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| • | Newest Major Reviews: | . | • | This Week's Most Popular Reviews: | • | Best-Selling Albums: | ||
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1. Nim's Island 2. The Life Before Her Eyes 3. Horton Hears a Who! 4. Leatherheads 5. The Spiderwick Chronicles | . | . |
1. Moulin Rouge 2. Gladiator 3. POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl 4. Star Wars: A New Hope 5. Edward Scissorhands |
6. Pearl Harbor 7. Schindler's List 8. Titanic 9. Braveheart 10. Home Alone | . | . |
1. Varèse Sarabande 25th 2. The Last of the Mohicans 3. Legends of the Fall 4. Schindler's List 5. LOTR: Return of the King (Set) |
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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
When hoards of people praise Horner's work for Braveheart, they seem to be willing to forget that is the ultimate "self rip-off" score from the composer, starting a trend during which later scores would instead be admonished for this very same behavior. Sorry, folks, but just because Braveheart is becoming a cult film doesn't excuse Horner in this case. In its favor, Braveheart has almost a supernatural power surrounding its recording, extending the romantic pairing of modern orchestra and ethnicity into ghostly realms of beauty. However, on the other hand, you have several elements blatantly repeated from Horner's previous successes. The heavy romanticism, with deep string themes jerking the tears out of audience, is a direct descendant of Legends of the Fall. The chilling boys choir theme is clearly derived from Casper. The swells of battle, highlighted by Horner's newly trademarked use of percussion, take several pages from Glory. The final three cues on the first album are the culmination of Horner's best ideas of the prior six years rolled into one fantastic suite. It is, without a doubt, excellent music, but before you detail how A Beautiful Mind, Enemy at the Gates, and other later scores by Horner exhibit his "borrowing" habits, you have to cite Braveheart as the grand triumph of re-use philosophy. It is interesting to note that while Horner fans do hold Braveheart in high regard, the people spurring its albums on to fantastic success at the records stores are not usually the film score fanatics. The newly arrived fans of the film itself are the ones making this score a juggernaut, which begs some speculation about what they'll think of it when they eventually, perhaps, discovered that it's not a really original work. Horner fans, meanwhile, argue about which of his Academy Award nominated 1995 scores is superior (Braveheart or Apollo 13), leading to the ultimate debate about "self rip-offs" and patriotism versus romanticism. While Apollo 13 may technically be the better work, neither score could muster enough strength to defeat Il Postino by Luis Bacalov that year. On album, Horner's score is a very good background listen, with several lengthy passages of lush, but subdued underscore. The first album contained a full 77 minutes of Horner's most significant material from the film. As mentioned before, the final three cues are the main attraction, with Horner's suite of end credits material often performed by other orchestras around the globe. The artwork for the international edition of the first Braveheart album was altered internationally to take advantage of Sophie Marceau's greater appeal in Europe. Due to the growing demand for Braveheart music as the cult following erupted, a second volume of music for the film was released by the same label in 1997; it would mark the beginning of a marketing habit by labels to release "More Music from..." in the years to come. The sequel album for Braveheart hasn't critically fared as well as those for Titanic or Gladiator, however, because the Braveheart sequel album really doesn't offer much of anything new. Only seven minutes of previously unreleased Horner music is presented unimpeded by dialogue from the film, and while these seven minutes are pleasant enough, they don't feature a blockbuster cue to get all excited about. Instead, the album relies on scenes taken directly from the film, sound effects and all, so that the album is a sort of audio souvenir from the motion picture. As the album states on its packaging, though, "The traditional Scottish bagpipe songs have been added as a bonus to keep the spirit of William Wallace and his warrior poets alive and to further enhance your listening pleasure." These traditional songs never really go over well with the score collectors and seem better suited for the film's enthusiasts. Thus, for Horner fans, the sequel album could definitely be skipped. If you want snippets of dialogue and music from the film on a CD, then you can do what thousands of others are doing by connecting their DVD players and computer hard drives. Overall, Braveheart is a well arranged collection of some of Horner's best romantic writing for lush orchestral situations, but if you want scores with a more unique punch, then Legends of the Fall and Apollo 13 would both be more advisable.
Original 1995 Albums: **** 1997 'More Music from Braveheart' Album: ** Overall: ****
Both sets of 1995 and 1997 albums includes notes about the film and/or score. Special performers include:
James Horner - Keyboards Eric Rigler - Uilleann Pipes Mike Taylor - Bodhrán Drum & Whistle Ian Underwood - Synth Programming | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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