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Composed, Conducted, Orchestrated, and Co-Produced by:
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James Horner
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Co-Produced by:
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Simon Rhodes
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Release Date:
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May 21st, 2002
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Availability:
Delayed U.S. release. The original
release date for the album was November 6th, 2001, before the film as a whole
was delayed in release.
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Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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Windtalkers: (James Horner) Supposedly delayed due to the terrorist
attacks last year, both the film and score album for Windtalkers are now
slowly reappearing on the horizon. Whether or not the attacks of 9/11 were
really the reason for the seven month delay of the film has been discussed, but
without any revelation regarding the quality of the film. The tale depicted in
the graphic John Woo war film deals with the use of Navajo American Indians as a
source of military encoding through their native language in WWII --a code that
the enemy could not break. The genres of drama and war are no recent stranger to
composer James Horner, whose recent scores for Enemy at the Gates, A
Beautiful Mind, and Iris extend a movement in Horner's career towards
heavy orchestral projects for film. When Horner's name was mentioned as a
candidate for assignment to Windtalkers, many of his fans and followers
immediately recalled his work for the early 1990's film Thunderheart, for
which Horner took a minimal ensemble and created a huntingly effective Native
American score. The use of experimental or native, ethnic instrumentation has
been declining for Horner in the past few years, so Windtalkers offered
him a chance to reassert those characteristics from a past time that many would
argue to be the prime of Horner's career.
For the most part, however, Windtalkers follows more a familiar recent
pattern rather than pulling the best from Horner's earlier works. As an
accompaniment for war, Horner's composition for the film is powerful, brooding,
heroic, and somber all at once. It's functionality should not be doubted; while
some people may document the similarities between this effort and Enemy at
the Gates, the mass of music for Windtalkers is an adequate war
score, even if it doesn't test new grounds in Horner's career. The major
detraction from Windtalkers for most fans of Horner will be the obvious
underplaying of the Native American elements. Horner utilizes a very restrained
combination of ethnic vocal chants and a single native flute to constitute the
Navajo story, and while both efforts succeed to the extent to which they were
used, the majority of the score suffers without them. We know that Horner is
more than capable of using Native American voices, drums, and other
instrumentation to an incredible effect --due solely to the existence of
Thunderheart. But he didn't do that here, and the score for
Windtalkers cries out for more of the same kind of ethnic magic that
Horner used to go to such extremes to include in his works. Perhaps the lack of
adequate ethnic influence shouldn't be a surprise, since Horner has been taking
fewer and fewer chances with his post-1990's scores and maintaining a more
traditional orchestral emphasis. There are more than a few rousing action cues
in Windtalkers that could have benefitted enormously by the harmonious
integration of the American and Najavo elements. The action sequences involving
beachstorming, such as the lengthy cue in the fourth track of the album, is
nothing short of superb in its purity of American bravado. The use of the
usually tender title theme with full snare rolls and trumpets blazing is among
the most explosive material that Horner has put out in years. It's not as
dramatically significant as, say, Glory's beachhead cue, but it's much
more inspiring in effort that much of Horner's other recent action cues.
There have been a substantial number of comments claiming that
Windtalkers contains no satisfying theme. These accounts are simply
inaccurate at every level. While the score on the album does not introduce the
theme until about eight minutes after the start, the score quickly establishes
and ends with a strong and elegant theme representing the Navajo Americans. In
its softer moments, the native flute performs the theme with the same delicacy
heard in the somber themes for Casper. In the fuller expressions of
theme, the entire orchestra performs the theme to the satisfaction of any fan,
especially in the fourth and final tracks on the album. If the score for
Windtalkers is criticized for its flaws --which it has-- it certainly
won't be because of the lack of theme. There are three or so tracks on the album
that are less than inspiring work for Horner, featuring the composer meandering
on auto-pilot, but the majority of music is at least interesting enough for a
second listen (at which point, you could very well become hooked on it). The
flaws of Windtalkers all come back to the mysterious lack of ethnic
integration throughout the mass of the orchestral material. While the score as
it stands is a strong three-star entry, it could very easily have been a
noteworthy four-star score if Horner had simply approached Windtalkers
with the same kind of intensity as he had with Thunderheart. A simple
repeat of Thunderheart would have been inappropriate, of course, but to
hear the same powerful ethnic work combined with the orchestral might of wartime
heroicism would have been a great pleasure, and undoubtedly an effective sound
for the film. Instead, though, Windtalkers stands as an adequate and
sometimes engaging and powerful war score with a token ethnic element thrown in
at occasional intervals. Not a bad listen at all, but not to the same artistic
integrity as Horner's previous scores involving ethnic plots. ***
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Navajo Dawn (7:54)
• 2. A New Assignment (4:37)
• 3. An Act of Heroism (5:59)
• 4. Taking the Beachhead (6:17)
• 5. "First Blood" Ceremony (2:08)
• 6. The Night Before (3:32)
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• 7. Marine Assault (5:40)
• 8. Losses Mounting (5:06)
• 9. Friends In War (7:55)
• 10. A Sacrifice Never Forgotten (7:11)
• 11. Calling to the Wind (10:33)
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Insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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