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Artwork copyright (c) 1994 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
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2004 James Southall
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SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION Brilliant
but exceptionally short score for intelligent drama A review by JAMES SOUTHALL A refreshingly original film that isn't afraid to actually
require an intelligent audience (wow, there's a concept), Fred Schepisi's
brilliant Six Degrees of Separation, based on John Guare's play, stars
the eclectic cast of Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Donald Sutherland and Ian
McKellen, and sees a young black man arriving on the doorstep of a rich New York
couple, professing to be a friend of their children, not to mention being the
son of Sidney Poitier, and they give him a place to stay but gradually begin to
unravel that his true story is far from what he proclaimed it to be. The
movie features some brilliant performances (including by far Smith's best -
though whether that's saying so much, I'm not sure), though possibly doesn't
work quite so well on the big screen as it did on the stage. Schepisi turned to frequent collaborator Jerry Goldsmith for
the music. Schepisi's movies have virtually all attracted Goldsmith scores
of interest, though none is particularly spectacular. Intriguingly,
Schepisi doesn't use temp-tracks and essentially lets Goldsmith just get on with
his thing; unfortunately he hasn't yet made a movie which the composer has
scored that let him really go out on a limb and write something outrageous, but Six
Degrees of Separation is an original and refreshing score. Goldsmith bases it around a brilliant tango as his main
theme. Unfortunately, that is essentially it - aside from two minutes of
tango at the beginning and five minutes of tango at the end, Goldsmith's score
consists of very brief vignettes (mostly under a minute) which generally offer
variations on the main theme. It gets a funky jazz arrangement in
"Safe Trip" and a gorgeous violin solo version in "The
Kiss"; but even taken together, those two tracks run for barely 90
seconds. Things turn more sombre in "No Heart" (the 18th cue;
confusingly, the finale has the same title, though the music isn't similar), a
lovely and touching piece, the only one to particularly stand out aside from the
opening and closing numbers. Because Goldsmith's score is so short - less than fifteen
minutes, in its entirety - the album is padded out with various other stuff: a
piece of Cole Porter, an original jazz piece by Australian film composer Paul
Grabowsky, a Debussy quartet and lots of dialogue, which is amusing and sharp,
but not the sort of thing you will want to listen to with any frequency. I
would say that the finale piece is outstanding enough to make this a recommended
release for Goldsmith fans - at least, until it finds its way onto a compilation
- if you don't go in expecting any more than one truly outstanding piece and
several other appealing, but inconsequential vignettes and you're unlikely to be
disappointed. Tracks
*Dialogue |