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  • Essay / History of the concept by Dr. Richard Kimball

    The concept story of Dr. Richard Kimball's attempts to solve his wife's murder while escaping the forces of Deputy Federal Marshal Gerard has been a rich one on television and the big screen. Despite years (if not decades) of production work, the pursuit of the famous fugitive into cinemas in 1993 earned the company critical praise, with the film being nominated for the top prize (among many others) by the 'AMPAS. Despite Harrison Ford's adequate return to the role of "innocent and frightened family man", the best contributor to Andrew Davis' film was Tommy Lee Jones, whose performance as Gerard himself earned him recognition at the Oscars. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned'?Get Original Essay So eclipsing was Jones that the ill-advised sequel to 1998's The Fugitive would center solely on his character, an unsuccessful attempt to win back massive box office success that the previous film had been for Warner Brothers. In the long and illustrious career of composer James Newton Howard, The Fugitive is a score that doesn't rival his best. It was his first mainstream hit score, a sudden venture into large-scale action that initially terrified the composer. The arrangement, recording and original album of The Fugitive were nightmarish procedures full of artist troubles, crashed hard drives, restrictions and editing errors. But because the music was decent enough for a wildly popular film, Howard also received an Oscar nomination for his efforts, and the composer would go on to tackle dozens of projects of similar status in the future. The Fugitive is one of the rare occurrences where a (presumably soon) premier composer receives a nomination for an average score when the vastly superior film could actually have used a superior musical performance (the same phenomenon would often have happened to Howard). later with his nomination for Michael Clayton). Howard's approach to composing The Fugitive involved the fusion of electronic and orchestral elements, as well as the general avoidance of providing music that stood out strongly in the film. Consequently, the themes are rather understated and secondary to the rhythmic devices Howard provides for the chase scenes. The unsettling ambiance and obtuse musical identities are peppered with dark references to the music of the original TV show, and Howard mentioned that the subject of expressly using the previous theme for the concept was unfortunately not addressed . A set of irregular and terribly disjointed rhythms are performed by a modestly sized orchestra and a varied percussion section, augmented by a synthetic layer somewhat common to thrillers of the period (although there was little technology in the history). the orchestral parts of the score, from the staccato action rhythms to the graceful harmonic outro at the end, are a distinct tip of the hat to Jerry Goldsmith. In fact, many of the mannerisms heard in The Fugitive sound like a Goldsmith score for a 1990s B-grade action thriller, and there's perhaps less irony than one might think when recalling that Goldsmith himself was led to compose the suite five years later. The reality of this similarity, however, is that Howard was, like many emerging composers of this era, extremely impressed by Goldsmith's acting styles. With the action material firmly in Goldsmith territory (resembling Capricorn One in moments 1993.