CITY HALL

JERRY GOLDSMITH

Rating:

Original Review: When Jerry Goldsmith scores a "gritty urban drama", the end result is more often than not rather dour and downbeat music that functions simply as dramatic weight and tension-enhancement, with little emotional significance. City Hall, his second assignment for director Harold Becker after Malice, is therefore a welcome surprise in that it weaves several attractive themes into a web of incessantly pounding percussion. In my opinion, it is the most enjoyable instalment in the series of similar scores that includes Chinatown and L.A. Confidential.

City Hall is a tale of high-level corruption and scandal in New York, and stars John Cusack as an idealistic public official who, after a shoot-out between a cop and a drug dealer leads to the death of a small child, finds himself questioning his morality and his loyalty to mayor Al Pacino. With superb supporting performances from Martin Landau, Bridget Fonda and David Paymer, City Hall turns out to be an interesting and intelligent thriller which asks several probing questions aimed deep into the heart of American politics, but which emerges with no clear-cut answers, leaving the viewer to make their own decisions about the rights and wrongs of the situation.

Timpanis are the instruments of choice throughout much of City Hall's music, acting as an urgent rhythmic heartbeat for the city, binding together many the cues and making them sound like a cohesive whole. In several tracks, the powerful percussive drive is almost overpowering - in 'The Meet' especially, the drums and strings seem to be engaging in some bizarre form of musical combat to see which section can sound the most impressive. Others, such as the opening 'The Bridge' and the synth-enhanced 'Old Friends' are full of similar throbbing urgency, but are tempered and softened by the incorporation of some of the film's recurring themes in counterpoint.

The themes weave their way into the melodic structure of many cues, and the main melody itself is a melancholy, introspective piece performed alternately by oboes, strings and brasses, parts of which may stir dormant memories of the 1970s in British listeners as it bears an uncanny resemblance to the theme from the old Cadbury's Milk Tray chocolate commercials. It appears in virtually every cue in some form or another, but most noticeably in 'Swartz Is Dead', 'Think About It' and 'The Report'. Others, such as 'The Hospital' and 'When I Was A Kid', are gentle and poignant, while 'The King Maker' features some wonderfully arrogant, braggadocio low-end piano blues. Despite the rather more lyrical nature of the finale, 'Take A Vacation' and 'Count On It', the music still retains the undulating timpani waves that dominated the first half of the album, albeit much less severely. It's almost as if the music is saying that, although this particular political hot potato has been cooled, there's another one bubbling away, ready to scald anyone unwise enough to get too close.

I like the music from City Hall very much. Although it is generally subdued in nature, the three or four cues of overwhelming percussive power alone make the album a worthwhile purchase. Admittedly, the short running length may be a dissuading factor for many score fans but, in the case of this score, 30 minutes is more than enough. Jerry Goldsmith is a past master of writing great scores for the most unlikely of films, and this is no exception.

Track Listing: Running Time: 30 minutes 14 seconds

Varèse Sarabande VSD-5699 (1996)

Music composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. Orchestrations by Arthur Morton. Recorded and mixed by Bruce Botnick. Album produced by Jerry Goldsmith.


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