RUDY

JERRY GOLDSMITH

Rating:

Original Review: One of the most entertaining and popular Jerry Goldsmith scores of recent years, Rudy is a piece of music which completely captures the attention of the listener through the performance of a series of simple, attractive melodies, and a whole load of good old-fashioned sentimentality.

Directed by David Anspaugh and written by Angelo Pizzi (who also collaborated on Hoosiers), the film tells the true story of Rudy Ruettinger, a working class Irish boy with little academic or athletic prowess, who fulfilled his dream of playing top flight college football despite having to overcome many enormous setbacks. While the complexities of the American college football system bypassed many British viewers (the film was released straight to video in the UK), the sincere performances by Ned Beatty, Robert Prosky, Charles S. Dutton, and especially Sean Astin as Rudy himself, made it a generally entertaining, if somewhat puzzling film. I never have quite understood why North Americans get so worked up about school sports. When I played for my local football team, we were lucky to have a crowd of more than a dozen people in attendance, and even then most of them were the players' parents... But I digress.

Unlike Goldsmith's previous score for Hoosiers, Rudy is completely based in the acoustic domain, with no input from synthesised or electronic music whatsoever. In an attempt to capture Rudy's Gaelic roots, Goldsmith opens the score with a gorgeous, lilting theme for woodwinds and then a massive orchestra and choir, which is based in part on an old Irish folk tune. Later recapitulations, in cues such as 'To Notre Dame', 'The Plaque' and unashamedly joyous 'The Final Game' give the album a wonderfully spine-tingling quality. The second theme, a gently propulsive Ghost and the Darkness-style woodwind jig, is introduced in 'Waiting', but later becomes an unstoppable driving force in tracks such as 'Tryouts' and 'Take Us Out', where the music takes on a definite inspirational quality - music to score touchdowns by.

In addition, some of the softer moments in 'A Start', 'To Notre Dame' and 'The Key' occasionally remind me of Alan Silvestri's music from Forrest Gump and Goldsmith's own Powder, both in terms of orchestration (soothing oboes, feathery strings, high end pianos) and in the fact that they seem to evoke feelings of nostalgia, hope and triumph over adversity.

On the whole, this is the kind of score generally adored by the soundtrack buying public; it has a simplicity and beauty that few composers can achieve, and two or three sumptuous melodies which rise above the film and take on a life of their own. I love Goldsmith's big, passionate style of scoring: as Rudy himself puts it in the liner notes of the CD, Goldsmith completely understood the spirit of the movie, and his music stands up as a winner in its own right.

Track Listing: Running Time: 36 minutes 50 seconds

Varèse Sarabande VSD-5446 (1993)

Music composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. Orchestrations by Alexander Courage and Arthur Morton. Recorded and mixed by Bruce Botnick. Edited by Ken Hall. Album produced by Jerry Goldsmith.


Home Page | Reviews A-M | Reviews N-Z | Composers | Links

Movie Music U.K is designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton (c) 1999. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those the University of Sheffield. All photos and album artwork used on Movie Music U.K. are only for the non-profit making promotional purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.