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Nice topic! This afternoon before getting back to work tomorrow, I've rewatched John Huston's Freud and was once again mesmerized by its musical score. I've often played the LP to death and I think the score's true intelligence is even better appreciated while watching this great movie. I think it's one of the composer's very best scores: it does everything a great score should do. It helps move the story forward, it brings focus to the storytelling and better yet it has something musical to say. Jerry Goldsmith took his cue from the second Viennese school and a bit of Bela Bartok here and there but he went in his own direction. The result is truly spellbinding. The music is cerebral but it also has that VISCERAL quality so redolent of the composer's output (Alien, Coma, First Blood, Planet of the Apes). It complements beautifully Douglas Slocombe splendid black and white cinematography. I also think it adds a sense of uneasiness to the story of Freud trying to uncover his patient's disorder and his own quest for self discovery. It makes the film even more chilling, like staring down some dark abyss...
They don't write scores like this one anymore. Such a shame!
I think Jerry Goldsmith's style and great strength as an artist was always writing against expectations. Think of Patton, The Boys from Brazil, Link, Gremlins... He was most of the time full of surprises, spotting music judiciously, coming up with unique sounds and melodies. Who would have thought of composing an electronic rag for Gremlins? or just remember the striking effect of bells, whistles and angular strings in the Joe Dante segment of Twilight Zone the Movie. Take Basic Instinct: he could have gone the Bernard Herrmann way but he came up with something absolutely engrossing, fresh and unique. And so subtle. It gives the film an added level of class.
A movie like Poltergeist could have been scored solely for shock value but Goldsmith brought to the film incredible warmth and lyricism. And it made a whole difference. And when all hell breaks loose, Goldsmith remains peerless in his display of orchestral furia. It does something to the audience! So does the innocent main theme for The Other, tuneful and sunny, but shifting gears so easily. It's even chillingly whistled on the soundtrack by one of the twin brothers. But the theme istelf is absolutely devoid of melodic ambiguity. Its juxtaposition with Mulligan's storytelling is the absolute stroke of genius.
He remains the ultimate method composer.
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Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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