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Open Range: (Michael Kamen) The Western genre had become a bit
of an obsession for actor, producer, and director Kevin Costner during the prime of
his career. With his string of epic films of the late 1990's failing to achieve
critical and popular success, speculation had begun to arise about the chances that
Dances with Wolves was a fluke, potentially labeling Costner as a one-hit
wonder in the Western genre. While it didn't earn the same respect as his 1990
classic,
Open Range was a strong return to the dusty, lawless environment of
the Old West for Costner, though this time in the waning days of the era. Teaming
with Robert Duvall, the two men play free range cattlemen who find themselves
embroiled in a battle of revenge with the powerful owner of a town they stumble
upon. Excessive gore and beautiful cinematography battle in the visual landscape,
and while Michael Kamen's score is sufficient in serving the genre's needs, it
often found itself unfairly compared to John Barry's classic music for
Dances
with Wolves. Costner had collaborated with James Newton Howard for a handful of
his previous epic films, but for
Open Range, he had originally settled on
Basil Poledouris, who himself had lengthy credentials in the Western genre but was
dealing with health issues that were shortening his career. In the end, however,
the carousel of composers would land Kamen on the crew, and the assignment would
turn bittersweet for collectors of the composer's works. It represented the last
score he entirely completed before his sudden death from a heart attack at the age
of 55 a few months later in 2003. Production timetables and the finishing of two
partially written works by his orchestrators kept Kamen's name appearing in three
subsequent films, but
Open Range is commonly considered the composer's last
major solo work.
The timing of the film was somewhat fortuitous for Kamen,
though, who had been working in relative obscurity away from the blockbuster
spotlight in 2002 and 2003. His previous feature film score was the
underachieving
X-Men in 2000, though he impressed many listeners with his
strong writing for the
Band of Brothers television series in 2001.
Otherwise, the composer had been busy with the non-scoring endeavors that
remained a fixture of his professional career until the end. Surprisingly, Kamen
had never in his lengthy career scored a true Western epic, even though his style
of composing for acoustic guitar had been gaining popularity as means of
portraying the genre for modern audiences. Kamen's music for
Open Range is
similar in style and romanticism to the Golden Globe-nominated
All the Pretty
Horses in 2001, and his ability to establish the romantic appeal of any
landscape was well received in popular works such as
Robin Hood: Prince of
Thieves and
Don Juan DeMarco. On the other hand, with critics
comparing the bloody plot of
Open Range to the kind of realism that was
seen in Clint Eastwood's
Unforgiven, it's difficult to imagine how Kamen's
generally soft tone would succeed in the picture. His approach to
Open
Range is "soft" because his music for the film has the same kind of tender
touch throughout its majority as
Don Juan DeMarco, which is an extremely
easy and romantic listening experience. The title theme for
Open Range is
a heroic, bloated Western-style affair that could easily be translated into a
vocal ballad. Its appeal is based on seductive harmony rather than the more usual
employment of rhythmic excitement to set the Western locale. As suggested, Kamen
utilizes his acoustic guitars as the only real means of placing the score in that
genre. The swelling brass theme for the entirely orchestral score, heard in a
noble statement at the outset, is eventually carried by the guitars during almost
every subsequent performance.
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The first several cues heard on the album for
Open Range
offer all of the title theme performances in their magnificence. It's a simple
theme, and it certainly won't turn heads, but it has the same kind of attractive,
easy-going spirit as Carter Burwell's cattle driving equivalent in
The Hi-Lo
Country. The weakness of Kamen's score, however, is that the same laid-back
nature spills over into the tense suspense material as well. The second half of the
album features all of the cues of troubled constructs, culminating in the guitar
and snare rumbling "Gunfight." A pastoral character in "Charley Rides Off" contains
a shallow rendering that doesn't do the scene justice. The demeanor of all these
passages reveals a lackluster performance, however, with an almost lazy handling of
material that seems to have been written for a much greater, more dramatic effect.
Some of this difficulty is written into Kamen's free-flowing, positive atmosphere
at almost every moment, but the score also seems to lack punch in its performances
during key dramatic sequences. It therefore comes across as a lightweight when it
should rather grip the listener with its compelling power. Perhaps this teaches us
that the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra really didn't have a good grasp of the depth
that the genre requires. Some of the difficulty with these uninspiring recordings
may be due to poor mixing, a circumstance which plagues the song rendition of
Kamen's theme (performed by Julianna Raye). You can actually hear a hissing sound
obscure her voice track whenever it overlies the instrumental backing. As a
standalone product, the album is well arranged for the listening experience, with
the mass of Kamen's most pleasant thematic statements condensed to the first six
cues. Still, you can't help but feel that there's a power shortage in this score.
It starts with great promise, but fizzles quickly. As the composer's final major
work,
Open Range is satisfactory, though many Kamen collectors will
acknowledge that it could have concluded his career with a greater range of
emotionally dynamic performances.
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| Bias Check: | For Michael Kamen reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.14 (in 14 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.22
(in 32,684 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
