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A River Runs Through It: (Mark Isham) The topic of
Robert Redford's 1992 adaptation of Norman Maclean's famous
semi-autobiographical novel "A River Runs Through It" is the subject of
bittersweet debate amongst current residents of Missoula, Montana. While
Maclean's recollections of growing up in the town and its local rivers
are beloved almost universally, Redford chose to shoot the vast majority
of
A River Runs Through It in other Montana cities, an
unnecessary show of disrespect for Missoula, a city that still features
much of its architectural tradition and neighbors pristine rivers that
look the same today as they did in the 1920's. The fly fishing culture
depicted by Maclean still exists; it's not uncommon to see people wading
and fishing in the Missoula area's rivers while passing by during a
daily commute, and many outdoorsmen continue to receive the emotional
benefits from the peaceful activity that Maclean's story accurately
conveys. Through this spiritual bonding experience, the author tells a
rather simple story of his family's growth from the 1910's to the
1930's. In the years since his death (which was followed just a few
years later by Redford's film), local journalists have debunked many of
the facts in the personal narrative of the story, but that diminishment
doesn't affect the personal appeal that Redford managed to convey in
A River Runs Through It. With an Academy Award win for its
cinematography, the critically acclaimed and well-respected film has
long been admired for its stunning visual beauty and the warmth of its
original score, though the latter was by no means a smooth aspect of the
production. Redford had hired the legendary Elmer Bernstein to write the
music for
A River Runs Through It, and after the composer had
completed a fair amount of his work, he and Redford disagreed about the
tone of the score. Short passages of Bernstein's score were recorded in
subsequent years, and the highlight of that music exists in a rousingly
dramatic Western-related idea that merges the composer's past mannerisms
in the genre with a dose of the immense gravity that defined John Barry
and James Horner's approach to the same landscapes. Redford clearly
sought a more introspective sound, and after Bernstein was dismissed
late in production, the director turned to Mark Isham and supplied him
with several source pieces applied as temp tracks to promote a softer
tone for
A River Runs Through It. Isham, who was not yet an
established name in the industry at the time, rushed to completed the
work in four weeks and was rewarded with his only Oscar recognition
through the first two decades of his career.
Isham wrote a series of restrained, pretty themes for
A River Runs Through It based upon the best portions of the temp
track and he eventually applied several of these to various concepts in
the story. All of his ideas for the film are rooted in the same respect
for subtle ambience; since fly fishing is an activity defined by only
the sound of running water and wind through trees, these sequences had
to be handled with care. Perhaps Bernstein's music was too extroverted
to suffice for this quiet sport, but regardless of that speculation,
Isham nailed the appropriate spirit while also maintaining enough folksy
influence in his progressions and instrumentation to suggest a different
era. The string and woodwind-dominated score (with occasional hints of
brass, harp, piano, and Uilleann pipes) meanders lightly through its
thematic core with constant reminders of tonal simplicity and the
application of flutes and fiddles to saturate the soundscape with
authenticity. Some of the more jaunty portions remind of Thomas Newman's
rhythmic mechanisms at the time (Redford, not surprisingly, did finally
turn to Newman for
The Horse Whisperer a few years later) and
Isham's technique at applying a rambling bed of piano rhythms to
accompany natural beauty foreshadows James Horner's similar usage. The
themes of
A River Runs Through It are both a strength and
weakness. Their multitude and consistency in tone is crucial to
maintaining the score's respectful environment, yielding a very smooth
listening experience that will lull a person to sleep in context or on
album. At the same time, Isham doesn't do much to really enunciate his
different themes or truly represent the evolution of the relationships
in the movie. The main theme for the landscape (heard immediately on
album) is static in its statements, which makes sense, but the ideas for
the brothers' common attachment to the water ("A Land Filled With
Wonder" and "A Four-Count Rhythm") and the primary idea of romance
("Jessie and Norman") are not allowed to grow and change as the
characters age. All of these ideas are restrained by the necessity for
reverence to the landscape, and this cautious choice by Isham will work
very well for some listeners. For others,
A River Runs Through It
will sound too conservatively rendered and underdeveloped despite the
appeal of its simple and lovely personality. Several source pieces are
sprinkled throughout the soundtrack, and you hear Isham seemingly
adapting traditional melodies into his original recordings at times. The
album is a sentimental favorite for film music collectors, its original
CD release supplanted by a remastering of the same contents in 2005 (and
accompanied by a rather useless interview with Isham that focuses mostly
on Redford and not the music). This score does 1920's Missoula proud,
but its very slight stature puts it a step behind Isham's enduring
classic of similar character,
Fly Away Home.
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| Bias Check: | For Mark Isham reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 2.9 (in 21 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.88
(in 8,084 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The inserts of neither album include extra information about the score
or film. Some copies of the film on DVD list Elmer Bernstein as the composer in
the opening credits.
