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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you want to hear Carter Burwell's plain, down to Earth style of character writing stretched out for 150 performers. Avoid it... if you demand that your large historical films be accompanied by rich and well-layered performances that provide elegance along with bombast. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
With an extraordinary number of players for even a film of this size, the New York recording of Burwell's underscore is curiously underdeveloped. A slight Celtic influence mingles with traditional Mexican elements for several cues before we hear the ensemble in full; the score does take a while to build some steam (likely due to the extensive character development involved). Burwell's heartwarming title theme is countered by broad action strokes in the lower brass ranges. The maintenance of most of the action material in the lower ranges causes an almost brooding atmosphere in the score, with little outwardly heroic material heard outside of the smaller thematic performances by piano and strings. This may have been Burwell's intent (painting the true picture in the individual characters), and the score is certainly serviceable in its selection of instruments. How the ensemble was written for and mixed, however, is where Burwell's The Alamo stumbles over its own weight. The score sounds as though it was written for an ensemble of 80 players and performed as such by 150. There are over two dozen brass players, and about 100 string performers, and in each of their own sections, the instruments are not well layered. The sections seem to play in unison, accomplishing what half the performers could have done with one simple overlay dubbing. An example of where this writing hinders the score is in the "Last Night" cue, for which a heroic performance of theme by brass is accompanied by the ethnic flute in higher ranges. And yet, the brass is so focused all on the same note that it nearly completely drowns out the flute. The only exception to this writing and mixing technique seems to be the snare drums, which flatly pound over the top of several cues. In whole, the score hits many of the right notes, but does so without much grace in writing or elegance in performance. Even the much-discussed Crockett fiddle performance with the Mexican band seems flat. On the other hand, Burwell's title theme is a very enjoyable piece, even though it could very easily have served a film like The Rookie without much alteration. Overall, Burwell likely succeeds in the basic musical needs of the film, but stops short of writing a rich and well-layered score for an event of this magnitude. The right ideas were there, but the execution seems lacking. ***
* Contains adapted traditional material
Insert includes a note about the score by director John Lee Hancock, although the font is so tiny that it is difficult to read. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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