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The Crow: (Graeme Revell) The 1994 revenge flick
The Crow likely would not have spawned a franchise had it not
been for lead actor Brandon Lee's death during the final days of
shooting. Because of that sensation,
The Crow attracted enough
mainstream interest to not only turn a decent profit, but also lead to
two substandard sequels in the following six years. The plot is simple:
Lee plays a murdered rock star who returns from the dead a year later to
avenge the killing of himself and his female companion. His supernatural
powers were the imagination of a comic by James O'Barr, and Alex Proyas'
impressive direction gave the film enough visceral glamour to compensate
for the generic nature of the story. An overwhelming appeal to the
senses added style to the disgustingly violent killings on screen,
saturating
The Crow with a non-time specific and bleak, slightly
futuristic environment of dark hues in which a charismatic hero can
thrash and impale appropriately comic-like villains. The film is not
only engrossing to watch, but it accentuates Proyas' sense of
accelerated movement by placing a loud rock soundtrack prominently into
the mix. Because Lee's character is a slain rock star, he is given
mournful on-screen performances on an electric guitar in rooftop scenes
and, of course, an aggressively harsh, metal soundtrack complete with
popular selections from the rougher edges of the rock genre. It had
originally been the intention of dominating the score by composer Graeme
Revell with a similar sound, perhaps even taking a guitar theme and
bloating it out to full, super-hero configuration. Instead, however, in
one of his first memorable and major mainstream scores, Revell took a
more unconventional path. His mixture of exotic tones for the
supernatural atmosphere, metal and industrial elements for the violence
and setting, and orchestral harmony for the love story form an
intriguingly effective sound to represent the heart of the film (whereas
the rock songs, represented on their own compilation, speak to the
straight kick-ass action and revenge aspects). He ultimately did not
completely abandon the idea of using a prominent electric guitar in the
score, though the source-like usage for the on-screen performances,
although short, will steal the show for some listeners. The assignment
was compelling for Revell in part because the love theme took on
additional meaning given Lee's death, and his efforts yielded him
several jobs writing music for comic adaptations to films in the
subsequent ten years. Because of the score's frequent usage in trailers,
Revell once commented, "In retrospect, I think
The Crow was
pretty seminal," and he would extend its atmosphere to
The Crow: City
of Angels.
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The audience of the score for
The Crow is likely
to pull much harder at the heart strings of devotees of the concept
rather than the usual film score collectors. While the score's love
theme performances are easy on the ears and intriguing in texture, the
middle portions of the work, those that emphasize the heavy industrial
elements, will likely eliminate much of the interest from strictly
orchestral score enthusiasts. But that doesn't mean that
The Crow
will be frightfully insufferable during its entirety for that crowd,
either. Twenty minutes of love theme and hypnotic ethnic performances,
occupying the opening and closing cues of the film and score album, are
engaging despite maintaining a chill for much of their length. Simmering
rhythms propelled by unusual percussion, droning keyboarding, and
chanting voices are accompanied by shakuhachi flute, Armenian duduk, and
muted trumpet fragments of melody for many of the more significant
moments of reflection in
The Crow. Some might consider the
trumpet to have a noir-like jazzy influence. The swells of orchestral
accompaniment for the primary character's mourning scenes, led mostly by
piano and strings, are satisfyingly redemptive at the end of "Birth of
the Legend," "Rain Forever," and "Return to the Grave." The instrumental
soloists give this theme two minutes of sorrow in "Remembrance" and
female vocal accents provide eerily contemporary tones in "Last Rites."
The remainder of the score either consists of pounding or grating
industrial tones (of no particular direction) or source pieces. The
latter will be of the most interest to fans of the film. The openings of
both "Captive Child" and "Inferno" contain the love theme performed with
distorted and obviously painful emotion by solo guitar (Lee was not
actually performing himself in the film). Additionally, the start of
"Tracking the Prey" contains a source segment of the rather mundane rock
song, itself derived from the love theme, performed by Lee's fictional
band ("Hangman's Joke") in the film. Together, all of these parts of the
score for
The Crow offer a souvenir from the film as effective as
the song compilation, though be prepared for a largely textural and
atmospheric score in its majority. Because of the sonic colors employed
by Revell for
The Crow, however, the work remains an interesting
listening experience that could be edited into suites to separate the
reflective and violent passages. The most problematic aspect of the
score is the fact that its subdued nature doesn't allow for it to do
what most superhero scores accomplish: tell a story on its own. Still,
The Crow was never meant to be such an endeavor, and despite its
challenging persona, you have to give Revell credit for nailing this
assignment.
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| Bias Check: | For Graeme Revell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.74 (in 19 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.74
(in 15,157 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
