Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,458
Written 7/13/03, Revised 3/27/09
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Buy it... if you seek to complete your Elliot Goldenthal collection with a
restrained, but mostly accessible, multi-cultural romance score.
Avoid it... if you prefer your Goldenthal music to be wildly inventive and
instrumentally challenging from start to finish.
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| Goldenthal |
Golden Gate: (Elliot Goldenthal) Critically assaulted and
popularly ignored, Golden Gate told the story of a law school graduate in
the early 1960's who is assigned by the FBI to root out communist elements in the
Chinese community of the controversially liberal San Francisco. The new agent
(Matt Dillon) becomes divided, however, when he falls in love with a Chinese
shopowner's daughter (Joan Chen), and the struggle of loyalties leads the agent
down the road to his own destruction (with the film ending on an ultimate, somber
note). The film's hideous presentation of a shallow plot was countered by
beautiful cinematography of San Francisco itself, so although the environment of
tension and drama in the story presented difficult choices for any composer to
contend with, the scenery was considerably more inspiring. The doomed love affair
and grand locale offered Elliot Goldenthal an opportunity to do something that
was, in retrospect, quite rare in his career: write longing romance music. The
film's wrestling with subversion and forbidden love allowed Goldenthal to compose
for the romance, however, using his comfortable feel for brooding attitudes.
Experiencing his first taste of mainstream success by 1994, with both Alien
3 and Demolition Man under his belt, the composer began receiving
offers for a wider variety of films. Most casual listeners recall Goldenthal's
other efforts in that productive year, including Cobb and the Academy
Award nominated Interview with the Vampire. His first project of that
year, however, coming straight off of Demolition Man, was the little know
Golden Gate. It would be the only collaboration between Goldenthal and
acclaimed director John Madden (who is best known for his later films with the
music of Stephen Warbeck), and the project would die in obscurity for both.
Still, the music for Golden Gate, despite its interludes into Goldenthal's
more typical realm of avant garde experimentation, contains harmonically
accessible material that makes it among his easiest listening experiences.
The soft and contemplative score balances its overall tone
between stereotypical elements of Chinese culture and that of the FBI agent. The
moments of Chinese environment are handled with an appropriate, dignified
presentation of ethnic instrumentation, never becoming foreign to Western ears.
Solo woodwind performances highlight these sequences, including the bittersweet
"Between Bridge and Sky." The woes of the agent are represented by the true heart
of the score, consisting of Goldenthal's melancholy jazz and blues styles. The
application of the jazz here, as opposed to its intentionally jarring use in the
forthcoming
Titus, is very coherent for much of the score, stirring up the
atmosphere of intimate clubs in the big city. But the story calls for the mental
demise of that character, and thus, Goldenthal boldly tears apart the cohesion of
the jazz as the score progresses. By the cue "Kwan Ying," the lead saxophone,
which has been elegantly swaying along with much of the score to this point,
becomes jagged and frenetic, and in "Write It As Time" you hear some of the
dueling sax bursts in a striking technique that would terrify in Goldenthal's
nightmarish and wildly outrageous
In Dreams four years later. The
following cue, "Motel Street Meltdown," takes the breakdown to its climax,
forcing the otherwise standard jazz to mingle with an odd, angry vocal
performance by Goldenthal himself. No, he does not sing, but rather, he uses his
voice as a bizarre sound effect for the agent's madness, arguing with himself and
yelling in a blurry background layer of the music While the words themselves are
fuzzy, a distinct "what the hell!" (as well as "chamber of commerce,"
"communists" and "right wing") is to be heard near the end of that creatively
strange cue. While these elements are fascinating to hear, they detract from the
listenability of Goldenthal's romance writing for
Golden Gate. With only
five to ten minutes of truly unhindered sax performances for the love story
aspect, the album is best remembered, as usual, for the despairing attitude of
Goldenthal's overarching style. What tenderness the score briefly gains in parts
is restrained by an alternately brooding personality, and, in the end, the album
becomes a somber wash.
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Bias Check:
For Elliot Goldenthal reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13
(in 16 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.2
(in 17,814 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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