Buy it... only if you are a devoted Clint Eastwood junkie and you specifically enjoyed the minimal amount of score you heard in the film itself.

Avoid it... if you expected Eastwood to be able to enhance his usual simplistic structures for a film of this magnitude.

Eastwood

Flags of Our Fathers: (Clint Eastwood) After directing and/or starring in a series of highly confined, small-scale films, iconic actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood has vastly expanded the scope of his endeavors with Flags of Our Fathers, an adaptation of the bestselling book by James Bradley and Ron Powers. The story chronicles the lives of the six men who famously raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima in World War II, and an investigation into their fates is detailed by their descendants. Expectations for Flags of Our Fathers are extremely high, especially given the success that Eastwood has experienced with his other highly dramatic films of the past three years. One part of his productions that does not draw much attention in the music; in recent years, Eastwood has taken it upon himself to provide the scores for his films. The reason for this choice remains under debate, with some believing that he saves his own production significant costs by scoring the films himself, while others believe that such actions are simply an ego play. It's most likely that Eastwood attempts to accomplish his own scores because he enjoys doing so, and he has the services of old friend Lennie Niehaus to help flesh out his musical ideas. Some listeners still believe that Niehaus' scores for older Eastwood films were sadly inadequate themselves, and as hard as it is to reconcile with the fact, Eastwood's own music is even more controversial. With half a dozen scores under his belt, Eastwood continues to provide music as minimal in scope as it is structurally simplistic. In a film like Million Dollar Baby, for which a 25-member ensemble was sufficient, the score suffices on a basic level. That score, in fact, managed to acquire Eastwood a Golden Globe nomination... not because of its strength, but no doubt because of the name of the composer. Such elementary efforts would be difficult to imagine in the case of Flags of Our Fathers, a story exponentially larger, dramatically wider, and historically more important. Upon learning that Eastwood would not outsource the scoring duties for the film, there was collective concern from film music collectors about his ability to handle a score of this magnitude.

In the end, those concerns over Eastwood's ability would be validated by a bland, simplistic, and underachieving score that leaves you wondering if such a glorious historic event, and the circumstances surrounding it, has ever received such an empty and punchless piece of musical accompaniment. Flags of Our Fathers is easily the least interesting score to debut for a major film in 2006, with rhythmic and thematic structures so simple that they defy description. Even the sequel score for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as wretched as it may be, gives you more to chew on. Perhaps Eastwood was subscribing to the Saving Private Ryan philosophy of "less is more," but to pull that off you need the mastery of subtle scoring that John Williams could accomplish, and instead Eastwood has provided a score that toils in the Brokeback Mountain realm of repetitive solo themes that are overshadowed by source music. The score, which is deceptively short, is extremely similar to previous Eastwood music. Its meter is always the same, the themes never vary, counterpoint or other complexity is completely absent, instrumentation is very basic, the tone remains consistent, and the performance is devoid of any enthusiasm or any sense of importance. If this music doesn't put your brain to sleep, then you're an intellectual insomniac. Eastwood's one theme begins with a blatant reference to "America the Beautiful," and whether he did this consciously or not, it compounds the other eye-rolling aspects of the score's ineptitude. The piano is the central element, often opening many of the score cues with identical performances of this theme before being joined by a small orchestral presence later in the cues. Solo guitar and solo trumpet also contribute, with the latter providing the highlight of the score in "Platoon Swims." Most of the non-battle cues contain these same performances over and over again, with little variation in tempo or emotional depth. The wartime cues also utilize the same title theme, but accomplish their distraught emotional attitude through simple dissonance and a steady stream of atonal chord progressions performed by the lower string ranges. Niehaus throws in a few elements of authenticity with Japanese percussion (and what faintly sounds like a shakuhachi flute whispering in the background... this could be synthetic) in two of the cues. Poor employment and mixing of these elements makes Hans Zimmer's use of similar elements in Pearl Harbor seem competent, and makes Jerry Goldsmith's use in Tora! Tora! Tora! seem like nothing less than brilliance.

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Maybe the most disturbing aspect of Eastwood's score for Flags of Our Fathers is the total lack of a genuine emotional appeal. Eastwood's extremely basic writing combined with Niehaus' geriatric orchestrations piddle along without crescendos or other clearly enunciated moments of importance. Some of it is basically enjoyable on album, but that doesn't speak towards its effectiveness in the genre. The "Flag Raising" cue must the most sickeningly underplayed representation anyone could possible imagine for the event, and Eastwood's "Flags Theme," which seems to be just a staggered variation of the title theme, is nothing more than an exercise in dissonant layers for the strings. When a situation in the film calls for strength, Eastwood relies on a droning bass string note, which is a great way to start any cue, but he attempts to extend that tired use through an entire cue, leaving you wondering how this score ever got from point A to point B... or if it ever made it to point B at all. Eastwood doesn't attempt to score some scenes, however, choosing to have his son, Kyle, arrange traditional pieces for re-recordings to be used in the film. Compared to Eastwood's score, the John Philip Sousa recordings alone are a swift kick in the pants. Therein lies the problem with the album; Eastwood's aimlessly boring score is divided by both the re-recordings of Sousa and classical pieces, as well as original recordings of songs from the era. The listening experience on the album for Flags of Our Fathers could not be any more bizarre, therefore, and the experience could perhaps have been salvaged had the score been isolated in one section of the album. The difference in sound quality between the original source recordings and the quite good studio recording of the score is often distracting. And, serving as final testimony to the apparent fact that Eastwood feels compelled to do absolutely everything on his films, he unleashes his crackling singing voice in a solo performance as a surprise after the music finishes in "End Titles." As much as we all love the guy for a remarkable career, the singing at the end of Flags of Our Fathers adds a laughable element to already embarrassing score. We can only hope that if Eastwood continues to tackle large-scale cinematic dramas, he eventually understands that every individual has his limits, and he is potentially (if not probably) damaging his own films by insisting upon scoring them himself. That includes Red Sun, Black Sand, the follow-up to Flags of Our Fathers. Maybe he's just feeling lucky. And we'll keep scratching our heads. *   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download