Filmtracks: Dragonslayer (Alex North)


North

Dragonslayer: (Alex North) When you look back at the sword and sorcery age in Hollywood (otherwise known as the early to mid-1980's), it's hard to figure out exactly what drew so many people to that particular fascination with fantasy all in one short term. But for film score collectors, the era was marked with a series of large-scale, ethnically diverse epics, leading on screen and on album up to its pinnacle with Willow in 1988. But even before then, scores by Basil Poledouris, Trevor Jones, and James Horner captured our attention with their bold themes and robust orchestral employment for the genre. The name you often don't associate with the others is Alex North, a man seemingly out of place among all the young, rising stars of the digital age. North was in the latter stages of his career by 1980's, but still a favorite of film score collectors and the Academy, which honored the composer with an Oscar nomination for Dragonslayer opposite Chariots of Fire and Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1982. Director Matthew Robbins' take on the Dark Ages was more realistic than some others on the market at the time, and the film was aided by early efforts by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. The acting and the plot were significant problems, however. Imagine the fallacy of logic here: one virgin has to be sacrificed every year to a nasty dragon up on a hill neighboring the local village, and a lottery is conducted to see who will be fed to the beast. The lottery is rigged, perhaps, but why doesn't anybody in the village figure out the obvious and easier way to disqualify all the young women? Such things don't get addressed in Dragonslayer, along with magic amulets, a resurrected sorcerer, and an eclipse, none of which make much sense. Luckily for all of them, Alex North's completely defocused score doesn't make much sense either.

Compared to its contemporaries in the genre, North's music easily stands out as an extension of his trademark styles rather than a consistent entry along the other scores that, for the most part, have garnered much more long-standing praise. So was North mis-assigned to Dragonslayer? Not necessarily. His capabilities with a large ensemble have never been questioned. His knowledge of ethnic and historical variety was considerable. His instrumentation was often extremely creative, especially in the percussion section. His popularity in the industry ranked him among legends. Unfortunately for Dragonslayer, North's music tended to intellectualized a subject to death (specialty instruments include three log drums, two parade drums, two grand pianos, a tack piano, a clavitimbre, a harpsichord, bell trees, a large organ, a thunder sheet, and a wind machine), and what the sword and sorcery films of the 1980's required was a simplistic transparency of construct to balance the otherwise awkward worlds and plots displayed on screen. North's score for Dragonslayer is highly layered, complex, and intelligent, but so much so in every regard that he completely loses all the primordial excitement and magic inherent in the genre. First and foremost, North's themes are never stated with the kind of clarity necessary to define locations or characters. As in many of his other scores, he takes the harmonious melody and masks it behind a layer of dissonance meant, perhaps, to make sound scary or foggy, as it always appeared to be outside in the Dark Ages. Thus, it takes two or three listens to the score separated from the film before you can actually identify each of North's five distinct thematic ideas. And they are certainly there, despite their shrouded nature in the picture. Both in the film and on album, North's score plays like a mass of orchestral noise, often with several different sections performing different "polyphonic" tangents, sometimes mimicking an ensemble warming up, with action sequences that bludgeon the listener rather than entertain. The "dissonance by default" method of scoring here simply wasn't necessary.

A few exceptions from the otherwise tiring listening experience include "Landslide," with a snippet of John Williams string rhythms at 2:00. Also of note is fantastic timpani usage in "Tyrian and Galen Fight," an inspiring and rare upbeat chase cue in "Galen's Escape," and more lyrical presentation with fluttering woodwinds and cheery percussion to finish the score in "Into the Sunset." But moments like the terrible dissonance in "The Lottery," imitating the shrieking of a female voice over tolling bell, cause Dragonslayer to annoy more often than not. Structurally, the score completely misses the mark, playing like an extended classical concert piece rather than a film score. Distinct cue changes are rare, thematic statements are always veiled, and consistent pacing of the score fails to allow the action sequences to really stir up much excitement. This failing characteristic isn't surprising, given North's history of composition outside of film scores. In the end, you don't hear about Dragonslayer discussed much, if at all, in debates about the great sword and sorcery scores of the 1980's, and that's due to the score's inability to fit into the genre. On album, Dragonslayer was originally released on an LP with the ridiculous statement: "never to be re-released in any medium." Well, in 1990, Soundtrack Collector's Special Editions (SCSE) made fools of the label by releasing the score on CD as the third of their original five products of the early 1990's. Limited originally to 2,000 copies, another 750 were pressed by SCSE shortly thereafter as a special (but identical) "Gold Edition" of the product. All versions had badly mislabeled tracks, with the listings on the CDs completely erroneous and useless when matched to the music. Overall, this score and its albums are a mess, and despite the genuine size and scope of North's music for Dragonslayer, the veteran failed to grasp the necessities of the genre and wrote an inappropriate and unsatisfying score for the picture. *