Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... on the widely available song and score combination album if you seek a basic introduction to this rowdy, fun score by Maurice Jarre and Tina Turner's popular songs for the film. Avoid it... on the 2010 Tadlow limited release of the complete score if you're not interested in hearing Jarre's surprisingly over-thought, complicated score that defies the simplistic, primordial nature of the film's plot with unconventional instrumental creativity and occasionally confusing thematic attributions. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: (Maurice Jarre) The third entry in the Mad Max franchise, the popular 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, further explained the bizarre world in which the concept had resided since its inception in 1979. These films, often led in praise by Mad Max 2 (or The Road Warrior, depending on the country of release), are exhibits of post-apocalyptic carnage in which the people of Australia have resorted to primordial behavior to survive. They are best remembered for their striking chase sequences involving intriguing, but battered vehicles, and franchise director George Miller agreed to return for the third film only to handle the similar chase scenes in its screenplay. He would eventually toil throughout the 2000's in his effort to direct a long-awaited fourth installment. Whereas the first two films depicted the global meltdown just prior to nuclear annihilation and the immediate aftermath of the ensuing devastation, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome concentrates on the early rebuilding process and offers a glimpse of hope for the surviving younger generation of Australians. Mel Gibson returns as a police officer turned rogue warrior, fighting to survive while reluctantly transformed into a savior for a group of children marooned after the apocalypse in a crashed commercial aircraft. The appeal of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, however, is the road warrior's discovery of Bartertown, a crude civilization in the desert that has rudimentary electricity and laws. A fight sequence between Max and the massive bodyguard of the town's engineer in the famed "Thunderdome" remains one of the most interesting combat scenes in the history of film. Running Bartertown is the always entertaining Tina Turner, though her involvement with the production ultimately led to complications with the soundtrack that the franchise had not previously dealt with during its relative obscurity. Australian composer Brian May had written the scores for the 1979 and 1981 films, but with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome came not only the inevitable Turner vocal performances but also a shift to the legendary Maurice Jarre. The production came under criticism for the hiring of Jarre because, unlike May, the composer was not native to the land. Still, Jarre took the style of the franchise's music from May's bleak blend of synthesizer and orchestra and gave it a distinctly epic scope of majesty. Jarre was no stranger to the concept of writing expansive music for vast desert landscapes; his most impressive and recognized career work was Lawrence of Arabia. But Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome required two levels of unique characteristics: brute force to represent the uncivilized nature of humanity in Bartertown and the mystical, hopeful environment of the children's oasis and eventual migration to the re-populated Sydney. There was a distinct disconnect between Jarre's massively over-thought score for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and May's previous music for the franchise, but during the chase sequence at the end of the third film, Jarre does incorporate rougher tones to connect his work to that of May. On the whole, though, it's very easy to say that Jarre provided Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome with a score much more complicated and intricate than was necessary for a film of this relative schlock. Both the depth of his ensemble and the thematic complexity of Jarre's composition are surprising, though obviously welcome. He accented the 90+ members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with varied choral tones, three Ondes Martenot players, a didgeridoo player (flown in from Australia), a rock band with a wild saxophone soloist, a collection of four anvils, an organ, plastic tube effects, and the overlaying of several pianos struck violently in their lowest registers. Other than the Ondes Martenot, a Jarre and Elmer Bernstein favorite at the time, the ensemble created all of its diverse tones organically, an impressive feat when considering the range of growling and clanging tones that inhabit much of the score's darker half. The Ondes Martenot performers, along with the choir, represent the beauty and salvation embodied by the children and, eventually, Max's legacy. The didgeridoo stereotypically accompanies the scenes of the oppressive desert environment (and is an interesting rebuttal to critics who found Jarre's replacement of May offensive because he wasn't Australian; with the didgeridoo, Jarre's music is ironically better tied to the continent). The struck percussion and organ bolster the seedy atmosphere of Bartertown, and the chase that culminates at the climax throws the pianos into that equation. The rock band and sax accompany Turner's Aunty Entity character with flashy pizzazz. Jarre is able to allude to these various musical affiliations without outwardly stating one of his many themes for the film, though he expertly overlaps incongruous themes and instrumental references to accentuate the conflicts on screen. The quantity of themes employed by Jarre in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is startling, reinforced by a strong loyalty to these constructs and their evolution throughout the picture. Six major ideas interact intelligently in the score, though for causal listeners, many