The Film, Avalon

If pressed to name my favorite movie of all time, I’ll either answer Rear Window, Hitchock’s 1954 suspense thriller, or Avalon, Barry Levinson’s 1990 family biopic. The latter barely registered at the box office when it was released during my final semester of college, but its absence from Best Picture contention a few months later was – in my mind – a glaring omission. I thought it was cinematic perfection, the very reason we have “the movies.” It’s also the kind of film that is no longer made. But back in 1990, Levinson, riding high after his Oscar win for Rain Main two years earlier, was largely given free rein to write and direct whatever he wished, and drawing from his own childhood, he struck gold with Avalon, a tale about the fragmentation of the family – and perhaps of society itself – after the rise of television and suburbia.

My roommate Mark and I had seen a preview for the film on TV, and we decided to devote a weekday evening to watch it at the theater near the capital in Madison, Wisconsin. The addition of a couple of young women – one of whom was transporting us to and from the movie – initiated a mild debate about which film to see: Avalon or Welcome Home, Roxy Charmichael. The latter wasn’t without merit: the poster offered an enticing Winona Ryder dressed in a hot pink dress, revealing quite a lot of leg, but cooler heads prevailed, i.e., Mark and I had made our decision and we weren’t budging, a dangerous position given the potential ridicule we might have garnered if the movie was a dud. Fortunately, by film’s end, all four of us were either suppressing tears, or – in the case of one of the women we were with – outright blubbering. It was one of those movies that struck a chord, with its themes of family, loss, and legacy.

No less important than the film itself was the haunting score by Randy Newman, which, although nominated, didn’t earn Newman his first Oscar win, however deserved (he could have just as easily won for his score for Awakenings that year, but that wasn’t nominated, and his first Academy Award win wouldn’t occur for another eleven years). The music from Avalon stayed with me for months afterward, actually waking me from dreams, all without the aid of additional viewings. I’d heard the score once, and my subconscious remembered it. It was that good. 

I didn’t see the movie again until the fall of 1992, when I recorded a VHS tape it off of cable, and I purchased the soundtrack on CD around the same time, eventually transcribing some of the themes from the score into a “piano highlights” piece that I still have. Nearly thirty years later, while shopping at a record store in Columbus, Ohio, my son came across a vinyl copy of the soundtrack, and I came to learn that Reprise Records released the record in 2020 as part of its “The Sound of Movies (…and Television!)” series, a noble endeavor for the movie/vinyl enthusiast. I now own Avalon on CD, DVD and vinyl, and the movie poster adorns my basement wall. I’ve seen in probably twenty times or so, and over the years I’ve enjoyed showing it to my children and a few friends who I felt might respond well to it.

In 2015, Levinson and Newman were interviewed about the film during its 25th anniversary, and it’s well worth a read if you’re a fan of the movie or the score, or both.

Here’s hoping the movie gets more recognition in retrospect than it did upon its release.

Falling For Randy Newman

Sometime during 1991 I tuned into Randy Newman's music in full force, the result of – if memory serves – a “Greatest Albums” list by Rolling Stone that included Newman’s 1972 release, Sail Away. I’d heard Newman before – a song of his was included in the movie Parenthood, I recalled the gimmicky “Short People,” and most recently I’d fallen in love with his magnificent score to Barry Levinson’s Avalon, still among my favorite movies ever and whose main character my son was named after – but delving into a full-length album (if one can call thirty minutes “full-length”) was a whole new experience. I was in love. Within a year I purchased three additional Newman CDs and watched him perform at the Fine Line in Minneapolis, a solitary expedition as no one else I knew had even heard of Newman, much less wanted to see him. This was probably for the best, as I didn’t want anyone screwing up the experience of hearing Randy sing “Real Emotional Girl” by talking or laughing or otherwise mucking up my musical bliss. (For the record, when Randy played the aforementioned song, you could hear a pin drop – a good audience).

Shortly after hearing Sail Away I began to dissect what made a Newman song sound like a Newman song aside from the croaking voice and sardonic lyrics. I messed around with the chromatic runs and dissonant chords Newman uses and mimicked some of the harmonic phrases he leans on. The result? At least one Newman-esque song on nearly every one of my albums.

The first was “The Wild Child” off of my very first cassette recording back in – not coincidentally – 1992:

Then came “Tell it Like it Is” in 1996...

...followed by “We Are Two” in 1999.

Most recently, I recorded “Long Day,” a Newman rip-off if there ever was one:

To say Newman’s albums influenced my writing would be a little like saying The Band influenced Marc Cohn. Hell, I even wrote a short story (a favorite of my writings) in which Randy Newman plays a central role. Check out the conclusion to “Nosebleed.”

Now, at age 73, Newman has released Dark Matter, an album that returns to form after the somewhat lackluster Harps and Angels in 2008. The first four songs are gems, and the rest of the album is good too, though Newman pilfers his past with a song from the TV show Cop Rock (remember that show?) and another from Monk. Yes, he plays the same harmonies he's played for the past forty years – the final section of the opening track is almost a carbon copy of the song "Glory Train" from Faust – but there's enough going on here to keep your interest. I was working out at XSport Fitness while listening to the album for the first time, and I laughed out loud during "The Great Debate" and then nearly cried during the middle section of "Lost Without You." This is what's always set Newman apart from other writers. Yes, he can be witty and make you chuckle, but when he wants to, he can place you in another man's shoes and make you ache for him, or maybe it's an ache for yourself.

As Newman says in this excellent interview, that's the purpose of music.  To make you feel.  Period. Mission accomplished.