Over the weekend my wife and I watched Meet Joe Black starring Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, and Claire Florlani. The 1998 movie is somewhat of a remake of Death Takes a Holiday. As movies go it is touching. Death incarnated in a borrowed body (Brad Pitt) falls in love with Susan Parrish (Claire Florlani) while trying to learn a few things about success and ethics from Susan's father, Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) who is his next intended victim. I enjoyed the movie. It has a few moral lessons and Anthony Hopkins is always fascinating. Claire Florlani is not hard to look at and gives a good performance, and I even warmed up Brad Pitt. But the thing I really enjoyed about the movie was the music. So I ordered the sound track off of Amazon...got it tonight (along with my nordic walking poles--thank you Old Baguette...I think these will get me off my can and get moving again).
I love the music even more with out the distraction of the movie. Thomas Newman's sweeping orchestral work is simply phenomenal. His use of the deeper strings (cellos and bass viol) puts me in mind of Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony. I have been listening to this CD endlessly this evening and I must confess to several bouts of tears.
I would like to share some of this music with you. Here is Whisper Of a Thrill on You Tube.
Whisper Of A Thrill
I hope you enjoy the ethereal quality of this piece as much as I do. The quiet clarinet rises into a rather large sweep of strings that suddenly turns into a powerful mystical tinkling and then returns to the soft clarinet, as the tears stream down my face...a romantic fool? Perhaps, or maybe a fool who through the poignant beauty of this music got an ever so tiny glimpse through the veil.
Searching You Tube for "Meet Joe Black" will yield a nice selection of music from the movie as well as some of Newman's other works. I especially liked one titled Cathedral.
Below is the trailer for Meet Joe Black
Watch The Trailer
Here is an article from Wikipedia, Meet Joe Black.
Amazon, CD and DVD
The soundtrack Amazon, CD of Meet Joe Black, The Original Soundtrack
Note, in some of the comments on Amazon there are complaints that not all of the music from the movies was included on the CD.
The movie is a better deal, but if I could only buy one I would get the soundtrack which I may listen to everyday for the rest of my life. Oh that is not a invitation Joe!
The movie Amazon, DVD of the Movie, Meet Joe Black
Image Credit:
Wikipedia, Movie Poster, Meet Joe Black
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