Great Ape

On numerous occasions, I've mentioned my love of composer Jerry Goldsmith in reviewing some of the dozens of films he scored. Many critics have noted the injustice that he won only one Oscar in his long career.

One film that's often pointed to as his best is the original Planet of the Apes. I finally got around to watching the movie about a year ago, and I had to agree, Goldsmith's score was one of the best things about the film. It led to me eventually picking up the soundtrack, so I could enjoy the music on its own.

Planet of the Apes was quite a revolutionary score for its time. Films were typically scored with loud, emotion-laden strings and thunderous brass. Apes turned that on its head by shifting the focus to the percussion section of the orchestra. Inspired by the humanoid primates of the story, the music Goldsmith composed is, well... kind of apeshit. It's unrestrained, tribal, and persistent. Where other scores of the era seem to be telling you how to feel, the Planet of the Apes score is just feeling it on its own; whether you get caught up in feeling anything yourself, it really doesn't give a care.

That's not to say that the music isn't melodic. Quite the opposite. But even as strings and horns weave in and out of the chaos, Goldsmith plays with instruments that are both melodic and percussive at the same time. Pulsing rhythms are pounded out in the bass register of a piano, xylophones punctuate key moments, and pitched wood blocks are scattered throughout. There are also bursts from instruments not normally part of an orchestra, strange and foreign sounds that shouldn't fit, but do perfectly.

I still wouldn't place this score above Star Trek: The Motion Picture, nor the one film for which Goldsmith did receive an Oscar (The Omen). Still, film music enthusiasts are right to call this one of the best scores the composer ever produced. I can't believe all this time, it hasn't been in my collection. I give it an A-.