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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if one of Michael Kamen's most robust orchestral scores can lure you away from the popular rejected score by Ennio Morricone for the film. Avoid it... if you expect the straight-forward romanticism that defined some of Kamen's more impressive love themes and accompanying songs. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Ironically, while both scores exist near the top of each composer's career, neither one seems to have hit exactly the right note for What Dreams May Come. Morricone obviously went over the top with the religious aspect of the story and lost touch with the personal element. Kamen's music definitely has a personal touch, but is lacking some of the element of magic and the supernatural that the film desperately needed. Kamen does instill some sense of wonder through the use creative solo performances throughout the orchestrally conservative score. A pleasant bed of soft orchestrations is given life by fluttering woodwinds, tapping percussion, or elegant solo string and voice contributions. While sub-themes may not be transparent, the demeanor of the score is at times playful and reflective, and you could easily become lost in its atmosphere. His theme is based on a song melody that he and composer Mark Snow had written years prior. Making up the song "Beside You," this theme is very attractive as a folksy representation of companionship. It debuts in "I Once Met This Beautiful Girl By a Lake" and is only slightly referenced until "Together in Heaven" and the final suite cue allow full ensemble development. The song itself is likable, though Mick Hucknell's voice is perhaps too nasal for the story. Without a mid-section that is well grounded in Kamen's theme, the score meanders through the landscape of the film without taking many chances. By far the most interesting portions are those that deal with suspense and the location of Hell. The "Stormy Seas" and "Sea of Faces" cues offer some of Kamen's most robust action material, with far more depth in performance than the material in his earlier, more well known works. The performances by The London Metropolitan Orchestra are well recorded and yield several memorable moments in and of themselves. Kamen's last minute effort is obviously very commendable, and there are ten to fifteen minutes of orchestral bliss to be found in What Dreams May Come. But between the nagging feeling that the score needed a little more fantasy to go with its romance and the presence of Morricone's rejected work on the secondary collecting market, the score leaves you wanting a little more. Something intangible is missing in the spirit of this music and it's difficult to pinpoint what it is. On album, though, there is merit to be heard in both scores. ****
(Cues are combined into suites for the album tracks)
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. In an interview conducted late in 1998, Michael Kamen stated the following about the circumstances of his hiring:
What Ennio reacted to, I think, was the very serious, touching, philosophical and metaphysical nature of the film. The film is a very serious one, and concerns death and love, two fantastic themes to be involved in musically. The first time I looked at the film, the first event you see in the film of any significance, two minutes in, is the children, who are the product of this whirlwind relationship you see forming, a fifteen year marriage takes place and you meet the family and their kids at breakfast and, two minutes later, he's waving goodbye to them in the car, and the camera suddenly slows down and he says "that's the last time we saw the children alive". And that's the beginning of the film, that's the first thing you see and it knocks you for six, it just takes all the stuffing out of you. As a father, to even contemplate that reality is so beyond the bounds of reason. If you choose to dwell on the tragedy of that moment, if you choose to dwell on the profound sadness and sense of loss, you could easily write a very profound piece of music that would make the rest of the film unwatchable. You can't go any further." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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