From Amazon.co.uk
After writing a string of experimental, melody-rich scores for off-beat films such as
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and
Men Don't Leave (1990), Thomas Newman confirmed his status as the freshest composer of his generation with his music for Robert Altman's
The Player (1992), an unflinching satire of contemporary American studio politics and the occasion for the most ironic, inventively off-beat score ever written. Defying every trend known to Hollywood scoring, including currents in the avant- garde,
The Player is so utterly individual that it could only have been written by one man. Newman's eclectic, groundbreaking score underlines the film's darker scenes in an atmospheric, ambient manner. This disc begins with an unnerving five-note waltz for piano and electronics; incongruous but welcome segues occur between jazz-influenced writing for saxophone and clarinets, percussion textures (most pronounced in a sex scene), followed by tentative keyboard phrases. Score excerpts are separated by dialogue bites, sound effects, samples and even a live piano performance by Jack Lemmon. When Newman segues to a lush arrangement of the nervous waltz motif at the conclusion, the entire Golden Age aesthetic is parodied in a dramatically relevant manner. (The irony is doubled when you consider that the composer's father, Alfred Newman, was a legendary figure in Hollywood's Golden Age.) An unsentimental journey, then, transporting the listener to a dream factory where deals and throats are cut.
--Kevin Mulhall
