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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're open to the idea of a masterful score for Jesus Christ with the appropriate balance between the romance of modern orchestras and the vocals and instrumentation of 2,000 years ago. Avoid it... if you either cannot reconcile the topic and its interpretation, or if you're among the minority who believes that Christ be best left without any underscore at all. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Despite rumors that James Horner was involved with The Passion of the Christ, that film's soundtrack situation is tumultuous at best, sometimes claiming that it will feature little or no score at all. For The Gospel of John, as a modernized method of understanding Christ, a precarious opportunity for an intelligent score for the man and the era was presented to the filmmakers. Where you fall on the issue of musical appropriateness for the subject is one of those areas not too distant from your attitudes about the film itself. Composer Jeff Danna, known for his work in dramatic arthouse films, takes the safest route possible for the score: the intellectual one. Instead of getting wrapped up in the mysticism of Christ and blushing with overt romance in every cue, Danna balances on that fine line between romanticism for the subject and historical accuracy for the era. This is one aspect in which Danna and The Gospel of John has a huge advantage over The Passion of the Christ. Danna and orchestrator/conductor Nicholas Dodd began researching for this film over a year in advance, allowing them to do extensive collecting of information about what instruments and vocal techniques/languages would have existed at the time of Christ's life. This included digging around in music libraries, sound recording archives, Internet sources, and correspondence with Biblical scholars. Even if you are a religious historian and disagree with the merits of the film's translation of the topic, you have to separate that distaste from your analysis of the score. The chilling accuracy with which Danna and his associates have strived to create an authentic musical representation of the subject is outstanding, as is the listenability of the score itself. Understandably, Danna begins with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London (recorded in a church, no less) and incorporates the four sections of its mass to build a deeply involved, harmonious, and sincere bass for the specialty instruments and musical structures that Danna would insert based on his research. Even if the dozen specialty instruments from ancient Roman culture and the Middle-East don't appeal to you, their integration into a Westernized orchestral backing will. No better an example of this use is when Danna calls us to attention in "Here Comes Your King" with the shofar, a ram's horn used to signal or announce an arrival, and the tone of the shofar is overtaken beautifully by the orchestral ensemble. The voice of French soprano Esther Lamandier, a foremost performer of reconstructions of ancient Hebraic music, is prominently featured in Aramaic chants that are operatic in proportion. Representing the soul of Mary, her voice is best heard in "Mary Washes Jesus' Feet" and "Follow Me." Percussion work by renowned Egyptian artist Hossam Ramzy includes performances on instruments from the era. A selection of drums set to different pitches is integral to nearly every cue, as are the neys, which are early forms of a recorder. Danna's thematic development exists with these instruments as constant accents. His two primary themes consist of an elegant, but simple string theme for Jesus --lush when necessary, but usually beautiful in the simplicity of its own harmony-- and the drum-driven theme for Roman forces, Pilate, and betrayal. This powerful, percussive and brass theme asserts itself with force in three cues, finally culminating in a bombastic brass explosion in "Jesus at the Temple." Viewers and listeners will be tempted, however, as impressive as these full scale sections are, to repeatedly enjoy the more tender moments of the score. For scenes of poignant dialogue, the underscore never ceases to warm the heart and utilize friendly, but foreign sounds of ancient instruments. If you were to compare this religious score to another one of note in 2003, Mychael Danna's Ararat, it would be easy to say that both are superior representations of religious authenticity. But The Gospel of John is much more accessible with its grand orchestral application along with the specialty instruments and vocals. Jeff Danna inserts just enough romanticism without entering the realm of cheesiness or melodrama. For that achievement, his score for The Gospel of John is a masterpiece deserving of attention no matter your opinion of the film's interpretations or subject matter. *****
The insert includes detailed information about the score and film, addressing the reasearch done for the score as well as the controversy about the film itself. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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