Much of the glory and controversy surrounding Goldsmith's
approach to
Planet of the Apes involves his choice of
instrumentation. A full orchestra is employed for the recording, but
it's by no means the highlight. As mentioned before, very minimal
electronics are used, mainly an electric harp run through the Echoplex
machine most famous from
Patton. Instead, organic alternatives
were sought to generate the same sounds. The composer makes significant
use of pitch-slurring instrumental techniques and prickly striking and
plucking, and the former is a precursor to representations of
mind-bending concepts that extended all the way through the 1990's for
him. An impressive host of barbaric specialty instruments includes a
bass slide whistle, scraped gong, log and bongo drums, friction drums
for the howling ape sounds, rattle bamboo angklungs, a scratcher or
scraper, and ram's horn. Alongside this massive percussive array are
traditional orchestral instruments like woodwinds, celesta, piano, and
chimes abused to sound different. On the other hand, brass and snare
usage is more conventional. Some of the metallic effects employed in the
score are so unlistenable that they transcend to being humorously awful,
such as those near the end of "The Search." The same issue plagues the
outright silly ape emulations in "No Escape" and "The Intruders," which
could be insanity-inducing if not so cheekily amusing. The ondes
martenot-like effect in "The Forbidden Zone" is another distractingly
awkward intrusion. All of this cacophony of odd sounds is treated to
some recurring motifs by Goldsmith, including one overarching theme of
sorts. These ideas offer no distinction at all when comparing the
attitude of the motifs for the humans and apes, with a total lack of
warmth for sympathetic characters on either side. Shades of dissonance
are everywhere, with few tonally accessible chords to be heard
throughout. Only the primitive alien atmosphere is addressed, with no
attempt to evolve any themes to convey a point. Rambling piano figures
and two-note descending wind pairs frequently mingle with more formal
ideas. There is one dominant main theme in
Planet of the Apes,
built upon a challenging scale that typically features disjointed
ascending phrases of typically four or five notes. Its fingerprints are
everywhere in the score, and yet they remain elusive and typically
deconstructed so that listeners only hear parts of the progressions in
short, rapid bursts. For this exact reason, almost nobody would
recognize it when isolated from the film.
Goldsmith's disquieting main theme for
Planet of the
Apes is perhaps best appreciated intellectually in the "Main Title"
cue, debuting at 0:49 on piano and then elusively on flute and
subsequently explored over the next minute in arguably its most cohesive
performance. Although the chase cues are the most flamboyant in the
score, this rendition of the main theme is the best concert arrangement
of ideas from the work, as it manages to reference some of the apes'
material as well. By design, the composer allows the theme's
progressions to degenerate as the cue moves along. It returns at 0:31
into "Crash Landing" on celesta for several phrases in quiet suspense,
and the fully orchestral passages of action in the cue only use
repetitive fragments of the idea. (In ways, the middle portions of this
cue address the sinking of the spacecraft with Goldsmith's most
conventional action moment, but even here, it's rarely tonally
accessible.) A piano interjects with it a few times in the first half of
"The Searchers," and Goldsmith passes its phrasing between woodwinds and
drums in "The Search," where new harmonics are explored for the major
performance at the end of the cue. The main theme dances everywhere on
strings and winds early in "The Clothes Snatchers," consolidating on
ominous oboes in the cue's second half. It's only barely evident in "A
New Mate," a cue with zero compassion, and attempts to provide some
warmth from woodwinds late in "The Revelation" but cannot. The common
progressions are sped up considerably in "No Escape" for panic before
transitioning into both a new timpani riff and overlaid thematic device
in "New Identity." The idea accelerates again at the start of "A Bid for
Freedom," becomes twisted into a barely recognizable form on violins
late in "The Forbidden Zone," and reminds with a quick brass reference
at the end of "The Intruders." Only the theme's rising portions survive
to generate repetitive, layered suspense in "The Cave," albeit with
annoying muted trumpets on top, and it opens "The Revelation - Finale"
on its own and recurs as the two lead humans ride off to find their
promised destiny. There exists absolutely no general arc to this theme
in the score, and it never returns to the somewhat more cohesive form
that it enjoyed in "Main Title." Even in the final performances of the
theme during "The Revelation - Finale," Goldsmith never truly solidifies
what or who the wayward theme represents, its last prominent conveyance
placed over a rather unimportant shot of the lead antagonist ape being
freed on the beach. It is, like the instrumentation more generally,
merely awash.
The secondary motifs in
Planet of the Apes are
far less complicated and can be applied more efficiently by Goldsmith as
stingers or rhythm-setters. A plucked echoing effect for searching and
suspense is the domain of the electric harp and/or string section.
Somewhat humorously, Michael Kamen might have been emulating it for
moments of suspense in
Die Hard. It is first heard at O:53 into
"Main Title," in which the thumping,
MacArthur-foreshadowing
piano bookending the cue is a sibling. This idea is prominently placed
afront "The Searchers" and "The Search." It is altered for more diverse
performances in "The Forbidden Zone" and joins pitch slurring effects
and slashed gong in "The Revelation - Finale." This searching motif has
no real impact in the closing cue, as it is featured low in the mix
relative to the wave sounds, and it ends the score with more of a muted,
guitar-like tilt. The other recurring motif is the ape wail for the
gorillas on horseback being generally rude to the humans. Two to
three-note cries from the specialty horns serve as a war call for these
nasty villains, and Goldsmith offers a preview of this material at 0:22
into "Main Title." It returns at 1:03 into "The Hunt," becoming a
rhythmic device, and shifts to full ensemble at the outsets of "The
Revelation" and "No Escape." The final reminder occurs as the gorillas
initially start chasing Taylor at 0:17 into "The Revelation - Finale."
Ultimately, these motifs only function to accentuate the instrumental
chaos and atonality of the whole. While the music is a mixed bag in the
picture, it translates to a hideous listening experience on album. For
those seeking to appreciate Goldsmith's strategy nonetheless, the "Main
Title" cue summarizes the score's three motifs while "The Hunt" and "No
Escape" offer the rambunctiously outrageous action material. Though this
score was lauded at the time for its experimentation, it has since aged
far more badly than the film itself, the lack of any meaningful
narrative, dichotomy of tone for characters, or truly tasteful nuance.
The album history for
Planet of the Apes is long, its original,
distinct LP album arrangement by Goldsmith less abrasive but still
inaccessible. That presentation debuted on CD between 1985 and 1992 from
Project 3 and Soundtrack Listeners, and Intrada added "The Hunt" as a
1992 alternative that was rearranged by Masters Film Music in 2001. From
1997 to 2007, several labels, including Varèse Sarabande, offered
a longer presentation with a 16-minute suite from Goldsmith's
Escape
From the Planet of the Apes. A superb 2019 La-La Land set with all
five original franchise scores includes both variants of the work with
proper film versions of cues. On any album, be ready to appreciate one
of most unlikely parody scores of all time.
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