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| Goldsmith |
Mulan: (Jerry Goldsmith/Matthew Wilder) With the
freshly minted Pixar creeping up behind them and the glory days of their
collaboration with composer Alen Menken concluding with a foul note for
Hercules in 1997, Disney revisited the formula that gave them
success with
The Lion King. Putting Menken on ice until a failed
attempt to resurrect his success in 2004's
Home on the Range,
Disney decided to approach a mainstream composer with whom the film
could be scored with more serious music than Menken tended to provide.
For the songs, Disney solicited the Broadway sound from Matthew Wilder
and a touch of
The Joy Luck Club sound from Rachel Portman, whose
Oscar-won popularity was at its height. Because of Portman's pregnancy
early in the process, however, Disney made an odd, but rewarding call to
veteran Jerry Goldsmith, who had not scored an animated film since
The Secret of N.I.M.H. in the early 1980's. He would provide an
ethnically heroic and heart-pounding adventure score, rich with its own
themes and creative use of percussion and synthetics. Perhaps the most
noteworthy aspect of
Mulan from the perspective of a Disney
collector is the complete disconnect between the themes of the songs and
those of the score. While Goldsmith recorded a suite of music that
combined a few of the song themes with his own, the actual underscore is
completely unrelated to Wilder's tunes. Those songs are decent at best,
generally considered functional if not unnecessary. Unlike the
unbelievably bizarre gospel approach that Disney chose to take with the
Greek themes in
Hercules,
Mulan's songs are appropriately
dramatic and contain elements of Chinese influence in their
instrumentation. Gone is the traditional prologue song, which will be a
disappointment for some, and the commercial album therefore starts
directly in with one of the film's weaker songs at its opening. The
quantity has also shifted, with only five songs appearing in the film
and none of them receiving the normal reprise that these musicals
typically offer.
Especially when compared to Goldsmith's score, the Wilder
songs are easily an afterthought in
Mulan. But they are generally
listenable; the employment of percussion and woodwinds in the songs are
vital in portraying the Chinese setting, and the showtunes style of
simplistic thematic progressions will appeal to the kids. At the
forefront, "Reflection" is almost a mirror of the hero's song in
Hercules (especially when you strip away the ethnic
instrumentation), but it's performed here with better texture and
sincerity, losing that sappy and now-corny Menken sound. The pop version
of this song at the end is almost identical to the original in-film
version, but with the usual electronically boosted base and synthetic
chimes. "I'll Make a Man Out of You" breaks up the slower pace of the
songs with a jazzy touch, though the comical piece performed by Harvey
Fierstein ("A Girl Worth Fighting For") proves that people with annoying
speaking voices don't sound any better when they sing. On the other
hand, there are no wildly unrestrained comedy numbers in
Mulan,
and the lack of completely ridiculous dancing numbers performed by
gargoyles, muses, etc, is welcomed. The only unforgivable blunder in the
songs of
Mulan is the Stevie Wonder performance of "True to Your
Heart," a totally unnecessary rock piece that has no business in context
with the other material. As a pure marketing and selling technique by
Disney, the inclusion of such trash is very unfortunate. As previously
mentioned, there is a disconnect between the songs and score. Two of the
songs are prominently adapted by Goldsmith into his 7-minute suite of
music from the film, along with the introduction of his own three
primary ideas. Not often do the Disney albums feature sparkling, fully
orchestral versions of its songs, but Goldsmith works wonders with
Wilder's material for this short amount of time. One of the lingering
debates about Goldsmith's career involves what would have happened if
Disney had hired him to also write his own songs for one of their
musicals. That one will never be answered.
Even if Wilder's songs are only adequate, Goldsmith's
score is superb. He pours on the symphonic power, creative percussion,
and electronic accompaniment for one of the most dramatically engaging
scores of the final years of his career. Prominently bold throughout the
film, the score is epic in scope and thematic development. His theme for
the title character is an elegantly rising and falling seven-note
structure easily identifiable in any situation. A love theme with a
momentous performance at the end of the suite is rich with references to
other Goldsmith scores. And a third, battle motif accompanies the
numerous action sequences in the score. The theme for
Mulan is
remarkably simplistic but effective, receiving a controversial and
defiant expression in the scene in which Mulan cuts her hair and goes to
war. Often performed by bold mid-range brass, this theme is the glue
holding the score together, and the variants with which Goldsmith
expands upon it for extended performances are all enjoyable. The love
theme is more sparsely heard, though it makes a grand impact late in the
film, when it is given full choral treatment. It combines the nobility
and drama of the
Air Force One and
Star Trek: First
Contact themes with some of the drum-pounding bravado of
First
Knight, and less enthusiastic Goldsmith listeners may be bothered by
those self-references. Compounding this situation is the use of the
chorus in "The Pendant," which seems quite similar in tone and
progression to Goldsmith's popular conclusion to
Rudy. The battle
music extends the use of brass and timpani to the same levels that shook
the floors in the battle sequences for
First Knight (and they
foreshadow several parts of
The 13th Warrior). Lighter moments
are equally intelligent with delightful trumpet work at the outset of
"The Master Plan" and a fantastic mix of high metallic percussion and
synthetic tingling in "Bogus Letter." Goldsmith's synthesized sounds
return to the days of
Legend, though they serve as better
accompaniment here in a secondary role.
