How to Make an American Quilt
Romantic, nostalgic movie about female bounding. A young, bright Berkeley-student returns to her family's roots to spend the last summer before her marriage with her grandmother and her great-aunt. During endless quilting bees, the two women and their friends remember stories from their past and share them with the girl. The stories they tell her are about love, about the true meaning of marriage and about life. The movie's structure is the typical quilting-pattern and the stories are presented to the viewer by means of flash-backs. Well acted but too shallow and not original enough to make a long-lasting impression.
Starring Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Nelligan, Alfre Woodard, Jean Simmons, Lois Smith, Samatha Mathis and Kate Capshaw.
One of the most beautiful orchestral scores of Thomas Newman. Very similar in style to Little Women and Fried Green Tomatoes (especially the humming in the second track), this score features a lush, romantic theme and quiet music for oboe, guitar, strings and piano. Newman uses his synthesizers every now and then, but his use of electronics works very well with the orchestra. There are approximatly 25 minutes of score on this CD. The songs really need to be programmed to fully enjoy the instrumental music. The main theme is introduced in the very first track (Quilting Theme) and is fully stated in the highlight of this disc, An Amercan Quilt (track 16). Not as experimental as Josh and S.A.M. or Unstrung Heroes, but nevertheless a wonderful little score full of pretty melodies and nice quiet rhythms. It fits the movie's atmosphere perfectly. This is the third film with Winona Ryder for which Thomas Newman composed the music.
Street date: October 1995.
This is how to program your CD-player in order to fully enjoy the score: 1-2-4-5-6-9-10-11-14-15-16-18-19-20.
Music Composed and Conducted by Thomas Newman.
Recorded by Dennis Sands.
Following Thomas Newman's bizarre score for Unstrung Heroes is this eclectic soundtrack from Jocelyn Moorhouse's ensemble piece, How to Make an American Quilt. Nostalgic songs take up nearly half the disc (leaving Newman's score at just 25:31); fine in and of themselves, but they intrude into the original music at the most inopportune moments. The sudden activity of Benny Goodman's Riffin' at the Ritz after the delicate but short and emotional Foolish Things (in which a piano spells out a simple motif as solo flute and strings evoke such a heartbreakingly sad sound) is a shameful error of sequencing, probably on behalf of "supervisor" Tim Sexton. Elsewhere, the main Quilting Theme harks back to the lyricism of Visiting Ruth from 1992's Fried Green Tomatoes; the two scores overall are similar. How to Make an American Quilt, however, is stylistically more varied, incorporating Newman's consistently inventive combinations of accoustic and electronic sounds, as in Night Orchard and The Life Before. Thomas Newman's originality and magical touch knock me out every time (James Torniainen).
Reprinted by permission. Originally published in Film Score Monthly (#63, December 1995).
Cédric Delélée - Soundtrack! - French Edition #56 (December 1995).
About the movie
Produced by Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford.
Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse.
About the music
The soundtrack
Availability: in print.
Track listing
Total time: 43:16
Soundtrack notes
Produced by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein.
Executive Album Producer: Tim Sexton.
Executive In Charge Of Music For MCA Soundtracks: Kathy Nelson.
Executive In Charge Of Music For Universal Pictures: Harry Garfield.
Remixed by Dennis Sands and Thomas Newman.
Orchestrations: Thomas Pasatieri.
Music Editor: Bill Bernstein.
Music Contractor: Leslie Morris.
Music Preparation: Julian Bratolyubov.
Sound Engineer: Tom Winslow.
Recorded at Todd AO, Studio City, and The Village Recorder, West Los Angeles.
Mastered by Joe Gastwirt at Ocean View Digital Mastering, Los Angeles, CA.
Review
Other reviews
Kevin Mulhall - Gramophone Film Music Good CD Guide (1997 Edition).
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