences. Once the primary
character meets his angel, the score takes a back seat in the film,
often consisting of only minimalistic contributions from a few
meandering strings, celeste, harp, and piano, a lightly ethereal,
ambient sound that Williams was just exploring at the time and would
return to in
Far and Away. To some listeners, this material may
sound electronically "new age" for the time. The most notable exception
to the understated, non-comedic music is the dread-inducing "Rescue
Operation," a cue that doesn't feature Williams' usual high standard of
dissonance in such kinds of writing. The lightly droning celeste,
wavering string notes that last minutes, and thematic development that
is so miniscule that it goes barely noticed occupies much of the playing
time. The score is not without themes, but Williams rarely struggles to
enunciate his ideas to such an extent as here. The main romance identity
exists for the doomed pilot and his lost love, three-note phrases in
rising optimistic chords in such a way as to denote trepidation,
uncertainty, and lament. As such, the theme struggles to assert itself
despite its frequent statements. Its most obvious placements come in the
truncated exuberance late in "Saying Goodbye," fuller ensemble
performances early in "Pete and Dorinda" and "End Credits," and in its
passages of resounding resolution during "Among the Clouds."
The main romance theme of
Always, sometimes
reduced to its first two three-note figures, is far inferior compared to
the secondary love theme that takes over for the female lead's character
in late cues. Heard in the middle of "The Rescue Operation," the idea
flourishes in "Dorinda Solo Flight" (combining with the other love
theme) and is treated to a broad extension in the second half of "End
Credits." Like many Williams scores, the composer offers one cue of
comedic mayhem, its form in this one coming in the affable Americana
chasing of "Follow Me." Aside from "Follow Me" and the score's late cues
of resolution, most of
Always is so understated as to be a
non-factor. The music is so soft that you can actually hear a certain
amount of studio noise in the latter half of "Seeing Dorinda," including
the musicians shuffling around in their seats. For a film with definite
supernatural or religious aspects,
Always is completely devoid of
enticing magic, harrowing loss, or genuine romance. It's difficult to
imagine that for Audrey Hepburn's long awaited and assumed-to-be final
return to the screen, Williams was unable to provide her heavenly
character (or the afterlife more generally) with any kind of redeeming
musical identity whatsoever. It's also interesting to compare the
approach of this score to
A.I. Artificial Intelligence a decade
later. Both involve the concepts of love, death, commitment, and
rebirth, and whereas Williams treats these ideas with great distance in
Always, he would pour on the emotional syrup in
A.I. with
much better results. The original 1990 album for
Always began
with an array of light rock and country songs, including two variants of
"Smoke Gets in your Eyes," before offering the bulk of Williams' score.
A limited, 2021 La-La Land Records album drops the songs and extends the
score's main narrative experience out to 56 minutes, though it once
again supplies short cues of like character in longer combined tracks,
even if that presentation defies the chronology of the score's cues. The
additional material is not significant until "End Credits," and a
handful of alternate arrangements will be of intellectual interest to
those seeking Williams' and Spielberg's troubled attempts to find the
right tone of the story. The 80-minute single-CD product is well
produced but only extends a mostly lifeless but relaxing Williams' score
that is as disappointing as any in that great era for the composer.
There are flourishes of romantic depth in the final moments of the work,
but they relegate
Always to forever remaining a score best
represented by a five-minute suite of the two leading themes.
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