Overall, Goldsmith's return to the genre of animation put
Menken's music to shame at the time, and the score has aged well. Long
after Wilder's songs have been forgotten, the massive orchestral score
by Goldsmith sets this 1990's Disney musical apart from the rest. After
starting 1998 with two generally poor scores, his music for
Mulan
could have been mistaken for a dramatic epic, and that alone is the best
compliment anyone could give to any Disney musical's score. While most
film music collectors predicted an easy Oscar win for Goldsmith (only
his second overall), he was beaten by Stephen Warbeck's
Shakespeare
in Love as it swept through the awards. Sadly,
Mulan would be
Goldsmith's final Oscar nomination before his death in 2004. Also
enormously frustrating for fans of the composer was the album situation
for
Mulan, a situation that remains confusing at best. Goldsmith
wrote just over 50 minutes of score for
Mulan, a lengthy effort
for a Disney musical, but that material was cut an rearranged badly for
the commercial albums. When subtracting the seven minute suite arranged
for the album, only 25+ minutes of actual underscore from the film was
present on the American album release. That material was also badly cut
into pieces and placed together to form mini-suites of each type of
music for the film, meaning that the music heard in "Attack at the Wall"
or "The Huns Attack" will include material not relating to those scenes.
The international commercial release of
Mulan (mainly sold in
Europe) contained an extra five minutes of material, including the most
notable omission of score --albeit short-- from the American album. The
minute-long "Haircut" cue was the most troubling for Goldsmith and the
filmmakers to agree upon, and with several variants of the cue recorded,
this album provides one of the variants (along with "Mulan's Decision,"
which is the same cue but without the rock rhythm and instrumentation).
The other addition to the international album was the inclusion of yet
another vocal performance the Wilder song "Reflection."
As you might expect, Goldsmith fans were not pleased
with either of these albums. To both the delight and frustration of
Goldsmith fans, a promotional release of
Mulan was officially
pressed by Disney Records and sent to Academy members in early 1999 for
their consideration in the voting for Best Original Comedy/Musical Score
nominees. Only a limited number of these were pressed, and an original
copy has always been difficult to obtain; it is noteworthy as well for
containing only a picture disc and no front cover to the jewel case
(tracks are listed with limited information on the back). Goldsmith
himself had no involvement with this promo. It contains the full 52
minutes of his score, minus the suite arrangement presented on the
commercial releases, as well as the six songs that actually appear in
the film. As a faithful representation of the music in the film, the
promo is superior in the fact that it is unadulterated. Cues are
understandably short and will jar some listeners accustomed to the
suites of score cues on the commercial albums. Because the promo came
directly from Disney, the sound quality is crisp and bold. For the
majority of people familiar with only the commercial products, the most
important additions on the promo (outside of "Short Hair," which you may
have already heard if you bought a non-American product) will be the
final three tracks, which include the choral climax of the score (the
only section to contain any exclusive choral work in
Mulan). Also
more evident on the promo will be some of the lighter percussive
sequences and solo woodwind performances likely deemed too uninteresting
for the commercial products. On the other hand, the promo's major
weakness was that it did not contain that 7-minute suite that Goldsmith
recorded for the commercial CDs. Because that suite contains some of the
best recorded music from the film (and forms the bridge between the
score and songs), fans of the film will be best served by seeking both
the commercial and promo albums.
The only difference in presentation quality between the
various albums relates to the end credits pop song. Aguilera's
performance seems to be mixed more poorly on the commercial product,
with better balance at the end of the promo. Score fans shouldn't fuss
about this difference, though. The promo was perhaps the last great
collectible before the era of CDr's began making bootlegging an easy
endeavor. The frustration regarding that promo often related to its
market price. When it began floating in auctions and at specialty
outlets, it fetched prices in the range of $150. By April, 1999,
however, the promo was selling at online auctions for sums around $400,
eclipsing the prices paid for any other Academy promo at the time (in
fact, it was speculated that a price that high would never again be paid
for an Academy promo given the debut of CDr's). The score probably
wasn't worth that amount of money regardless of its strengths, and
popular Academy promos have since regularly sold in the $50 range. Fans,
of course, took it upon themselves to solve some of their own problems
by once again rearranging the music into a Goldsmith-only product. In
the following years, a bootleg claiming to be promotional emerged, and
this product dumped the Wilder songs completely, arranged the score back
into some of Goldsmith's formats for the commercial albums, and tacked
on eight alternate recordings of various cues at the end. The sound
quality of this product is once again very good, though the alternate
performances are really the only reason to seek this bootleg. The most
significant hype here surrounds the three overall performances of the
cue played when Mulan cuts her hair. Alternately titled "Mulan's
Decision," "Haircut," and "Short Hair," you can hear Goldsmith
struggling with this cue to find the right sound of "coolness" for the
scene of defiance. The bootleg contains the variants heard in the film
and on commercial album, as well as another performance that exists in
between them in their electronic emphasis. The majority of listeners
won't be blown away by the alternate takes (much like the
Star Trek:
First Contact bootleg albums), and most will even be satisfied by
the commercial albums. If you appreciate the film's version of the
haircut sequence and the two primary choral performances at the end,
though, the original promo will suffice. Joel McNeely's fine score for
the straight-to-video
Mulan II would include none of Goldsmith's
thematic material.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Score: *****
- Songs: ***
- Commercial Albums: ****
- Promotional Album: ****
- Bootleg Albums: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 114 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.32
(in 146,527 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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