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Courage Under Fire: (James Horner) Director Edward
Zwick would collaborate with Denzel Washington and much of the same crew
from the 1989 film
Glory for a refashioning of the concepts of
Akira Kurosawa's 1950 classic
Rashomon in
Courage Under
Fire. The story depicts the actions of a female helicopter pilot in
the first Gulf War, and the differing accounts of her actions that leave
Washington's character unsure about whether his office should make her
the first ever female recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. We
see essentially the same set of circumstances repeated four times, each
from the account of surviving witnesses from the battle in question.
Much of the hype surrounding the film at the time was the casting of
romantic movie veteran Meg Ryan as the pilot, though she handles the
various role shifts quite well. As with many of Zwick's films,
Courage Under Fire would be extremely fine in its technical
qualities, and he would once again hire composer James Horner to provide
the music for his vision. Coming off of the extraordinary span of a year
in which he had composed
Braveheart,
Apollo 13, and
Legends of the Fall, among others, James Horner suffered somewhat
of a lapse in his production during 1996 until
Titanic would
forever change his career the following year. Even the highly acclaimed,
barely known score for
The Spitfire Grill existed outside of the
large-scale production quality of his music from the previous year. In
retrospect, the score for
Courage Under Fire makes much more
sense than it did at the time. Seemingly uninspired when it debuted, the
work was deemed adequate, but somewhat aimless, lacking in the emotional
pull that Horner listeners had become accustomed to. In sum, the score
was flat. But on a technical level,
Courage Under Fire would
prove to be a compilation of styles that Horner would eventually develop
in his later scores. From the outside, it would sound as though he was
testing a number of thematic and stylistic elements in this score for
possible elaboration at a later date, and there is plenty of evidence to
back that theory up.
Horner fans sometimes refer to
Courage Under
Fire as a "transitional effort," while harsh critics would go so far
as to say that this score is perfect evidence that Horner is a hack and
overuses his own material. The pulsating rhythms of the action pieces,
with piano and snare driving the pace, was an exact precursor to the
sinking scenes in
Titanic, and, retrospectively speaking, the
entirety of the action variants for
Courage Under Fire, including
the introduction of the pulsing and elongated alternation between two
rising chord sets, would serve as an extension of those non-romantic
moments in
Titanic. The hymn offered at the outset and in "A
Final Resting Place" is the only part of the score that looks backward,
taking significant rising movements and counterpoint accents from the
title theme for
Glory. The actual title theme for
Courage
Under Fire is a faint-hearted attempt to create the same restrained
and somewhat sour romanticism that Horner would master in the theme for
Deep Impact (and its wedding cue, specifically). The flashy
splashes of electric guitar heard in "Al Bathra" would mature in
The
Perfect Storm. Pieces of brass work in the action material would
also be expanded upon in
Enemy at the Gates. There are other
examples of where elements in
Courage Under Fire would eventually
end up, but the most important impression to keep in mind about this
score is that everything you hear within it would later be produced by
Horner in a superior form. The one unique moment of creativity in
Courage Under Fire is actually quite spectacularly conceived,
though; at the opening of "Al Bathra," Horner uses the sound effects of
a helicopter ignition and the gradual increase in the pace and tone of
its blade whooshes, eventually blending it into (and yielding to) the
orchestra's natural, percussive rhythm. Otherwise, the score's generally
low-key attitude defies the patriotism conveyed in the film and causes
the score to be a mundane listening experience. The faults of this score
are intangible, like any score that simply fails to resonate in an
expected way. The album, with extraordinarily dull and inept packaging,
fell completely out of print not long after its release.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
