Jerry Goldsmith - The Vanishing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1993)

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Jerry Goldsmith - The Vanishing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1993)

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This production is one of those rare cases in which an American remake of a European idea was directed by the same person who headed the original version of the tale. Director George Sluizer's film of abduction and obsession was a far more powerfully unsettled and gloomy experience in its original Dutch format by the same title. To the disgust of critics, the American version was appended with a positive, dreamy ending, ruining the point of the film's horrific message. It did feature a strong cast, and an early cameo by a young Sandra Bullock as the abducted makes the setup particularly unsettling. The disintegration of Kiefer Sutherland's character, the partner of the long-missing woman, fuels the horror of the story, with the man's obsession with the highway rest-stop abduction leading him finally to a grim confrontation with the psychopathic mastermind (Jeff Bridges) behind the plot. One of the lesser known efforts by Jerry Goldsmith in the 1990's, The Vanishing is a late entry in the string of highly personal horror/thriller scores that he composed early in the decade. Goldsmith was very familiar at the time with scoring films about personal destruction, and his work for The Vanishing follows similar stylistic techniques heard in Basic Instinct and Malice. The resulting music is largely the highlight of the production. The moderately orchestral score for The Vanishing maintains a subdued level of dread for the majority of its running time, progressively turning up the heat to accompany the mental anguish on screen. When the primary character re-lives the abduction in his mind, Goldsmith employs a metallic, percussive rhythm, electronically rendered for much of its volume, that begins at a slow tempo and leads the orchestra at a continuously faster pace as the realization of the abduction sinks in. That harsh rhythm further dominates the score through subsequent usage, although Goldsmith seemingly preferred to keep a more sophisticated and tight hold on his suspenseful material by intertwining it with familiar styles from his other scores.

Between the bass string plucking of a simple rhythm (as heard in The Shadow) and a creepy, descending woodwind and cello motif heard in Star Trek: First Contact, the pacing and sentiment of The Vanishing is often established around intrigue rather than fright. For the purposes of this review, the track titles referred to will reference the 1997 bootleg that long existed on the market as the only album representing the score. As the story unfolds in the opening cue, "Barney's Story," Goldsmith pulls his strings with more of the agonizing effect employed in Basic Instinct, begging the relief of listeners and viewers from the darkly romantic, but equally troubled performances of harmonic ideas. The mechanical theme for the villain in this cue is sparse, but effective in its deceptive innocence. Accentuating the personality of the villain is an interesting inclusion of descending motif (usually only two notes in length) that Goldsmith uses to represent the cries of the character's victim. Later in the score, as the audience and lead character learn of her fate, this motif is transferred from delicate woodwinds to resounding brass. Also accompanying the killer's activities are electronic sound effects that swoosh and echo like distinct predecessors once again to Goldsmith's later Star Trek writing. In "Diane's Fate," the electronics take the spotlight in an almost soft, carnivalesque version of the villain's rhythm until, as the method of her death is really revealed, brass and timpani make their triumphant statement of tragedy. The parallels between the motifs of this score and Goldsmith's later Star Trek entries is unmistakable, and while it is curious to speculate about it in hindsight, the use is still effective. Also foreshadowing the future would be the brutal attacks of timpani in the final two action cues of the score, giving an early taste of what L.A. Confidential would offer a few years later. In between statements of the various themes for The Vanishing are several filler cues, most of which inconsequential in their slight volume and lack of development. Goldsmith does attempt to maintain a sense of movement in even these quiet cues, a constant reminder of the pursuit of the truth.

The most interesting aspect of The Vanishing is the love theme that Goldsmith suggests throughout the score before its major performance at the end. It's no secret that Goldsmith had an affinity for the theme that eventually anchored The Russia House. Its long history in development (rejected from two previous assignments of the late 1980's) allowed the composer time to perfect the jazzy idea for The Russia House, still an emotional powerhouse that ranks among the best (though little-known) efforts of the composer's career. For some reason, Goldsmith apparently had not worked it out of his system as of 1993, for he decided to reprise significant parts of this theme for The Vanishing as well. The theme is introduced in "The Last of Diane," suggesting that it represents the lost love of the main character's haunted past, but it makes another flighty appearance in "A New Life," suggesting that perhaps the character is shedding that anchor at last. Either way, the subject matter mirrors the emotional turmoil of The Russia House and the application of the idea, while understandably startling for any Goldsmith collector to suddenly hear in the middle of this score, suffices in its purpose. By the snazzy final cue of The Vanishing, the audience discovers that the theme is actually for the new relationship developing throughout the film, and as the Americanized version of the story makes a light-hearted pun on the line "No Coffee," the score does a 180-degree turn and revisits the actual jazzy instrumentation of The Russia House as well. The same piano, sax (this time electronic?), bass, and percussion ensemble is utilized once again, though Goldsmith adeptly takes part of the previous theme's progression and accentuates the descending two note motif from this score to match. One could say, therefore, that Goldsmith had the theme for The Russia House in mind when he wrote the "cry for help" motif for the remainder of the work. At any rate, the closing cue is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, likely Goldsmith's method of poking fun at the fact that everyone recognized the upbeat ending to be a cheap Hollywood twist. Still, the use of The Russia House here is a reprise in the spookiest of forms, not only because of the genre of the film, but because it is so strikingly a "self rip-off" that James Horner critics should perk up and take note.

On album, the cue is so fantastically out of place that it could cause one to scratch his head in confusion. After 45 minutes of emotional trauma in the score for The Vanishing, however, "No Coffee" seems like a huge sigh of relief (which was the intent of the last scene of the film). But it certainly detracts from the otherwise strong cohesion of the rest of the score. The thriller material is an interesting study for Goldsmith collectors; the foreshadowing of ideas in subsequent scores is plentiful, and The Vanishing proves to have been a fertile testing ground of ideas for the composer. Still, for the sake of listenability, the last cue will overshadow the rest of the effort due to its flashy theme and performance. For the many die-hard fans of The Russia House, it's a treat not to be missed. The history of The Vanishing on album was long dominated by a strong 49-minute bootleg available on the collector's market as of 1997. Illustrious fans of the composer pressed the bootleg and passed it off as a promotional endeavor; under the "Pony Express" label, this bootleg offers all you'll want from the score and does so with excellent sound quality. Many years later, the Varèse Sarabande label twice paid tribute to the score. First, twenty minutes of the most pertinent material from the score appeared at the end of the massive 6-CD "Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox" set of 2004. Then, in 2007, the complete 65-minute score was remixed from the original masters and released as an entry in the label's Club series (though at 3,000 copies, it didn't sell out quickly like their other limited titles). Unfortunately, while the 2007 album is complete, the extra 16 minutes of music is only basic, suspenseful filler material. Its inclusion actually deadens the listening experience. More problematic is the fact that the vibrant, wet sound of the bootleg's presentation (mirroring the composer's late 1990's albums in terms of dynamic mix) has been dulled considerably. The electronics are particularly hindered. Additionally, the insert notes fail to mention any of the obvious connections between this score and Goldsmith's others. With all of this in mind, the 1997 bootleg remains a superior product. Sorry, Varèse, but there's a reason why this one didn't fly off the shelves. Either way, The Vanishing is strongly recommended. It may be derivative and contain ideas developed further in other scores by the composer, but it's a solid guilty pleasure for any Goldsmith collector.

FilmTracks Editorial Review

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Jerry Goldsmith - The Vanishing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1993)

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Jerry Goldsmith - The Vanishing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1993)

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