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Composed, Co-Orchestrated, and Conducted by:
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Michael Kamen
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Performed by:
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The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
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Co-Orchestrated by:
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Robert Elhai
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Release Date:
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August 12th, 2003
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if easily accessible Western guitar music appeals to your
more romantic views of the genre.
Avoid it... if you prefer your action Westerns to kick you with
intensity and vibrant rhythms.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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Open Range: (Michael Kamen) The Western genre has
become a bit of an obsession for actor/producer/director Kevin Costner. With
his more recent string of epic films failing to achieve critical and popular
success, speculation has begun to arise about the chances that Dances
with Wolves was fluke and the possibility that Costner was a one-hit
wonder in the Western genre. Costner teamed with composer James Newton
Howard for a few of his epic films, but for Open Range, he had
originally settled on Basil Poledouris, who himself had lengthy credentials
in the Western genre. In the end, however, the carousel of composers would
land Michael Kamen in the job. Despite its excessive gore, Open Range
achieved reasonable success at the box office, and Michael Kamen's score
would achieve an album release of its own. Kamen has been working in
relative obscurity for film music fans in 2002 and 2003. His previous
feature film score was X-Men in 2000 and he impressed many with his
Band of Brothers television series composition in 2001. Otherwise,
the composer has been busy with other non-scoring endeavors that remain a
fixture of his professional career. Surprisingly, Kamen has never in his
lengthy career scored a true Western epic, even though his guitar style of
composing has been gaining popularity as means of portraying the genre for
modern audiences. His music is similar in style and romanticism to All
the Pretty Horses in 2001, and Kamen's ability to establish the romance
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 same kind of
realism that was seen in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, it's difficult
to imagine how Kamen's soft touch would succeed in the picture.
Kamen's 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,
Western-style affair that could easily be translated into a vocal ballad.
Its appeal is one of seductive harmony rather than the more usual Western
use of rhythmic excitement to set the locale. As suggested, Kamen utilizes
his acoustic guitars as the only real means of placing the score in the
Western genre. The swelling brass theme for the entirely orchestral score is
accompanied by the guitars during almost every performance (after an
initial, noble statement at the start of the film). 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 Hi-Lo Country cattle driving theme. The weakness
of Kamen's score, however, is that the same easy-going nature spills over
into the more action-driven cues as well. The second half of the album
features all of the "troubled" cues, culminating in a guitar and snare
rumbling "Gunfight" cue near the end. Their demeanor is one of 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 harmony at every
moment, but the score also seems to lack punch in its performance during key
dramatic sequences. It therefore comes across as a lightweight when it
should rather grip the listener with its emotional power. Some of the
difficulty with these uninspiring cues may be due to poor mixing, which
plagues the song rendition of Kamen's theme, as performed by Julianna Raye.
You can actually hear a hissing sound begin in her voice track whenever it
kicks over the instrumental backing. As a product, the album is well
arranged for the listening experience, with the mass of Kamen's most
pleasant thematic statements in 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. ***
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Holding All My Love for You - performed by Julianna Raye (3:16)
• 2. Open Range (2:36)
• 3. Card Game (1:24)
• 4. Wagon Wheel (1:59)
• 5. Cattle Drive (1:15)
• 6. Ride to Town (3:27)
• 7. Decade (1:45)
• 8. Spooks on the Hill (1:21)
• 9. Starry Night (3:02)
• 10. Wounded Button (0:59)
• 11. Laudanum Dream (2:12)
• 12. Charley and Sue (1:45)
• 13. Boss Convinces Charley (2:15)
• 14. On the Porch (2:33)
• 15. Cat and Mouse (4:09)
• 16. Baxter Taunts Charley (1:32)
• 17. Face Off (1:35)
• 18. Gunfight (3:35)
• 19. Aftermath (2:22)
• 20. Charley Rides Off (3:03)
• 21. Proposal (3:31)
• 22. Teapot (1:59)
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Insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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