Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you're looking for the most weighty, tragically melodramatic score in James Horner's career, a masterpiece of thematic beauty and elegance. Avoid it... if you have no interest in hearing Horner adapt the broad strokes of John Barry's Dances With Wolves into his own templates. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Legends of the Fall: (James Horner) The 1994 film Legends of the Fall is for the big screen what romance novels are for old ladies. It is limitless, brute romanticism against the painted skies of Montana, primordial in its appeal and doomed by those who are not swayed by tear-jerking character dramas. If anyone doubted that director Ed Zwick was trying to yank at the emotional chains of audiences with his 1989 stunner Glory, then Legends of the Fall is proof that you can succeed at it not just once, but twice. Heroic and tragic, honorable and sorrowful, Legends of the Fall combines the most potent elements of a British period production with the vast expanses of Big Sky Country. Its cast was remarkably strong, led by a headstrong and painfully humorous performance by Anthony Hopkins as the father of three adult sons split by ideals, ambitions, and one woman. As he had accomplished for Glory, composer James Horner matched Zwick's engrossing melodrama with an unashamed powerhouse of a score, and while the music for Legends of the Fall doesn't quite equal the ethereal qualities of Glory, it comes damn close. The early 1990's were a time of few hits and numerous misses for Horner, scrounging around in the trash bin of video-quality animated films and failed light dramas. With Legends of the Fall came a sudden and overwhelming resurgence that would launch the composer into a year of incredible success in 1995, led by Apollo 13 and Braveheart. These three scores together would yield two Golden Globe nominations and two Academy Awards nominations, and yet none would win either award. Still, these three scores together (and you can even throw in the decent Casper and Balto in the middle of the timeline) represent one of the greatest periods of production that any composer has ever enjoyed. As the first in line, Legends of the Fall caught listeners by surprise with its sheer weight of performance and rich variety of themes. Horner has reveled in his fair share of dramatically thematic scores, but never before or since Legends of the Fall did he accomplish the same level of gravity... not even with Titanic. He composes several major themes for the film, almost all given significant development and repeated statements, and each resounding with the majesty of the landscape. It's a score that may have Richard Wagner in a distant corner of the conscience, but rather than relying on the plethora of classical influences that plague many of his other scores, the most direct connection this score draws from, surprisingly for Horner and unsurprisingly for the genre, is John Barry's Dances With Wolves. The straight forward, simplistic romanticism of Barry's trademark sound for major dramas in the 80's and 90's seems to be the template on which Horner builds Legends of the Fall. The pacing is slower, the counterpoint is held to a minimum, and the players of the orchestra burst forth with magnificent string performances aided, as with Barry's work, by supplemental horns. And it's the strength of the themes in Legends of the Fall that leads to its success. The meaning behind Horner's several ideas for the film overlap in conceptual use on screen, so the following labels for the purpose of this review could be up for debate. The title theme, introduced in the latter half of "Legends of the Fall" is the broad representation of the story's overarching mores and location. It accompanies the beauty of the land and is the soul of the score. It isn't heard perhaps as much as the second major theme of the score, but it definitely bookends the proceeds with a lovely and extremely deliberate performance at the very end of the film. That secondary theme is the one that ties the Ludlow family together, used most frequently by Horner as the story constantly reminds the viewer of the bond that culminates in bitter vengeance and sweet victory at its conclusion. This theme receives the same string-dominated weight as the primary theme for the landscape, and the two interact in a few places. Softer variations of the theme for piano and fiddle are a melancholy representation of Hopkins' austere character. The themes for each of the three brothers aren't quite as distinct, typically overwhelmed to some degree by the Ludlow theme. A short-lived, somber variant for the youngest brother, Samuel, is primarily stated twice after his death. The restrained and refined theme for Alfred is logically overtaken in "Alfred Moves to Montana" by the Ludlow theme. The representation for Tristan, the Brad Pitt character that mostly weaves the story together, is perhaps the most impressive of all. Its use in "The Changing Seasons/Wild Horses/Tristan's Return" and "Alfred, Tristan, The Colonel, The Legend..." is equally powerful. The first cue features the theme over a bed of percussion as robust as Trevor Jones' Last of the Mohicans and the latter cue offers the theme with a very haunting shakuhachi accompaniment at about six minutes into the cue. The themes for the three boys would be pieced together with a beautifully somber tone in "Goodbyes," a cue that offers some of the more personal string layers of Glory. Other motifs meander throughout Legends of the Fall, including one that makes strong use of the shakuhachi in several cues. Horner used the Japanese wood flute with interesting success in Thunderheart a couple of years prior, and he extends the same spirit to Legends of the Fall. As before, an ethnically propulsive, throaty rhythm is used to accentuate the very basic emotions of the story, including suspense, fear, and death. The score opens with a few bursts of rhythm that anyone might confuse as coming from Thunderheart. For two of the score's most prominent cues (as heard in the film), this rhythm incorporates more of the streamlined pacing and auxiliary instrumentation of Patriot Games, a score that also relied heavily on these sounds. At the end of "Revenge" and especially in the pivotal start of "Alfred, Tristan, The Colonel, The Legend...," Horner adds synthesizer and solo female vocal effects that stand well apart from the rest of the score. Given how consistently heavy the ensemble performances of theme are in Legends of the Fall, these rhythmic cues are a welcome diversion. One of the strengths of Legends of the Fall is the fact that every moment of thematic development is conveyed with the same heavy heart. The orchestration work of Thomas Pasatieri and Don Davis presents the London Symphony Orchestra in a form that eclipses even the Americana spirit of Dances With Wolves. One of Legends of the Fall's more poignant moments is in the second minute of "Off to War," which rumbles with soft timpani that very much resembles Barry's famous score, especially with the weighty ensemble performance of the title theme that results from its slowly building construct. When you step back and admire the awe and magnificence that Legends of the Fall creates, you realize that the score not only unfolds in convenient concert-like cues on album, but is a nearly perfect match for the film. Horner's technique for the final confrontation scene works wonders; while the story on screen shifts between multiple positions with elegance, Horner's strong progression doesn't attempt to jump along with it. The continuity that his music provides the film, not only in this remarkable scene of suspense, but also in the larger, flowing themes, is one of its best assets. Another important point to consider with Legends of the Fall is that despite the connections to the shakuhachi rhythms in the aforementioned previous score, this work is relatively unique in Horner's career. There are interludes for tinkling percussion and piano that would foreshadow The Spitfire Grill and the opening of "Samuel's Death" would mirror the frantic action of the "Master Alarm" cue in Apollo 13. A later, more harmonious line of action in the same cue would resemble the finale of Balto. But these similarities are not as obnoxious as they tend to be in many of Horner's other large-scale scores. The album for Legends of the Fall continues its strangely "cult" status more than a dozen years after its release, branching out well beyond the normal Horner collector base in its appeal. An isolated DVD score track has added more material to the bootleg market, but the 75-minute commercial album provides more than enough magnificent material for all film score collectors to sink their teeth into. ***** Track Listings:
Total Time: 75:15
(track lengths listed only on the CD) All artwork and sound clips from Legends of the Fall are Copyright © 1994, Epic Soundtrax/Sony Classical. 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 9/24/96, updated 1/17/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1996-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
