is the guys' late-night,
squeal-like-a-pig version of the "city folk go into nature only to
discover that man is the true enemy" formula, then Curtis Hanson's
of 1994 is the somewhat family friendly midday
interpretation of the same idea. Instead of Appalachia, the scene this
time is Montana (known affectionately by its residents as "the last best
place to hide"), where a former river guide from the area played by
Meryl Streep takes her now city-dwelling family on a rafting vacation to
her old haunts. Luckily for them, three malicious goons get into another
raft and follow the family like a group of predators. Eventually there
are hostages, unbelievable and frustrating twists of plot, and
ultimately, of course, the need to run the "Gauntlet," a particularly
nasty portion of river that only true professionals can navigate. Then
again, if you're going to rid yourself of those pesky bad guys, led by
Kevin Bacon in a comfortable role, then you'll need to provide the
audience with that inevitable feat of spandex-ripping stress. Despite
the film's gorgeous scenery and a heady performance by Streep, the holes
and stretches in the plotline doomed the picture. Unable to save the day
this time was composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose collaboration with Hanson
remains better remembered for the popular
several years later. Goldsmith's tenure on
was a
last-minute adventure in and of itself, however, and the hands of
unsatisfied studio executives caused the soundtrack for the project to
become a Big Sky-sized headache. The film had originally been scored in
totality by legendary veteran Maurice Jarre, who toiled through
countless re-writes of various cues in the score for Hanson before the
executives, citing poor test screenings, dropped Jarre's music
completely (without asking the composer for any further alterations).
This despite Jarre's professed affection for the film and his
willingness to spice up the suspense portions, which were apparently the
issue that doomed his work. In stepped Goldsmith, who tackled the film
to his own stylistic norms with superior results compared to Jarre's
contribution but Goldsmith likewise became the target of extensively
rejected material that threatened his music in the film as well. There
was no winning for anyone here.
While respect must be paid to Jarre for his excellent
career in tackling epics of natural immensity,
The River Wild
wasn't one his better efforts. He wrote an expansive primary theme for
nature itself, a rousing and impressive identity that by itself is more
entertaining than anything Goldsmith wrote for the picture. But how
Jarre applied it to the film isn't particularly satisfying, its bloated
dramatic scope not really connecting with the characters and adapting
poorly to the suspense and action of the score. It is in this more
frantic half of the work that Jarre truly struggled, his suspense
material relying upon walls of dissonance of various volumes to convey
angst. Still, in this and the melodic portions, there is more
Lawrence of Arabia to be heard in this score than expected,
especially in the application of percussion. Jarre recorded several
variations of the "Reunion" cue at the end of the story, and each of
these, along with his opening scene cues, states the main theme with
gloriously resounding depth. Despite applicability issues with these
passages, they are more singularly impressive on album than anything
Goldsmith provided for
The River Wild despite the better melodic
cohesion, pacing, and ambience of Goldsmith's approach in sum. Goldsmith
provided tones reminiscent of the similar but more compelling music he
would supply for the outdoors in both
Medicine Man and
The
Edge in the same era. One of Hanson's requests of Goldsmith was that
he adapt the traditional tune "The Water is Wide" into the primary
identity of his original score, a move not taken by Jarre. In fact,
Jarre only adapted the tune into a short sequence of the credits after
the song version, and given how well he interpreted, and in a few cases
manipulated, the melody, it's a shame he hadn't done more with it. For
Goldsmith, this theme became the wholesome, sensitive representation of
the family in between the moments of tension in the middle and later
portions of the picture. To popularize the film, the light rock/country
group "Cowboy Junkies" was brought in to arrange and perform this
traditional tune as well, a move that was starting to become typical of
studio mentality in the 1990's. Ironically, the vocal performances in
the case of
The River Wild aren't likely to be the reason for
listeners' negative reaction to the music in the film and on album.
There is nothing structurally wrong with Goldsmith's score for
The
River Wild, but it wholly redundant in the composer's career, with
far superior variations of every aspect of this score in his other
projects.
Goldsmith's adaptation of "The Water is Wide" for the
family in
The River Wild is handled with a light heart by the
composer's usual flute and string-based sensibilities, solo trumpet
performances gracing the beginning and end of the score to fortify the
independent spirit of Streep's character. The theme isn't remarkably
different from an original Goldsmith idea (he admitted that he wishes he
had written it), rolling the sentiment of
Rudy and
Matinee
into a predictable, soft package with little in merit to discuss other
than the tune's basic, affable effectiveness in this context. Goldsmith
largely abandons the melody as the score progresses towards its suspense
motif, which itself is also lacking a particularly interesting structure
when compared to similar ideas that would mature in
The Edge. He
creates tension with short bursts of rhythm from brass followed by
extended whole notes, and without any unique instrumentation, the
process becomes tiresome after just a few minutes. In "Little Niagra,"
however, Goldsmith does allow the blasts to develop characteristics
similar to Michael Kamen's climax to
Die Hard (and that score's
"falling motif" most specifically), but once again without any
particularly interesting variation in execution. It's fitting that
Goldsmith decided not to score nature itself to the same degree he would
in
The Edge (or as Jarre did here), but then again, he didn't
tackle the malevolence of the evil humans with the electronic bombast
that he used so effectively in
Medicine Man, either. Overall,
despite undoubtedly earning his pay for his last-minute replacement
work, Goldsmith was flat with this one, leaving possible avenues of
creativity unexplored. The only other issue of note involves the Cowboy
Junkies song. While Goldsmith collectors may consider their light
guitar, electric bass, harmonica, percussion, and vocals an unnecessary
distraction, it is actually their presence that distinguishes
The
River Wild. Michael Timmins' adaptation the tune and Margo Timmins'
soft, inviting vocals in the song performances fit well with Goldsmith's
variation on the same idea, and the mixing of the song edit and the
orchestral ensemble in "Family Reunion" is very well arranged. Aided by
two superb transitions between score and song in that end titles track,
the shorter album was recommendable. A delightful presentation of both
the complete Goldsmith and rejected Jarre scores was provided in 2015 by
Intrada Records, though, and no film music enthusiast should be without
this outstanding product. It's a fascinating listening experience, and
in appreciating the highlights of Jarre's main theme, one cannot blame
him for retiring from Hollywood after being replaced by Goldsmith on
both this and
First Knight the next year.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.28
(in 115 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.33
(in 146,620 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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