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The Jungle Book: (Basil Poledouris) There have been several
film and video adaptations of Rudyard Kipling's original story of "The Jungle
Book," and on film you can go back all the way to the 1940 rendition of the tale
(which utilized a diverse Miklos Rozsa score). Most casual viewers, though, are
familiar with the 1967 Walt Disney animated version and its Academy-Award
recognized song, "The Bare Necessities." The 1994 live-action version, starring
Jason Scott Lee, Sam Neill, Cary Elwes, and John Cleese offered a similar
Tarzan-themed story with additional challenges for the forest-dwelling young man
to conquer. Despite featuring newly revamped action sequences, this revival of
The Jungle Book didn't click well with audiences, falling out of
mainstream attention with surprising haste. Composing the score for this
adventure was Basil Poledouris, who had been an established veteran for ten years
as an A-list composer in Hollywood. He was in between his popular and successful
Free Willy assignments and was going through a phase much like James
Horner in the early 1990's. Both composers experimented considerably with the
children's film genre despite their original appearances on the scoring scene in
the greater fantasy and adventure genres during the early 1980's. Poledouris'
work for the
Free Willy franchise represented his best in the genre, with
his scores for
Lassie and
White Fang often correctly remembered as
functional though not terribly memorable. For the composer,
The Jungle
Book was a project for which an orchestral ensemble was essential, and he
would leave behind the usual electronic elements that were a trademark of his
scores at the time. Perhaps not surprisingly, there are moments of playful
underscore in
The Jungle Book that will very much remind the listener of
Horner's similarly veined efforts of 1993 and 1994. The sound was becoming almost
an unmistakable cliche, especially given Horner's tendency to re-use the same
motifs over and over again. Ultimately, Poledouris' effort would match that of
his other lesser known children's scores, defining
The Jungle Book as a
decent score but not a particularly memorable one when compared to its peers.
Moving in predictable directions, Poledouris' score for
The
Jungle Book accomplishes its mission in delightfully accompanying the film
with the full force of the orchestra sometimes contributing significant
melodramatic depth. He does offer a manageable title theme that is explored at
several junctures, but it never fully realizes a single, noteworthy performance
(like the
Free Willy one does on countless occasions). The theme for
The Jungle Book pleases as it plays, but it is nearly impossible to recall
once the score has finished. A slightly anxious, but persevering tone of
orchestral consistency often explodes into exciting action cues that are
seemingly out of control in their brass rhythms. They use their massive volume to
propel the film without much guidance, but these moments are astonishingly
enjoyable to hear on album. The "Shere Kahn Attacks" cue in particular is a
highlight, tearing for several minutes with the ballsy attitude that Poledouris
exhibited in his most robust action scores. Even without a cohesive element to
draw these accelerated and exciting cues together, the London Studio Orchestra
impresses with volume, precision in counterpoint, and broad strokes of harmony
when necessary. There is only a sparing employment of jungle percussion, which is
a major disappointment considering how well Poledouris utilized that section of
the orchestra in his other scores for outdoor adventures. Without this element as
much of a factor, the absence of the composer's electronics becomes a bigger
issue. As is, the score is fluffy in tone and light in thematic breadth, and it
is thus a pleasant listening experience. It is begging, though, for some true
sense of originality, and the inclusion of more diverse and interesting
instrumental variation could have assisted this score in standing out. Somber
underscore for character-building scenes does little to assist the score's search
for a personality. The album situation is a curious one. Released by Milan in
1994, most American pressings contain ten cues of Poledouris material at 48
minutes in length. Some European pressings by Milan seem to have the "Two
Different Worlds" pop song by Kenny Loggins at the front of the album (and then
the same Poledouris contents). Both albums are out of print, and even though they
present some strong Poledouris action material, the work shares a bit too much in
common with Horner's material for the genre at the time and can be missed without
too much worry.
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| Bias Check: | For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.47 (in 33 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 32,977 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert includes a short note about Poledouris' career up to 1994.
