![]() ![]() Inserted into all this recurring thematic density are a number of standalone pieces of rock and regional folk music. This South Carolina Love Theme then often combines with a vocal variation on the Mystical theme, soothing and welcoming, in cues like “Chant,” “Voices Across a Lake,” and especially “Stone Walks Alone,” which showcases an especially prominent performance of the South Carolina Love Theme. The third recurring idea is what I’m calling the South Carolina Love Theme, which captures both the developing relationship between Ben and Lou, but also the relationship between Ben and the town itself cues like “Slow Squash Love” feature a bank of pretty strings, and some of the most conventionally romantic textures Burwell has ever written. In cues like “Stones Rounds” and “Meat is Murder” Burwell takes these rhythmic, upbeat African folk music ideas and blends them with a whole host of unusual orchestration featuring lots of percussion, squeezeboxes, a solo fiddle, a pennywhistle, and more, all in unexpected harmony. The other aspect that Burwell explores – using the aforementioned rhythmic elements from South Africa – is sort of a variation on American country music, a mishmash of conventions and musical approaches which somehow still seems to convey the same ideas: the quirky people in Grady, but also the sense of community and family that permeates the place. ![]() “The Lady in the Lake” is the first appearance of the mystical music that represents the sort of imperceptible pull of small town American life, and the spell is casts on Ben once he arrives and is forced to stay in North Carolina Burwell uses a magical, pretty, elegant woodwind theme underpinned with harps and plucked bass to capture this enigmatic allure, and reprises the ideas later in “Down Ten Dollars” and others. The first few cues in the score introduce most of the score’s main recurring ideas. The score doesn’t attempt to sound like country music as we know it, but instead reaches back to the roots from which that music came.” To do this, Burwell crossed rhythmic elements from South Africa with melodic and harmonic concepts from the British Isles and Europe, which were intended to keep music from falling into a saccharine Hollywood cliche. Burwell says that intention when writing the score was “to not only take you out of urban America, but to take you out of time. It was also the first of four films Burwell would do with director Caton-Jones, the others being This Boy’s Life in 1993, Rob Roy in 1995, and The Jackal in 1997. The film is directed by Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones, has a fun supporting cast that includes Barnard Hughes, Woody Harrelson, David Ogden Stiers, and Bridget Fonda, and has a score from an unexpected composer – Carter Burwell.ĭoc Hollywood was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films scored by Carter Burwell that was *not* made by the Coen Brothers, and was certainly the first major romantic comedy score by a composer who had previously been much more well known for the darker shades of scores like Blood Simple, Psycho III, Raising Arizona, and Miller’s Crossing. When the community service is up and Ben is free to head off to California, he finds himself torn between the lucrative career he always wanted, and the unexpected affection he develops for the small town he never intended to visit. Almost against his will, Ben begins to integrate into small-town life, successfully helping several of the locals with medical problems, and beginning a hesitant relationship with Lou (Julie Warner), a pretty ambulance driver. While driving through a small town in rural South Carolina, Ben accidentally crashes his Porsche the local judge sentences Ben to perform community service at the town’s medical clinic, which he does while waiting for his car to be repaired. Fox’s post-Back to the Future popularity, Doc Hollywood sees Fox playing Ben Stone, an aspiring surgeon on his way from Washington DC to Beverly Hills for a job interview with a prestigious clinic. A fun romantic comedy intended to cash in on Michael J. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |