Duration: 14:58

12,196 views

41

This suite is a collaboration between DJReborn1980 and myself... and is a tribute to a great and unforgotten artist: Jerry Goldsmith

So active was Steven Spielberg's imagination in the early 1980's that he couldn't contain himself and release E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist successively. In the process of directing the former and dominating the latter in 1982, he created more controversy with the concurrent projects than necessary. The famed director and producer both created the concept of Poltergeist and managed each of its production elements from start to end. A completely normal family in a suburban house becomes the progressive target of poltergeists associated with the spirits of those in the cemetery that was supposed to have been relocated to accommodate the sub-development. The spirits' revenge eventually includes the kidnapping of the family's youngest daughter and, after her successful rescue, the house is literally sucked into a void and chaos breaks out in the whole neighborhood. For expediency, Spielberg had horror veteran Tobe Hooper direct the film (despite being on set for practically all major shoots) and this decision proved problematic by the time Spielberg was writing public letters in the newspaper trying to convince a skeptical public that Hooper had any input into Poltergeist at all. No matter the extent of his involvement, Poltergeist was a Spielberg film through and through, and with his usual collaborating composer, John Williams, also tied up in early 1982 with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg turned to Jerry Goldsmith for Poltergeist. The director had always been an enormous fan of Goldsmith, though the two would only work together directly on this and Twilight Zone: The Movie shortly thereafter. Goldsmith was a natural choice for the assignment, having won an Academy Award for his memorable horror genre style in The Omen and extending the same menacing tones to its sequels and Alien and Magic, among others. In the larger scope of Goldsmith's career, Poltergeist would mark the culmination of the composer's efforts in producing the most sinister music an orchestra can provide, and while he would revisit the genre very late in his career, he would never achieve the same monumental success. In Poltergeist, Goldsmith brilliantly created a war between the sweetest, most innocent lyricism and the darkest, most treacherous atonality possible. It's a lesson in contrasts so vivid that you can't help but admire its radical swings of mood and the primordial appeals that both ends of the sonic spectrum make to each listener.
The highly effective score would gain Goldsmith another Academy Award nomination, though all of Poltergeist's nominations would understandably lose to E.T.. Outside of the context of the film, the memorability of the score is most often created by the softer elements representing the Freeling family. As the concepts in the story evolve from the blissful suburban lifestyle to the turmoil of "the other side," the score turns progressively more frightful, first in a suspenseful, religious fashion, and eventually in a seemingly unorganized bombast of atonal orchestral strikes representing "the beast."
While showing a bit of a sense of humor from Goldsmith (or Spielberg; the two collaborated so closely on the music for the project that it could be attributed to one or both), the laughing voices at the end are an extremely effective method of ending the score on a sour note without resorting to typical surprise tactics. Other singular elements in the score deserve mentioning. Throughout the recording, and most evident in the latter half of "Rebirth," Goldsmith utilizes the dry slashing of a cymbal in a fashion that almost resembles the passing of an electric shock. As source material, Goldsmith also recorded the Star Spangled Banner to accompany the television stations' conclusion of broadcasting for the night, an integral aspect of the film.
(http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/poltergeist.html)