Buy it... if you consider yourself any kind of Basil Poledouris collector, or if you enjoy John Barry's lushly romantic sensibilities of the 1980's.

Avoid it... if neither of Poledouris' scores for Conan the Barbarian nor Les Misérables held any stylistic interest for you.

Poledouris

Farewell to the King: (Basil Poledouris) Director John Milius' adaptation of Pierre Schondorffer's 1969 novel "L'Adieu au Roi" takes considerable elements from Milius' penned Apocalypse Now and combines them with several homages to Lawrence of Arabia and The Man Who Would Be King to form another film about a utopian dream of the simple, natural life among noble primitives. In this case, Nick Nolte is a World War II American Army sergeant who deserts the service after narrowly escaping capture by the Japanese during the battle of Corregidor on Borneo in 1942. He flees inland until encountering a tribe of headhunting Dyak Indians. Instead of killing him, the headshrinking Iban tribe in Sarawak allows to him to live because of a tattoo of a dragon on his chest, and eventually he becomes king of the tribe. Three years later, the war catches up with him as the British parachute onto the island and attempt to enlist the American and his tribute to fight against the Japanese. A predictable dilemma faces the Nolte character, who by now has long hair and looks like the actor's famous 1990's police mug shot. The philosophy of being a hero is Milius' focus here, and though Nolte's performance was heralded as a success, the predictable nature of the plot (with several contradictions along the way) caused the film to be largely panned by critics and ignored by audiences. For Milius, the choice of composer would be easy.

Collaborating with Basil Poledouris on Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn, Milius would rely on the versatile composer to provide music both exotic enough for the tribe, and noble enough to represent a king. Also necessary would be a musically romantic representation of grand vistas, and all of this would require a significant orchestra and array of percussive elements. The arrays of synthesizers becoming a dominant force in Poledouris' career at the time would be completely absent in Farewell to the King. The end result is still score that stands as one of the finest obscure scores of the modern age. One aspect always strong in Poledouris' music is a compelling theme, and for Farewell to the King, the composer provides no less than four primary ideas, each receiving considerable development throughout the score. The most obvious of these themes is the sweeping, romantic epic variety, with layered strings and accompanying brass straight from the pen of John Barry. The resemblance to Barry's music in this theme is remarkable, but perhaps predictable given the immense popularity of that lush Barry style in the 1980's. The other themes exist in various states of nobility, with a battle theme worthy of Conan himself. In "The Battle Montage," Poledouris handles the cue with the same rhythmically propulsive, thematically extended technique heard in both Conan the Barbarian and Flesh + Blood. With its crisp percussion, the theme dances with remarkable depth and enthusiasm, emulating the same feeling in the tree of woe rescue cue in Conan the Barbarian.

A subtheme for pan flute evokes memories of James Horner's use of related instruments, though Poledouris always distinguishes himself by allowing a traditional woodwind to take the lead. All of the themes are masterfully summed in the final "Farewell to My King" cue, complete with the banging of ethnic metallic instruments taking the place of the usual tolling bell. Saturated with Poledouris' heavy, dense orchestral styles, the score stops to breathe only twice, first for the newsreel-inspired "The Training March" and an elegantly simplistic and out of place "Imperialist March." Ethnic rhythms and instrumentation offer quick respites in the opening cue and "Day of the Dead" (Hans Zimmer would take the percussion in "Realization" to heart when writing Beyond Rangoon). But the quality is never in doubt across the board, with Poledouris maintaining harmonic integrity and a melodramatic presence also heard in Les Misérables, but without the brooding bass mix. In fact, the strings in "War is Over" and other cues foreshadow significant thematic similarities that would pop up again in Les Misérables. Simply put, Farewell to the King is an outstanding combination of all of Poledouris' finest thematic and instrumental elements, except for the synthesizers. On album, the score was released on early CDs by both Varèse Sarabande and Milan in nearly identical fashion, and both have fallen badly of print. For Poledouris collectors, however, Farewell to the King is an absolute necessity, and should be sought with confidence. *****

Bias Check:

For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.46 (in 29 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.42 (in 27,397 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.