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Free Willy: (Basil Poledouris) In Hollywood's long
history of films about a child's personal redemption in his unlikely
relationship with an animal,
Free Willy was about as popular an
entry as the genre could yield. A young boy without a family and
resorting to criminal behavior strikes up a friendship with a killer
whale and eventually, in the process of enacting what the ridiculous and
sexually suggestive title of the film entails, finds a new home for
himself as well. While its script is on the level of any television
Hallmark production,
Free Willy excelled in its photography and
music, leading to two direct, theatrical sequels over the following four
years. Most of the attention paid to the soundtrack at the time anchored
by an obnoxious Michael Jackson song, with two versions bookending the
album. The fact that the album refers to this song as the "Theme from
Free Willy" is both inaccurate and disrespectful to the memorable and
thematically rich score written for the film by Basil Poledouris. The
composer's own love of the sea made
Free Willy a labor of love
for Poledouris, and being that the score is much better than average
children's adventure score, it remains as one of the most vibrant hidden
gems in his career. If you look through Poledouris' two decades of major
production, it's difficult to find any score as infectiously positive
and friendly as
Free Willy, and it is this consistently upbeat
attitude that has caused some film music collectors to slam the score,
referring to it as "yawn-inducing" or "overzealous childsplay." If
you're looking for
Conan the Barbarian or
Starship
Troopers in each of your Poledouris scores, then this makes sense.
But for the first two
Free Willy films, Poledouris composed a
wealth of sensitive and imaginative blends of orchestral and electronic
music, paving the way for Cliff Eidelman's similarly impressive score to
the third film. If you take the rhythmic action sequences from
Wind and
The Hunt for Red October and merge them with the
innocence of Poledouris' light character dramas, then
Free Willy
results. It is very much of a "family-friendly version" of his equally
aquatic music for the aforementioned adventure films on the high
seas.
The highly stylized magic of
Free Willy is
conveyed through Poledouris' enduring and charming title theme,
performed with an unusually large sound from a Los Angeles orchestra. To
address the modern sound that the producers of the film were seeking,
Poledouris relies heavily on underlying synthetic elements and rhythms
that were a staple of his career at the time. For two of the film's
robust action sequences, a sharp, resonating electronic pulse, such as
the one heard during the evacuation sequence of
The Hunt for Red
October, sets a fast pace and is complimented by continuous brass
statements of secondary motifs. In other portions of the score, a very
upbeat and contemporary pop rhythm is established by the synthesizers
with a joyful, hopelessly charming major-key accompaniment by the
orchestra. A more spunky, low-key synthetic beat is the backdrop for
equally spirited harmonica performances during "Connection." In "Main
Title," "Audition," and "Farewell Suite," Poledouris combines the
rolling, tingling synth rhythms with full ensemble performances of the
swinging title theme. In retrospect, Poledouris' balance between the
orchestral and synthetic would never be as effective as in
Free
Willy, and the score is an all-around fine example of contemporary
scoring in the shadows of the pop song mania that even this film was not
immune from. On album, about 30 minutes of Poledouris' score is nestled
in between the songs that drove immense sales of
Free Willy for
several years. The album's long-time status as a bestseller in the early
1990's is one of the reasons why Poledouris' score is either ignored or
blasted by those in the mainstream who value the album for its songs.
Among the songs are two selections that attracted teenagers during that
era, including the Michael Jackson song "Will You Be There" (which
appears twice on the album and was a phenomenal success) and the song by
New Kids on the Block, which needs not be discussed further. Regardless
of what you have heard about the
Free Willy score in the past,
however, it is a superior adventure work by a composer at his prime.
With intriguing aquatic tendencies and a masterful blend of symphonic
and synthetic elements,
Free Willy is an easy recommendation that
should still be readily available on the used market.
****
| Bias Check: | For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.48 (in 30 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.42
(in 27,554 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes extensive credits, but no information about the score or film.
