Buy it... if you are comfortable hearing trademark James Horner styles performed with dramatic restraint for a simple, but lovely score.

Avoid it... if Horner fails to impress you with his relative lack of diversity within the light drama genre.

Horner

The Man Without a Face: (James Horner) Mel Gibson has never been a man without a face, especially after his goofy, infamous mugshot was plastered everywhere in 2006, but he played exactly that in his directorial debut in 1993. Based on a novel by Isabelle Holland, The Man Without a Face featured Gibson in the title role, a recluse in a small coastal town who works alone as a freelance illustrator. His face is deformed by a car accident many years earlier, and with the circumstances of his wife's death unclear, nasty rumors spread about the nature of his character. A 12-year-old boy who lives in a dysfunctional household nearby befriends the man, raising controversy and threat, though eventually leading to salvation. For James Horner, the project would unite the composer with Gibson; the two would produce the immensely popular Braveheart a few years later. Horner's output in 1993 was wildly unpredictable, with several of his scores leaning towards minimalistic structures and instrumentation. That influence can be heard in the restraint that Horner exercises in The Man Without a Face. Despite being a considerably melodic, harmonic effort performed by the awesome force of the London Symphony Orchestra, the score is remarkably subdued. The size of the ensemble is one of the primary reasons why The Man Without a Face is considered with high praise by many Horner collectors. The composer, since expanding the number of projects he would tackle each year, would rarely utilize the services of the LSO, a group that caused many of the composer's previous large-scale compositions to soar. With Horner conducting ensembles ranging from 4 to 50 members at the time, the depth of his drama here is its major selling point. Structurally speaking, though, it has really no unique identifier to separate it from other scores that Horner has produced before and since.

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The title theme and its auxiliary parts are elegantly simple, often devoid of counterpoint, with basic string, piano, and woodwind performances that mirror the style of John Barry's scores at the time while remaining saturated with Horner's own sensibilities. Every part of the thematic constructs in The Man Without a Face can be linked in some way to another Horner score. The overall ability to merge the melancholy with the hopeful, mostly in the nuances of the performance (and particularly in the piano), will remind you of Casper. The actual flow of the themes takes many hints from secondary themes in The Land Before Time. Both of these aspects can be heard right off the bat in "A Father's Legacy," a cue that serves as the highlight of the album. In the "Flying" cue, Horner employs a four-note motif heard to a greater extent in Sneakers and is, more or less, a major key variation on the famed "motif of evil" heard in Willow and other 80's Horner works. That "Flying" cue is another highlight of the score, using light percussive rhythms to propel the cue with the score's only sense of true exuberance. The remainder of the score is predictably pleasant, led often by solo woodwind or piano. One exception is "Nightmares and Revelations," which introduces some low bass region dissonance in strings. There are a few creative twists along the way, such as Horner's use of intensely quivering strings reaching a crescendo before melting into a smooth flow of the title theme... a musical representation of the concept of gained trust at the heart of the film. But otherwise, the score contains nothing to really get excited about. You need to be able to turn off your critical ears in order to enjoy The Man Without a Face, because it truly is stock Horner drama. The album throws on the "Ch'Ella Mi Creda" opera piece from the film, and it's a striking contrast in style to Horner's far more restrained work. Overall, the score gains your respect for its ability to lull you into its intimate sphere, especially given the usual fine, deep performance by the LSO, but if Horner fails to impress you with diversity, then The Man Without a Face could very well bore you to death. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

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For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 98 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.25 (in 184,725 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.