Bear Mann's video: TunePlay - TERMS OF ENDEARMENT 1983 Michael Gore

For film music aficionados the 1980s was "the best of times, the worst of times". Since EASY RIDER and THE GRADUATE (both of the late 1960s), films throughout the 1970s - where appropriate or not, favored pop songs as underscore while classically oriented composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith found themselves often relegated to smaller, less prestigious theatrical and TV assignments. Bill Conti's ROCKY (1976) and John Williams' STAR WARS (1977) would cause an industry-wide paradigm shift, the glorious and grand "orchestral score" (ironically it too where appropriate or not) making a comeback. But while the films themselves benefited, soundtrack albums of the period didn't always follow suit. Lauded works such as THE GOONIES (by Dave Grusin), THE KARATE KID (Conti), GHOSTBUSTERS (by Bernstein) and others would find 10 out of 12 album tracks occupied by pop songs often "inspired by" but never apppearing within the films themselvesl. A small group - classically trained, but with one foot in the pop / rock world, would for a short time manage to bridge the chasm, creating both popular film TUNES as well as artistically apropos multi-layered cinematic musical accompaniment. Vangelis' CHARIOTS OF FIRE, Moroder's CAT PEOPLE, and Harold Faltermeyer's BEVERLY HILLS COP would be amongst the era's most memorable. But they'd take a backseat to the subtle, romantic and effervescent idealism of Michael Gore's TERMS OF ENDEARMENT ... the music (along with the film) which became a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Based on the 1975 novel by Texas-based THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, LONESOME DOVE author Larry McMurtry, TERMS (a "spin off" with characters from the earlier MOVING ON and ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO BE STRANGERS) poignantly and humorously detailed the 30 + year love/hate relationship between mother Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and daughter Emma (Debra Winger) as they navigate not only their own alternately harrowing and hilarious emotional rollercoaster lives together and apart, but also subdividing into "secondary" narratives involving Emma's topsy-turvy marriage to hapless husband Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) and Aurora's budding romance with middle-aged / former astronaut and womanizer Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). The directorial debut of writer / producer James L. Brooks (co-creator of tv's ROOM 222, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and TAXI), Brooks would cannily seek to smooth the film's many episodic and tonal shifts via a difficult to capture musical "caulk filling" meant to be both pop memorable (whistled on the lips of the audience days after exiting the theater) and at the same time befitting the emotional "dramatis personae" of his characters' three decade familial odyssey. Enter Michael Gore. The younger brother of pop vocalist Lesley Gore (who recorded the 1963 hit "It's My Party" at age 16), Michael would step from beneath big sister's shadow with his double Oscar win for the movie FAME's memorable title song (co-written with Dean Pitchford) as well as it's score. With TERMS OF ENDEARMENT Gore would take an almost TV theme-like "simpler is better" approach for the film's primary thematic motif. While a sparse accompaniment (little over 25 mins. of music in the entire film), Gore would subtly (and deceitfully) compose multi-layers of various "Wagnerian" motifs (listen to "Three Scenes From A Marriage" - as complex as anything by Jarre or Williams at the time), but all carried and connected via the ebullience of the memorable "Theme from TERMS OF ENDEARMENT", which - while likely inspired by the 7/4 meter of Jerry Goldsmith's ROOM 222 main theme (Brooks' earlier TV show), would become a unique voice all it's own: going on to be a smash top 40s radio hit, as well as being linked to figure skater Katlynn McNab, and itself becoming the much imitated musical template for modern romantic comedy scores such as ST. ELMO'S FIRE and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. *note* - Our TunePlay suite from TERMS OF ENDEARMENT is taken from an analog lp source. CEJ 1) Main Title (0:00 of 14:27) 2) Three Scenes From A Marriage (3:06 of 14:27) 3) * DIALOGUE: "Pull Away Slow" - Aurora, Emma, Tom, Flap (5:59 of 14:27) 4) I'll Miss You Momma (6:30 of 14:27) 5) Theme from TERMS OF ENDEARMENT - Radio Vers. (8:31 of 14:27) 6) * DIALOGUE: "My Renoir" - Aurora, Garrett (11:57 of 14:27) 7) This Is My Moment - Aurora / Garrett Love Theme (12:34 of 14:27) For more "TunePlay" mini movie music suites go to http://www.gullcottageonline.com/TunePlay-ClarkeApril_12.html "Bear Mann" is a YouTube channel of The GullCottage/Sandlot, a film blog and growing reference library "Celebrating The Art of Cinema, ... And Cinema As Art" Visit us at: http://www.gullcottageonline.com And on FACEBOOK at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-GullCottageSandlot/129683480458380 All rights held by copyright owner. Presented here for educational and criticism purposes only.