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Enemy at the Gates on DVD
• Added Scenes • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
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Enemy at the Gates on DVD
• Added Scenes • Dolby Digital 5.1 More DVD info... |
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Original Review, by Christian Clemmensen
At the same time, Horner has seemingly let the romanticism of pride and love slip by. With such a bittersweet romantic tale, I was expecting Horner to unleash a melodramatic theme of superb elegence. Indeed, in contrast to the countless cues of war, Horner does provide a meandering and thoughtful love theme for Enemy at the Gates, but it encompasses so little time that it easily becomes washed away. The mass majority of this score toils with the frightful environment of war. Horner makes extensive use of his curling four-note motif from many scores past to signal danger (which is nothing new; it seems that ever since Willow, this four-note motif has always signalled the arrival of something dangerous on screen). For Enemy at the Gates, Horner takes this motif and blasts it repeatedly, almost with malice, until you reach such a point that you cannot listen to it anymore. The tension in the string section of the orchestra is domineering, often building to lengthy crescendos of loud and unwavering noise. The tension in this score is a different variation of that which made the recent Thirteen Days by Trevor Jones such an effective score. In the Jones score, there was a sense of nobility throughout its unease. In Enemy at the Gates, Horner drops any notion of hope and produces a brooding and dark score of despair. Wonderful for the story it is, but it's extremely unsettling on the album. Horner does manage to tie up one loose end from twelve years prior in his career. For a long time, film music fans were baffled by the march at the beginning and end of Horner's 1988 flop Red Heat, which featured an adult male and female chorus performing a Russian anthem that sounded much unlike anything else that Horner had recorded since. Well, finally explaining that oddity, Horner expands upon that Russian choral element in Enemy at the Gates, even including the two-note alternations of the bass strings that defined the theme to Red Heat. The full choral cues in Enemy at the Gates are among the very best of its war-torn cues. The lengthy opening track on the album introduces these wordless performances, and the spreading of fame track (#3) includes a momentous choral outburst with pounding timpani and resounding power. By the more romantic, final tracks of the album, the chorus becomes a beautiful, humming accompaniment to the orchestra. The highlight of the album is its final three tracks; the simple and yet elegant romanticism of love of person and country is sweeping in these performances. Even with this romance taking shape in the music, however, Horner never ceases to insert the unease of the story by leaving very few bars of the score completely harmonious. The end of the album simply fades away into a dreary and bleak darkness, much the antithesis of Glory's prideful ending. The last bars of Enemy at the Gates make you feel as though you're about to walk into a Russian winter without hope or future, bringing the album around in a full circle. As usual, there are numerous elements of the Enemy at the Gates score that borrow (as we shall call it) motifs from Horner's previous efforts. The seven-note rip of the snare that originally defined Glory is put to use, as is the snare combined with a tolling bell, which was a staple of Apollo 13. The distinct four-note blasts of the brass are right from the pages of the old Star Trek scores and, of course, Willow. There is an entire section in track ten of Enemy at the Gates that is lifted from the sinking cues of Titanic. The bass strings often alternate one note below key to signify Russian music, just as he did in Red Heat. As usual, though, Horner adds one new element to all of this mix to keep this score distinct. In this case, the tangible element is the full adult chorus, which is indeed quite impressive. Also new in this score is an uneasy edge that makes Courage Under Fire seem like a walk in the park. And yet, so overbearing is the music that its first nine tracks fail to evoke any kind of emotional response from the listener. Not until the final three tracks does this score engage you, and by then, over 50 minutes have already gone by. Even though Sony Classical is known to pump out the majority of Horner's recent scores at lengths that test the abilities of the compact disc, Enemy at the Gates would have made a fabulous 40 to 50 minute album. There are simply too many unlistenable crashes and tightness of strings in this album's first 50 minutes to make it an unconditionally enjoyable one. My suggestion is for Horner fans to purhase the album for its stunning, final 25 minutes. For those who purchase Horner's workings on only a case-by-case basis, I'd recommend hearing the score in the film first, where it is undoubtedly a superb work of art. *** Review #2, by Josh Blackman
Enemy at the Gates: (James Horner) Now I don't consider myself a huge James Horner fan, but when I consider that over 1/3 of my soundtrack collection at the moment is done by Horner, well, maybe I am misjudging things... In any case, his latest effort for the WW2 drama, Enemy at the Gates, is a good one, although probably lacking in a touch of originality. This, of course, is not new for Horner, as there are countless people willing to rip apart everyone of his scores for his self-plagiarism. Unfortunately, many will see a John Williams influence here as well, as the main romantic theme for Enemy at the Gates bears a reasonable resemblance to the main theme for Schindler's List. Having said that, I didn't even notice the similarities until I read it somewhere, and I don't think it is that big an issue (and, yes, I am very familiar with the Williams score). The actual theme itself I absolutely adore, and it reoccurs throughout the score frequently. For me, this is a 5 star theme. The other predominant motif/theme on display here is the '4-note oooohhh it's the bad guy theme', which we've all heard before from Willow and many others. Now, it is a good motif, and it works in the movie, but we've heard it time and time before, and never as frequently as in this movie, and recently I've been questioning it's originality (Wagner's Parsifal). I think it needs to be put to bed and another 'bad guy' theme composed altogether. To the tracks themselves. The CD opens with a masterful 15 minute suite 'The River Crossing to Stalingrad', which opens in an eerily similar way to Braveheart, then has a soft, beautiful statement of the main theme and then develops into loud Horner action music, with the four-note motif and a adult chorus adding to the mix. The 3rd track obviously has a strong Russian influence, and the adult chorus is again on full display. The middle section of the score - the 4th-8th tracks - is decidedly flat, and although the music isn't bad, it is mostly uninspiring underscore, which seems to be padding between the excitement and drama of the beginning and end of the album. The 10th track, 'Betrayal' is just plain brilliant, and includes many different renditions of the main theme and concludes in a cascade of beautiful strings. The following 'Danilov's Confession' builds up the tension for the first 4 mins and then flows into the soft Chorus again, and some soft, heartfelt versions of the theme again. The final track, 'Tania', again contains great versions of the main theme, and a section with the adult chorus obviously inspired by Saint-Saens (similar to Babe); it is a great finish to the score. Overall, this is a good effort by Horner, and the main theme is a beautiful one, but it ultimately suffers from a few too many slow parts in this long release (over 76 mins), and that lack of originality that his is so renowned for. If he could only combine some of the creative elements for this score with something truly original or different, then we might really have a classic on our hands. ****
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