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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: (James Horner) A
British production from Walt Disney's United Kingdom division, BBC
Films, and Miramax,
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a strongly
praised adaptation of the recent John Boyle novel that was publicly
termed "unfilmable." Director Mark Herman makes little attempt to hide
the mostly British origins of the cast, allowing their natural accents
to speak towards issues of class and history that often inhabit many of
the country's best arthouse productions. The tale of
The Boy in the
Striped Pajamas is as harrowing as you expect it to be, telling a
Holocaust story from the perspective of a young German boy whose father
is transferred to a job as a warden at a concentration camp during World
War II. He befriends a Jewish boy through the barb wire of the camp, and
it is through their innocent eyes that the majority of the tale unfolds.
The film naturally contains a horrific conclusion, though Herman's
ability to maintain the environment of a child's perception through
these events is the primary attraction to an otherwise bleak plot.
Veteran composer James Horner, himself Jewish, reportedly lobbied the
director for this assignment, ultimately receiving it and placing much
personal effort into its recording (including serving as orchestrator
and performer). The score represented a return by Horner to a genre and
quality of film that could earn him Academy Award consideration, and
although neither he nor the film received the awards recognition that
was speculated upon release, the quality of his writing indicates that
perhaps some greater promotion by Miramax could have earned him better
odds. Horner's music for
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is
minimal in volume and scope for most of its running time, saving the
score's only orchestral performances of full volume for the scenes of
realization at the story's conclusion. The work is saturated with
Horner's easily identifiable styles of writing and orchestration,
utilizing techniques that will be familiar to many film score
collectors. While potentially troublesome, this fact is compensated for
by the composer's ability to once again adapt that sound into a slightly
new form, using the same building blocks to create the foundation for a
remarkably powerful score. There is a sense of gravity to the music of
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas that rarely develops from such
minimal volumes. Like James Newton Howard's
Defiance, this score
is able to capture the intricacies of war and its effects on individual
perceptions without overstating the environment.
There is fine craftsmanship to be heard in
The Boy
in the Striped Pajamas. Granted, there is technically nothing new in
the ingredients. Horner's piano performances are the heart of the
recording, rolling through an elaboration of his theme for
Swing
Kids with grace and precision. The sensitivity in these performances
occasionally embodies the exuberance and hope of a child's view of the
world, pushing the rhythmic density towards the territory of
A
Beautiful Mind. Through the addition of notes and the flourishes of
different sections of the theme, Horner applies the idea in extremely
effective emotional variants, though slight, from "Boys Playing
Airplanes" through "Remembrance, Remembrance." Subtle emphasis in
performance is key to appreciating these alterations of mood, though the
highest praise for Horner needs to point to his ability to strike a
weighty chord while also using simultaneous devices to raise the spirits
of the music in ways that only a child's imagination could accomplish in
such stark circumstances. A proper and trim attitude at times (including
the reprise of the score's lofty thematic performance from "Boys Playing
Airplanes" in "The Train to a New Home") may be difficult for some
listeners to tolerate, though the piano material ironically becomes its
most enchanting when combined with faithful stylistic accompaniment from
countless other Horner scores. Beginning in "Exploring the Forest" and
extending to "The Boys' Plans/From Night to Day," he again proves that
nature is perhaps his best source of inspiration. From the light tapping
of a triangle, the elegant and rambling piano, and a lonely solo oboe to
synthetic choral effects, these pieces breathe life into Horner's usual
ambient minimalism at its very best. Almost always harmonic, these cues
in the middle section of
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are
delicate cousins to the forest material heard in
The Spitfire
Grill and
The New World. The synthetic vocal effects, whether
imitating a distant, breathy ensemble or a boy soprano (both are heard
simultaneously in the disturbingly beautiful "An Odd Discovery Beyond
the Trees"), add a touch of eerie atmosphere to the equation. The sense
of curiosity in this style develops into an even higher register of
optimism in "The Boys' Plans/From Night to Day," a devastating cue of
false hope that rolls in waves of piano and synthetic vocal performances
that attempt to defy fate with stubborn innocence. Together, the
nature-related cues in
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are
heartbreakingly beautiful without resorting to cheap harmonic ploys that
betray the necessary perspective of the work.
The overarching maturation of Horner's music for
The
Boy in the Striped Pajamas counters expectations by the time it
turns sinister and then truly somber in its closing moments. Despite the
hints of darkness in "Black Smoke," the score is a relatively relaxing
and undemanding listening experience, potentially leaving some hoping
for a strong dramatic punch in the concluding cues. Horner saves that
energy for "Strange New Clothes/An Impending Storm," a lengthy crescendo
of dissonant string layers that is appropriately painful compared to
what has come before. Along with the solitary depression that grips the
quiet piano solos in most of "Remembrance, Remembrance," the end of
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, while likely making the greatest
impact in the film during these cues, is surprisingly not the highlight
of the overall work. Even "The Funeral," with its bare bones expression
of solace, uses resonating harmony from
The New World that is
easy on the ears in a lightly melodramatic fashion. In this cue, Horner
also employs the dreaded four-note "motif of evil" that is arguably the
most recognizable single idea of his career. Interestingly, however,
Horner translates the idea onto solo trumpet and slightly slows its
tempo, as if to signify that the evil has already struck and what we now
hear is a faint echo of the motif's explosive personality from his other
works. As such, the use of the motif is actually quite effective in this
context. Another connection between this recording and Horner's prior
albums is the use of sound effects in a natural setting. For
The Boy
in the Striped Pajamas, the sound of trickling water is heard at the
very outset of the album, slowly yielding to the piano's first phrase of
the title theme. In sum, this score isn't the type of Horner work that
will attract much attention to itself. The choice by Hollywood Records
to release the album as a digital download-only product contributed to
this lack of recognition. Those who appreciate the ambience of the
morbidly haunting "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" cue from
Horner's
The Life Before Her Eyes earlier in the year will
appreciate the style and personality of
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas. As expectations for Horner's forthcoming collaboration with
James Cameron for 2009's
Avatar reach an accelerated pace, it's
been easy to overlook the gracefully restrained classical touch of this
unusual Holocaust score. In its triumph in capturing the event from both
the innocence and curiosity of a child's perspective, Horner's work
transcends to a level of engagement that competes with the year's best
film music.
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| Bias Check: | For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.13 (in 98 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.25
(in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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