Ghosts of Mississippi

As John Williams demonstrated with his only occasionally inspired score for Spielberg's Amistad, even the best composers can have difficulty making great scores out of courtroom dramas. The typical formula goes something along the lines of one exciting scene (the crime taking place), lots of dreary dialogue underscoring and a triumphant (depending on how things turn out) finale to round everything off. It is with some pleasure to note that Ghosts of Mississippi is a far superior effort in the genre. Even more impressive because it's penned by (and he'll probably never e-mail me again for inventing this wonderfully awful description) treacle tunes himself, Marc Shaiman. The film is based on a real life court case about the murder of a black activist, the case for which was originally thrown out, but resurfaces many years later. Perhaps not a resounding success critically, it did at least feature excellent performances from James Woods (the alleged fellon) and Whoopi Goldberg (the widow of said murdered activist).

My immediate reaction was to expect something like Williams' underrated Rosewood, simply because the setting and racial dramatics is similar, even if the stories themselves are very different. Shaiman doesn't emphasise the gospel or blue grass elements as strongly as Williams does, but still manages a comprable level of drama. The Prologue sets the tone of long lined melodies, highlighting piano and strings; subdued, but with a constantly engaging dramatic tone. Shaiman makes superb use Dionne Farris and Yvonne Williams' resonent female vocals which glide in and out of the orchestra, while never taking the melody fully. A brief and surprising interruption of marching band music early on seems to spoil the mood briefly, but is soon swamped by the formative musical style. A more bluegrassy tone is adopted in On the Delta which uses appropriate jazzy harmonies, along with banjo to give the score a little more flavour of the Deep South. Bluesy inflections crop up in the harmony throughout, but always emphasis the dramatic mood while setting the locations perfectly.

Although the songs aren't all clumped together and are actually quite good, the score is still best heard with the songs in the middle programmed out to prevent the usual cutting of the underscore atmosphere. While not a terrible memoral score melodically, it certainly has a sense of style and atmosphere that sticks after listening. I should imagine it serviced the film more than admirably and produces an album full of incident and drama. Shaiman seems to have the great ability to sequence albums so that one idea stays long enough for it to engulf you, but changes tack before it outstays its welcome. Just when the opening minute or two seems to be getting lost, another element (the vocals) are introduced and when that novelty becomes thin the more upbeat bluegrass music changes the beat once again and so forth. The music is excellent on its own, but arranged on album in the best way possible.