Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you've enjoyed the score in the context of the narrative and can translate the magic of the film into an understanding of the diverse and arguably disjointed presentation of the score on album. Avoid it... if you're simply taking the word of some James Horner collectors for whom this score is a crowning achievement, because despite its highlights within the picture, it's a very overrated work. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Field of Dreams: (James Horner) Based on writer W.P. Kinsella's book "Shoeless Joe," Phil Alden Robinson's 1989 movie Field of Dreams is as close to an Americana film about religion as you can possibly get. The popular flick with Kevin Costner in the lead role abandons all common sense and throws magic and history into the cornfields of Iowa. When Costner's farming character hears whispering voices telling him to build a baseball diamond on his land with the promise that the ghosts of famous baseball players will inhabit it for games at night (leading to a pop culture phenomenon based upon the "If you build it, they will come" line), you can't help but follow the religious parallels between God requesting a cathedral and God instead requesting a baseball diamond in the middle of nowhere. Baseball here is the religion, and the film takes the opportunity to draw important comparisons between the game and real life philosophical issues that provide for some heartfelt speeches before the story is done. Unlike Costner, composer James Horner had never been a fan of the American pastime. But when he first saw a cut of Field of Dreams, he fell in love with the story and jumped at the assignment despite his lack of knowledge about the sport. The director had originally used a selection of jazz as a temp score for the film, and the disapproving studio was very supportive of Horner's hiring because they believed that he would inject the spirit of his science fiction and adventure scores into the picture. In fact, Horner defied their expectations and wrote an arguably minimalistic score dominated by electronics, piano, and specialty instruments. He then employed an orchestra for only the final few minutes of music during the finale sequence. While such moves are made all the time in Hollywood for budgetary reasons, Horner claims to have approached Field of Dreams with this intention of reaching the nostalgic Americana summary only at the end. Interestingly, his claims of wanting to write a "magical Americana" score for Field of Dreams are contradicted by his finished result, a score that has a fairly low amount of magic and very little Americana spirit about it at all. Both The Natural by Randy Newman and For the Love of the Game by Basil Poledouris better capture baseball's historical place in America's cultural through orchestral and contemporary tones. The fact that Field of Dreams was nominated for an Academy Award that year instead of the far more authentic and deserving Glory is testimony to AMPAS' deeply rooted faults. For years, the CD album for Field of Dreams was a relative rarity after initially slipping out of print, and Horner collectors and concept enthusiasts clung desperately to their copies, this despite the score's remarkably curious appeal. Little consistency is to be heard from start to finish, the composer introducing the score with a solo horn leading to a broad, base whole note complete with the tingling percussive effects that mirror The Natural. From there, Horner's solo piano performances speak to the atmosphere of the simple life on the farm. Without warning, he then launches into his light rock "building theme" that occupies two of the cues on the album. These two passages ironically come the closest to addressing the heart of the film's ambition, and the pan pipe-led performance of the theme in "The Library" is the highlight of the album despite owing a substantial debt to Hans Zimmer's Rain Man. Several brooding cues of heavy electronic base and meandering key shifts occupy the middle portions of the score, existing as a mundane cross between lengthy synthetic motifs of The Name of the Rose and the slightly atonal aspects of Vibes. For "Old Ball Players," Horner launches into another completely unrelated musical genre: authentic big band jazz for the era of the ghosts. A light, eerie synthetic choir fades in and out over solo piano meanderings in the latter half of the score before the orchestra finally makes itself known in "Doc's Memories" and subsequent cues. The final fifteen minutes of Field of Dreams are perhaps its most overrated, attempting to emulate the same sense of weighty importance as Cocoon but failing to achieve the truly genuine feeling of broad, string-based Americana that would manifest itself in later projects such as Deep Impact and Legends of the Fall. One difficulty with this score is that it features only one consistent instrumental element throughout, a pulsing bass string effect (real or synthetic) that's meant to evoke moments of awe and realization from the audience. An acoustic guitar in "The Place Where Dreams Come True" could have better tied the entire project together had Horner expanded its role in the score. Thematic foreshadowing of the melody heard in the final cue is extremely minimal as well. As such, Field of Dreams just doesn't make much sense. For a film about ghosts and baseball in Iowa, the electronic approach is a wasted opportunity and the contrast between the first three quarters of the score and the last fifteen minutes is not great enough for Horner's desired dramatic effect. Ultimately, it is a basically competent score but a highly overrated one as well. ** Track Listings:
Total Time: 50:29
All artwork and sound clips from Field of Dreams are Copyright © 1989, Novus/BMG. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/15/98, updated 9/22/11. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1989-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
