The Edge: Goldsmith Phase 4?

by Doug Adams

As a movie, The Edge seems to be David Mamet's '90s riff on male bonding. Men go out into the forest, men go primitive, animals are killed, friendships are formed. However while Mamet staples like the double-cross are still present, this time it's the stout, wealthy Brit who prospers, not the hairy, virile, woman-stealing snake. It's Call of the Weenies--and I thought it was good! The film is well paced and intelligently told, if slightly predictable. At first I was annoyed that we didn't know much about the characters before they were thrust into the extenuating circumstances--i.e. we wouldn't care if they lived or died anyway. But I think the point was that we would learn about them by how they coped and how their modus operandi changed over the course of time. Not only was this a great way to illustrate character (it's the plot as a foil), but this way we can get into the thick of things so much quicker. I mean, how portentous is a fashion photo-shoot anyway? If you're doing a movie about survival in the wilderness, get them out of the cabin as quick as you can.

Jerry Goldsmith's score is hands-down great. I've been very vocal in the past about how Goldsmith has changed, and how, even though I respect his decision to alter his style, I prefer his older work. After LA Confidential and now The Edge, I wonder if Goldsmith has officially entered stage four of his musical career. I don't think he's ever balanced his 20th Century side with his Romantic side as well as he has been recently. The Edge has another sweeping, emotional theme at its heart, but it stays back and doesn't try to over-sell itself. It's a drifting minor tune that's gentle, dreamy, grand and ominous all in one stroke. There's some real musical meat on these emotional bones, too. Strings and woodwinds toy with repeating thirds in the background adding just enough motion to the melody line so that it doesn't sound like it's suffering from the same wholenote chords that crippled The Ghost and the Darkness. It's a great theme for the film as well, because it never apes the whole "going native" side of the story. Can you imagine how overdone the nature scenes would have felt with throbbing drums? Nature is an enigma in this story, and it's a grand as it is deadly. Goldsmith doesn't need to characterize it as a sentient entity because it's all things at all times--provider and killer in one. He uses both his distant melody and some more violent ideas, but neither goes over the top in either direction. And the score is all the more effective for refusing to jar us in some comfortably predictable way.

Bart the Bear

Also present is one of Goldsmith's so-obvious-it's-brilliant motifs which represents the story's killer bear. (It's the sound produced when several trombones slide a dissonant cluster downwards while removing straight mutes--I think.) Wisely, there is an exposition/explanation of this theme early in the film when Alec Baldwin throws a bear-skin rug over himself in a gag to surprise Anthony Hopkins at a birthday party. It's like the Jaws theme where the threat is set up before it's realized. Later in The Edge, when we actually see the bear, we hear this motif again. It conjures the same animalistic sense of danger because we have already learned to feel uncomfortable when this sound is around.

Some of the best spotting of the film happens during one of the bear scenes. Hopkins and Baldwin have decided to kill the bear and are in the process of luring it to its death. They stand silently in the forest waiting for the bear to arrive and the music takes the form of long, slow, dissonant string chords. They come in a steady rhythm without growing or fading... and then they stop. Now, in film language, what does this mean? A steady pattern is made then broken means something has got to occur, right? Wrong, we pause for a few seconds, then the pattern begins again. And it stops again, and it begins again. This might seem elementary and silly, but it is just brilliant in the film. Every time the music stops we wait for something to happen; it's such an ingrained equation in our minds--something always comes along to fill the silence. There is an effective scene in Jurassic Park where a Raptor jumps out behind Laura Dern and scares us all, but if you're paying attention, you know it's going to happen. The camera is zooming in rapidly, the music is building, and the dinosaur jumps out. It's a little scary, but it's mainly just fun because you're expecting to be scared. It's a true rollercoaster where you're making a bargain with the film to let it thrill you. But, The Edge is more grown up than that, and it doesn't want to feel so easily packaged and palmed. Sure it's a forgone conclusion that the bear will eventually show up in this scene. The only question is when, and Jerry Goldsmith won't tell us. It's like he continually takes a breath to say "now," then doesn't speak. By the time the bear does show up, he's almost cried wolf so many times that we're actually surprised. It's not unlike the climatic scene of LA Confidential which we looked at a few weeks back. (Incidentally, he does the same thing again with the climax of The Edge--he refuses to build to it in a set, comfortable way.) He's dancing around with cinema's usual cadences, and it makes things completely come alive for the audience.

Polytonality

There's still more musical interest to be found in a three chord piano motif used extensively in the film. Goldsmith seems to have a new interest in polytonal or quasi polytonal harmonies. (Polytonal harmonies are, in their simplest form, different chords played at the same time.) Ignoring the fact that these chords can be really interesting to listen to, they seem to serve a very important structural function to these scores. There is material in The Edge that is strictly tonal and there is material that is strictly atonal. Polytonal chords are neither, or both, depending on how you look at it. In this score, they act as a part of the score that is related to both the tonal and atonal so we never feel like he's pushing "now nature is good" or "now nature is bad" buttons. It's a dramatic and musical continuum which is constantly shifting its weight.

I don't think this is the best score I've heard this year, but it's certainly among the best. More importantly, I think, is that it's some of the best Goldsmith I've heard for a long time. Many fans disagree with me, but I just haven't been able to enjoy his bigger scores of late which seem to sacrifice mentality for emotion. Here he strikes the perfect balance. If he can keep this streak going, boy are we in for some great scores.

See you next time!

Homer, the e-mail goes here: Doug@filmscoremonthly.com