October 7, 2022
Varese Sarabande Announces A Pair of Alan Silvestri Deluxe CD Soundtracks
From the storied collaboration of Robert Zemeckis and Alan Silvestri (BACK TO THE FUTURE, FORREST GUMP, CONTACT, THE POLAR EXPRESS) comes the devilishly fun 1992 horror–comedy score, DEATH BECOMES HER. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn star as a feuding movie star and novelist, (with Bruce Willis caught in the middle as a plastic surgeon), as a miracle potion offering eternal youth goes off the rails: it continues to work even after death, allowing for ghoulish and groundbreaking visual effects as the characters try to maintain appearances despite their bodies being hopelessly mutilated.
Alan Silvestri’s score captures, as always, a perfect sense of the film’s tone: grand yet wry, large-scale and symphonic for the supernatural drama, but with a lighthearted touch of the macabre. Particularly noteworthy is a Devilish fiddle for the Faustian bargain the characters make with immortality. “I always loved this idea,” says Silvestri in a new interview with Al Kaplan for this release, “while the world is unraveling, the Devil is just quietly sitting on a wine barrel or some such thing and just kinda fiddling along while everybody just shows up. There was something about the greed, all of these human qualities, the vanity…and the idea that, ‘Ah, the Devil’s just sitting there. He’s got nothing but time.’”
DEATH BECOMES HER was released by Varèse Sarabande in a 16-track, 35-minute album at the time of the film. This Deluxe Edition CD expands the program to 27 tracks and over 51 minutes, with new liner notes by Al Kaplan. Limited to 2000 copies.
Also coming soon is LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER—THE CRADLE OF LIFE (2003), the second of two action-adventure movies starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, the protagonist of the popular Tomb Raider (1996) videogame series. Brilliant, resourceful and athletic, Lara Croft is a modern, female Indiana Jones who battles evil in a globetrotting quest for antiquities. The Cradle of Life was directed by Jan de Bont (SPEED, TWISTER)—his last directorial effort to date—and costarred Gerard Butler (as Croft’s old flame) and Ciarán Hinds (as the villain) in a search for the mythical Pandora’s Box.
Scoring the sequel was Alan Silvestri, hired by producer Lawrence Gordon (PREDATOR) to compose a last-minute replacement score. Given competing mandates of traditional/symphonic (by de Bont) and contemporary/rhythmic (by the studio), Silvestri fused both concepts into an expansive, pulse-pounding and dynamic score for the film’s world-spanning adventure. As always with Silvestri, he doesn’t just capture the film’s action and settings, but its emotions. THE CRADLE OF LIFE was released by Varèse Sarabande in an hour-long program at the time of the film. This Deluxe Edition expands the program to 94 minutes across two discs, featuring the glorious Silvestri symphonic approach that has been a hit from BACK TO THE FUTURE to THE AVENGERS. Liner notes by Tim Greiving include new comments by Silvestri, de Bont and scoring mixer Dennis Sands. Limited to 2000 copies
DEATH BECOMES HER is available now; CRADLE OF LIFE is expected to ship by October 28, 2022. For details see Varese Sarabande.