of them will blend together in meaning and application. Max himself surprisingly receives the score's most harmonically pleasant, uplifting identity, a theme often confused with the one for the children. It is Max's soft theme that actually exists throughout the track "Children's Theme" on the albums for the score (no wonder there's confusion!), developing from faint hints in "The Desert" to the massive orchestral climax in "Epilogue." The children receive a flowing string theme introduced at the end of "Magical" that is provided source-like demeanor in "Ceremony" while merging its constructs with Max's theme to form an overarching representation of hope that together define "Epilogue." The other four themes are all for the villainous or primordial aspects of the story. The most impressive is actually the least referenced; Jarre wrote a densely brass, organ, and timpani fanfare for the Thunderdome cage itself that was meant to open the original "Main Titles" cue before it was replaced with a Turner song; as such, only the opening and closing moments of "Thunderdome" feature this immense fanfare. The duo of Master Blaster receives a descending bass motif that repeats in rhythmic form, heard clearly at the outset of "Master Blaster/The Manipulator/Embargo/Entity Humiliated" and translated into a heroic march when Blaster is introduced into the cage in "Thunderdome." Bartertown receives a nebulous, meandering theme that doesn't really make an impression until "Bartertown Destruction;" its official opening statement in "Bartertown Theme" is dominated by Jarre's usual collection of bizarre struck percussion. Finally, the theme for Turner's character is a splashy diversion compared to the remainder of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Its simplistic, repeating saxophone phrases over rock percussion obviously address the seedy nature of the town, albeit perhaps a bit over the top in terms of style. This theme eventually receives a very dramatic orchestral statement in "Bartertown Destruction," a redeeming development of the idea. One of the intriguing, aforementioned overlapping of one theme's instrumentation with another's melody comes in "Pigrock," which offers several statements of Entity's theme before the contemporary instrumentation continues to set the rhythm for Master Blaster's theme on low brass and eventually Max's theme on Ondes Martenot. A few excellent summaries of Jarre's themes exist in two cues in the score, first in the unused "Main Titles" and then in the dynamic "I Ain't Captain Walker." Unfortunately, to get to the best music in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, you have to wade through a significant amount of ambient material. The album situation for the soundtrack was for decades dominated by Turner's two rather unmemorable songs for the film (definitely not her best), "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" and "One of the Living," the latter replacing Jarre's music over the opening titles. Both were chart toppers and were recognized for major awards (earning the production a surprising Golden Globe nomination), thus defining the albums as well. There had originally been talk about offering both the songs and full score on a two-LP product at the time, but the score was eventually condensed down to three suites and subjected to a secondary role at the end of a much re-issued CD product emphasizing Turner's songs. A full presentation of Jarre's score was long an ambition of Silva Screen's James Fitzpatrick, and after countless years of finding the master tapes, preparing and mastering them, and wrangling away the rights, he offered such a complete product on the Tadlow label in 2010. There is no doubt that the long popular song and score combination (which did provide 26 minutes of music in a well-rounded collection of cues from around the entire film) is a good starting point for casual enthusiasts of this cult favorite film. The Tadlow album finally allows Jarre collectors to appreciate the composer's incredibly intelligent work, however, containing the complete score and the added bonus of the other album's suite arrangements, some overlay recordings (which are more for intellectual appreciation than enjoyment), and a performance of "Fanfare" and "I Ain't Captain Walker" that Nic Raine conducted the City of Prague Philharmonic for Silva's very good 2000 Jarre compilation album (between this suite and Lawrence of Arabia alone, that compilation comes highly recommended). The Prague performance does expose one of the faults with the original recording: extremely dry ambience. With all of the rowdy percussion and brass in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, it really could have benefited from the addition of a touch of reverb, and the re-recording does that. At $30, the Tadlow product, which is a limited edition of 3,000 copies, may be too expensive for those who consider the score nothing more than a fun guilty pleasure, and it also doesn't impress much with its bland packaging and error-prone notes. But this score was Jarre's last adventure in the desert and is perhaps underappreciated because of the film's reputation as a B-rate cult favorite. **** Track Listings (1985 and 2003 EMI/Fuel 2000 Albums):
Total Time: 44:28
Track Listings (1994 GNP Crescendo Album):
Total Time: 44:15
Track Listings (2010 Tadlow Music Album):
Total Time: 122:07
* performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Chorus, conducted by Nic Raine All artwork and sound clips from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome are Copyright © 1985, 1994, 2003, 1010, EMI Records (Europe), GNP Crescendo, Fuel 2000/EMI, Tadlow Music. 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 6/30/10, updated 6/30/10. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2010-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. Liza Minnelli would have been able to defeat Blaster in the Thunderdome by simply opening her mouth. |
1985 EMI (Europe)
