A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Roman Polanski's Chinatown is probably the best film Jerry Goldsmith has ever scored: Jack Nicholson's iconic central performance as private detective J.J. Gittes is brilliant, Robert Towne's screenplay quite stunning, and of course Goldsmith's score remains one of the most famed ever to come from the composer.  It is nothing short of inspired: his main theme, the now-famous lonely trumpet solo, is absolutely perfect.

The remainder of the score is a set of largely avante-garde variations of this theme, some of which are quite brilliant. The shimmering strings that accomapany the end of "Jake and Evelyn" are stunning.  The more traditionally jazzy opening of "The Last of Ida" is eventually replaced by a piece of extraordinary magnitude and complexity, the impressionistic, piano-dominated action stylings of which could easily have come out of Planet of the Apes or The Sand Pebbles. There's the unusual percussion patterns and the tremendous low-end piano work (the composer's signature?) which eventually gives way once more to a brief hint of the main theme. It's one of the best pieces of music Goldsmith has ever written, and so wonderfully indicative of the modern composer lying in wait underneath the more romantic exterior, just waiting to get out and pounce when the time is right.

The main reason that film music was so much better in the old days than it is today is an issue of time: there are only something like 25 minutes of score in Chinatown, which means each of them has so much more impact than all those modern scores that last 90 minutes (or, frequently, even longer). Even when old films demanded longer scores, such as Spartacus or Ben-Hur, the composer was given longer to write them: in each of those cases, the respective composer had over a year to write his score!  There's a lesson to be learnt there, somewhere.  (I suspect, however, that it's too late for directors and producers to learn it now!)  This economy of scale is brilliant in Chinatown - each piece, as a result, has a specific and unique identity of its own, and has all the more impact in the film as a result.  The magnificent closing shot of the film is made even better through the melancholy tones of Goldsmith's love theme, but had the composer hit the viewer over the head with the melody through the entire film then the impact would be severely diminished.

On a more specific note, though, Chinatown is a tremendous achievement, even by Goldsmith's standards, and must rank as one of the quintessential soundtrack albums of all time (complete, as it is, with various timeless jazz standards).

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Tracks

1. Main Title (1:59)
2. Noah Cross (2:27)
3. Easy Living (1:49)
4. Jake and Evelyn (2:41)
5. I Can't Get Started (3:35)
6. The Last of Ida (2:59)
7. The Captive (3:05)
8. The Boy on a Horse (2:05)
9. The Way You Look Tonight (2:16)
10. The Wrong Clue (2:32)
11. J.J. Gittes (3:05)
12. End Title (2:03)