Buy it... if you are familiar with Lee Holdridge's typically restrained, but highly respectful style of unassuming orchestral music for historical documentaries.

Avoid it... if you're accustomed to the more popularly-known docu-drama music for Jewish suffering with larger, more robust recordings from A-list composers.

Holdridge

The Long Way Home: (Lee Holdridge) In the genre of documentaries and historical dramatic fiction, few digital age composers have quietly assembled as impressive a collection of works as Lee Holdridge. The composer's collaboration with the Moriah Film division of Simon Wiesenthal Center would be highlighted by The Long Way Home in 1997 and continue at least to Unlikely Heroes in 2004. Highly acclaimed and winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary in its year of release, The Long Way Home was the launching success in the studio's regular output of films depicting different aspects of Jewish history during the tumultuous years between the end of World War II and the establishment of the state of Israel. In this specific case, The Long Way Home examines the tragedy that occurred for displaced Jews after their liberation, with some refugee camp survivors attempting to reassimilate into the German population, some staying at the camps under (obviously better) British and American care, and others, of course, emigrating to various parts of the world. The negotiations between the British and Palestinians about Jewish settlers to their homeland is also followed, exposing govermental blunders and mass societal failures along the way. While not pleasant in subject matter by any means, The Long Way Home won critics over with its elegant lead narration by Morgan Freeman and the reading of letters and diaries through the film by other well known voices. As with any documentary, the musical underscore would be required to set an evenly distributed background for this dialogue, and at this, Holdridge easily succeeds. Primarily a composer for television films, Holdridge has always provided compelling music for the documentaries to which he has been assigned, and the films about the Holocaust specifically seem to inspire some of his strongest original ideas and adaptations.

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For The Long Way Home, Holdridge would accomplish the same technically eloquent integration of traditional music that he would achieve in his other Holocaust-related scores. As we would hear to a greater extent in Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, Holdridge and regular collaborating orchestrator Ira Hearchen have a knack for superior adaptations of traditional Jewish pieces. In this case, performances of "Rad Halilah" and "Od Yishoma" are sprinkled throughout the score with little deviation from the underscore (though "Rad Halilah" does provide a rhythmically upbeat break from Holdridge's heavily dramatic score). Holdridge's appeal to filmmakers in these genres is his classically lyrical and enticingly melodic styles of writing, and The Long Way Home features one of Holdridge's more powerful themes. Introduced in the titles and flourishing in "Coming to America" and the finale cues, the title theme is defiantly performed by brass while remaining rooted in a largely restrained structure. Holdridge's music evokes appropriate emotions at every turn, whether performed by the full ensemble or the numerous woodwind solos in the work. The important aspect of The Long Way Home to remember, though, is that like Holdridge's other works in the genre, he takes no chances. Predictably light-handed on orchestrations and featuring no stand-out solos, the score is sufficiently respectful without drawing any attention to itself. Comparing it to more contemporary scores relating to Jewish affairs, The Long Way Home has nothing as outwardly appealing in its music as John Williams' Munich or, more directly, Ennio Morricone's Fateless. While significant connections between The Long Way Home and Fateless could be drawn, doing so would diminish Holdridge's efforts if only because of a difference in ensemble size and recording quality. Without a doubt, The Long Way Home is a score that could have significantly gained from a more vibrant recording of a larger, more robust symphony. On paper, Holdridge's score is outstanding, and while it is easy to appreciate in its recorded form, you can't help but think of how powerful this music could have been with more money backing its production. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Lee Holdridge reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.75 (in 13 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.49 (in 6,763 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.