COP LAND

HOWARD SHORE

Rating:

Original Review: Personally, I find Howard Shore to be an intensely frustrating composer. The man obviously has talent in abundance and, in his time, has composed some marvellous scores, most notably for director David Cronenberg. However much he is lauded by the critical masses, though, his music has never connected with me on any kind of level. Take Cop Land for instance. The film itself gained plaudits for Sylvester Stallone's brave performance as an overweight, hearing-impaired sheriff taking on crooked big city police officers Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel who live in his small jurisdiction. Similarly, Shore's atonal and difficult score was praised by all and sundry for being experimental, unusual and brilliant. I can only wonder whether the rest of the world is listening to the same score as me.

The main title, 'All Dressed Up In Blue', actually starts out quite promisingly, with soft, low strings and unusually quiet bagpipes humming in the background. The bagpipes alternate with synthesised moaning and a subdued trumpet for the rest of the cue's four minute running time before fading into nothingness. The second cue, 'Garrison NJ', also starts with a wandering bagpipe before segueing into the score's one and only theme: a repeated four-note trumpet motif which is heard over a monotonous synthesised drone. If you are a fan of themes, I suggest you switch off there, because from that point on the music just gets bleaker and more dissonant as it progresses.

In amongst all the droning synthesisers and rumbling orchestral noises, there are some things which - occasionally - make the listener sit up and take notice. There is the faintest hint of a melody in 'Local Boy Saves Drowning Teen', a decent timpani rhythm in 'Mashed Potatoes Don't Mean Gravy', a touch of the melancholy and the melodramatic in 'The Sheriff of Cop Land', the briefest hopeful brass line half way into 'The Diagonal Rule' and - finally - a tentatively bright trumpet theme during the first half of 'Across the River'. 'Without Looking At The Cards', the cue for the film's bloody finale, vibrates in a cacophony of bagpipes, trumpets, percussion and sound effects which, admittedly, have the desired effect of making the listener feel distinctly uneasy, before returning to a brief, hesitant rendition of the main theme. For the most part, though, it seems as though Shore simply let the orchestra just do what it wanted for an hour. Obviously, I know this is not the case. A composer of Shore's calibre will have planned every note, every movement, and every nuance in every cue. But, however much I appreciate the score, I cannot bring myself to like it in any way, shape or form.

Never in my life have I heard a piece of music that obviously has had so much work, so much time and much effort invested in it, but still ended up a themeless, passionless void. I like themes. I like music that has a natural beauty that envelops and overwhelms you. Heck, I even like dissonance if there is something to counterbalance it. Cop Land has none of these things, except for the dissonance and one, solitary motif. It is one of the most dispiriting film scores I have listened to in a long, long time.

Track Listing: Running Time: 40 minutes 44 seconds

Milan 74321-53128-2 (1997)

Music composed and conducted by Howard Shore. Performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra. Orchestrations by Howard Shore. Recorded and mixed by John Kurlander. Edited by David Carbonara and Nicole Ruffine. Mastered by Joe Palmaccio. Album produced by Howard Shore.


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These web pages were designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton copyright 1998. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those of my employer, the Trent Institute for Health Services Research, or those of the University of Sheffield.