Something for Thursday

The day before yesterday would have been the 80th birthday of film composer Jerry Goldsmith, who passed away in 2004. I'm a big admirer of Goldsmith's work, and note the occasion of his 80th with a remarkable cue he wrote for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is heard during the scene where Admiral Kirk flies to the Enterprise for the first time, early in the movie; it's basically five minutes of looking at a starship. But what a starship she is, and with music like this, well....



For a taste of what Goldsmith at his height could bring to the table in terms of action scoring, here is what is, for me, the single best action cue he ever wrote (and he wrote a lot of 'em). It's "Raisuli Attacks", from The Wind and the Lion:



There are actually two cues here, put together: the second is "Guest of Raisuli", which begins at about the 3:12 mark. It's a delicate statement of the film's gorgeous love theme. I listened to this score for years before I saw the movie, and I was a bit disappointed, I must admit, when I finally saw the actual action scene "Raisuli Attacks" underscores. Hearing that music initially, I pictured a pitched battle of Ragnarokian scale. It's not, at all. I got over it; The Wind and the Lion is really a terrific film.

I've always been of the opinion that Goldsmith's output after around 1990 or so dropped off in quality a bit, but he still had an amazing career, and I think his music tended to get lost in the shuffle a lot because, unlike John Williams, Goldsmith tended to end up scoring, for lack of a better term, bad movies that are mostly forgotten except for their wonderful Goldsmith scores. Anyway, Goldsmith left behind a giant legacy in film music.