Dust to Glory: (Nathan Furst) While most people
probably haven't heard of the Baja 1000 event (in Baja California, Mexico),
it's a fully sponsored auto race that has the distinction of being the
world's longest non-stop point-to-point race. All sorts of vehicles inhabit
the same course, from race cars worth millions of dollars to motorcyles and
Volkswagen Beetles. The actual course changes from year to year, and
features secret checkpoints that make it risky --although still legal-- to
take shortcuts. From dirt roads to actual Mexican highways (where racers not
only have to weave around regular civilian traffic, but can get pulled over
by the cops for speeding), the race takes drivers on a perilous journey that
has different records for each class of vehicle. The speedy ones can make it
in 16 hours, and the slowpokes have to do it in 32 hours to even qualify as
a winner. Most vehicles don't even make it to the finish line, with injuries
and even deaths (to drivers and spectators who stand along the edge of the
road to watch) not uncommon. Big name drivers and celebrities, from Mario
Andretti to James Garner and Steve McQueen, have participated. The 2005
documentary directed and written by Dana Brown and released by IFC Films
chronicles the 2003 race with 50 cameras following the action from both the
sidelines and from mounts on the vehicles themselves. The footage is
spectacular, and provides many splendid moments for both motorheads and
those who enjoy the vistas of North Mexico's landscape. The music for the
documentary would contain some kick-ass rock songs, but at 97 minutes in
length, the picture would also require a considerable amount of original
score. The director and producer sought a score that was valiant, ethnic,
and exciting, but modern to the ears. Their temp score of choice seems to
have been
Gladiator, but with Hans Zimmer and his associates far from
budgetary means, the attorney for the filmmakers suggested 25-year-old
Nathan Furst. Untested on a large scale, Furst was a risk for the project,
but his success in adapting the music they would need for
Dust to
Glory would exist in the form of what is undoubtedly the young
composer's most ambitiously grandiose piece of music to date.
Despite its rambunctious personality,
Dust to Glory
is a very flawed score in two fundamental regards. First, nearly every cue
is saturated with the influences of the scores that were either mentioned to
Furst by the filmmakers as examples of acceptable music or outright used as
temp material for the film. Secondly, the ethnic elements in the film are
distinctly Middle-Eastern and have nothing to do with Baja California.
However --and this is a big 'however'-- Furst's
Dust to Glory is
likely to be a guilty pleasure to any film score listener despite these
flaws, and the score probably excels with great presence in the film itself.
Harmonically simple and rhythmically pleasing, Furst's score is fluid and
well balanced in its instrumentation. A cue like "Sharing Dust" can have
vibrant, dynamic performances by solo instruments such as piano, guitar, or
voice, while action cues can stir you out your seat with their intensity and
depth. The ethnic percussion underneath the synthetic and real orchestral
ensemble has the same balance and rhythmic progression as Brian Tyler's
Children of Dune, although
Dust to Glory also shares
Children of Dune's uncanny knack for reminding you other scores at
nearly every turn. Much of the straight action material, culminating in "The
Beach," is nearly a note-for-note borrowing of the coliseum sequences of
Zimmer's
Gladiator, and that score's title theme is present in the
latter half of one of Furst's primary themes. Other thematic influences vary
from the obvious to the curious; in "One More Mile," a highlight cue with an
outstanding rhythmic climax, Furst exhibits two themes seemingly pulled
first (and more frequently in the score) from the "fields" theme of Mychael
Danna's
Exotica and then pulled in the form of hip guitar
performances from Robert Rodriguez's
Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
Pieces of James Newton Howard float in and out randomly. The always popular
female vocals (performing a sub-theme similar to
A.I.) and chorus are
also plentiful in
Dust to Glory, perhaps a cliche now by definition,
but very enjoyable in the more cerebral cues such as "Weatherman" and "Night
Visions." It is perhaps difficult to recommend
Dust to Glory to the
learned film score collector, because on album, with its unrelated songs
scattered throughout and with so many obvious temp-track influences, the
music is far from mastery. But if you can set aside the obvious
head-scratching curiosities and enjoy the enthusiastic arrangement and grand
execution of the score, as well as its crisp, bass-friendly recording, then
you'll be in for one very pleasant surprise.
****
The insert includes a note about the score and film from director Dana Brown.
