Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... on the album featuring James Horner's score if you seek the warmer, more lyrical approach to the film, despite the music's significant similarities in structure to the composer's later classic, The Land Before Time. Avoid it... on the album featuring Elmer Bernstein's rejected score unless you are a devoted collector of the composer's works and desire a far more robust, Western-style representation of the great outdoors for this film. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
The Journey of Natty Gann: (Elmer Bernstein/James Horner) Among Walt Disney Studio's lesser known live action films of recent times is The Journey of Natty Gann, a 1985 tale of perseverance that fared poorly at the box office but has gained respect through the years for its fine production values. The story is as preposterous as any fantasy, depicting a Depression-era man who has to cross America to take a logging job outside of Seattle but, in the haste of his decision, has to leave his young daughter with acquaintances back East until he can send for her. The girl is a creative and troublemaking brat, however, and in the process of being pursued by authorities, she embarks upon a journey to travel across the country herself to find her father. Along the way, she sparks up a romance with another young, homeless traveler (played by John Cusack) and is befriended by the same wolf that would go on to play the title character in White Fang (in fact, several in the crew would be shared between the two films, including the primary writer). The multiple train journeys, escapes from prison, and last second avoidance of major accidents all produced a story that was a bit too far fetched for any credibility, but the well-meaning, innocent tone of the film, as well as its message about families, is all that really mattered. The music for The Journey of Natty Gann caused another set of daunting challenges, eventually involving both one of Hollywood's most beloved veteran composers and an ambitious upstart still a couple of years away from hitting the mainstream with his own successful career. The veteran was Elmer Bernstein, a composer whose career was still riding high in the 1980's and whose ventures into children's films was yielding surprisingly fresh results. Films like The Journey of Natty Gann and The Black Cauldron were treated by Bernstein much like Jerry Goldsmith's similar assignments in the genre at the time. Both composers handled such films as though they were dramatic powerhouses, recording scores that could accompany far more expansive fantasy that what was actually seen on screen. In the case of The Journey of Natty Gann, Bernstein was able once again to focus his energy on the grand scope of the great outdoors, responding with a score that is as robust on page and in performance as any of the composer's heralded Western genre works. Some of the material is so grand in stature that it could well have accompanied a blockbuster war epic. Unfortunately, Bernstein, in the final two decades of his career, also became acquainted with the more frequent phenomenon of rejected film scores. While a film like The Scarlet Letter ten years later was the kind of unquestionably substandard muck from which Bernstein did not entirely mind his music being removed, The Journey of Natty Gann was a project for which he had labored significantly to re-write his score to meet the desires of the filmmakers. He ended up scoring much of the film twice, attempting a third time in a few individual cues. Ultimately, only two short snippets of his long score were heard in the finished picture. For Bernstein's fans, this remains a travesty, because the score, despite its weaknesses, was strong enough to carry its weight in context. The composer conjured a bold title theme performed over muscular brass rhythms and including a bridge section that frolics with spirits as high as his best Western themes. Soft string and piano interludes remind of the touching aspects of the story. Scenes involving the trains and their associated vistas are handled with energetic explosions of layered brass. The ondes martenot (a French keyboard variation of the theremin and very early synthesizer) is as prevalent in the sensitive cues here as it is in the generally concurrent Ghostbusters and The Black Cauldron scores, though an acoustic guitar and solo trumpet are warmer representations of heart for this story. Bernstein revisits his primary adventure theme and its tender counterpart almost perpetually during the score, with the exception of the significant amount of period jazz that he also recorded for the film, a disparate sound that isn't integrated into the rest of the work. For Bernstein collectors, The Journey of Natty Gann is the kind of familiar score that will earn somewhere between three and four stars, an easily listenable and affable work of a mostly optimistic nature. There are a few reasons why Bernstein's recording may have ultimately been replaced, foremost being the larger than life character of the full ensemble sequences. He does counter with plenty of soft material, but this music becomes lost in the whole. Secondly, the ondes martenot sounds completely out of place here, especially in the cue "Balls." The instrument's eerie tone doesn't suit this film's Earthly narrative well. Together, these two problems create a score that may not have been as intimately warm as the filmmakers wanted. The level of bravado, while impressive on album, does seem a bit overblown for this story of gritty perseverance. Solving these problems was the young upstart, James Horner, whose career in film music composition eventually proved him to be especially adept at writing satisfying children's music. At the time, it was easy to root for Bernstein in the dual assignment of The Journey of Natty Gann, but, in retrospect, Horner's far more lyrical approach to the film is a better match for the heart of the story. If summarized in short, it could be said that Bernstein scored the land and Horner scored the people. Collectors of Horner's work will find his music for The Journey of Natty Gann to be even more familiar than fans of Bernstein found his, for Horner's finished work would serve as a template for several forthcoming scores, sometimes in almost identical fashion. In the most basic sense, one could say that The Journey of Natty Gann was a rehearsal for The Land Before Time, the second and third phrases of the earlier score's primary theme almost identical to ideas conveyed in the 1988 animation. The full ensemble performances of this theme in the opening and closing cues of the film (aided by harmonica) are a hidden gem for devotees of Horner's fluidly gorgeous constructs in The Land Before Time specifically. But in Horner's secondary family theme and Western-related idea of comedic action, you hear ideas that would occur more frequently in other later efforts. The lovely family theme in Horner's score is first explored on solo recorder in "Leaving" and the Western theme, heard in "Into Town" and "Rustling," serve as a bridge between Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" and Horner's second An American Tail score. Other ideas, including another tender theme for the budding young romance and a piano rhythm representation of adversity (both heard in succession in "Farewell") round out the strong score. All of Horner's music was used in the picture except for "Hotel Escape" and another short snippet involving the wolf; these scenes utilized Bernstein's original music instead. Overall, both scores will appease the respective fanbase of the composers, but Horner better captured the personal relationships with his far more lyrical approach. Neither score received an official album release until 2008-2009. The Bernstein score was part of a 2008 4-CD set from Varèse Sarabande's CD Club, limited to 2,500 copies and retailing for a hefty $60. The Horner score was released by Intrada Records the following year, also limited to 2,500 copies but far more affordable. Due to the use of a first-generation tape of the Horner score in the composer's possession, the Intrada album's sound is outstanding, indistinguishable (except for the four bonus tracks) from the composer's later albums in terms of sound quality. By comparison, the Bernstein score sounds significantly archival. On the whole, the Horner score is the easy recommendation, despite being sold out; Bernstein collectors should seek the Varèse set for his more impressive rejected score for The Scarlet Letter instead (if at all). The Horner score's presentation not only sounds infinitely better, but its arrangement makes for a solid half hour whereas the Bernstein score (at well over an hour with bonus material) is simply too long and redundant. Detractors of Horner's career self-references will roll their eyes at his score for The Journey of Natty Gann, especially with the employment of the standard crescendo progressions that follow the neat, accelerating effect in "Freight Train." Ultimately, this means that these rare albums' target audiences will instinctively know if they should fork over the higher cost for either CD. It's safe to say that each will meet or exceed the expectations of both groups.
The Horner Score: **** Track Listings (2008 Bernstein Set):
Total Time: 85:14
(total time reflects only music from The Journey of Natty Gann, not the other scores on the set) Track Listings (2009 Horner Album):
Total Time: 43:01
All artwork and sound clips from The Journey of Natty Gann are Copyright © 2008, 2009, Varèse Sarabande(Bernstein), Intrada Records(Horner). 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 8/19/09, updated 8/19/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2009-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
2008 Varèse