Keeping The Faith
 |
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Lable (Release Year): Hollywood Records (2000) Availability: **** Rating: **1/2 |
|
Elmer Bernstein, one of the few great composers left from the "Golden Age", seems to score the most random genre of films in recent years. His recent projects include family drama (The Deep End of the Ocean), court room drama (The Rainmaker), sci-fi/action/western (Wild Wild West), and gangsters (Hoodlum). His latest effort is being for Edward Norton's comedy Keeping The Faith. Be honest with you, when the movie came out, I did not really bother to check who scored the film. First of all, I did not really think the movie will have a score. Second, even if there is a score, I thought the soundtrack album would be a song compilation anyway. May be with one or two score tracks if lucky. So when I find out Keeping The Faith is scored by Elmer Bernstein and the soundtrack actually has more than 20 minutes of his score, I was really amazed. The score is quite generic. It is a typical light and charming score that anyone can expect out from a light comedy. The music is mostly cheerful and relaxing small group jazz with mostly piano solos and the string section kicks in occasionally. "It's Love" and "All's Well" are the only two tracks that are performed by a full orchestra. That makes me wonder; Did they get a full orchestra just to perform that 5 minutes of music or there are more orchestral music in the film? Anyway, "Main Title", not used in the film, has a Marc Shaiman type charming theme that is played three times as a piano, string, and jazz version. The theme is used briefly in the score. It can be heard fully again only in "It's Love" and "All's Well". The extra track is a jazz version of the theme. Keeping The Faith is a nice album to have. However, you are not missing anything if you don't have it. The score is nice but it just does not give you enough. Unless you are a hardcore Elmer Bernstein fan, otherwise look for something else. Nonetheless, we should give Hollywood Records credits just for the fact that they made this score available to us. | |
| |