(The following donated review by Todd China was moved by Filmtracks to this comment section in May, 2009)
Born on the Fourth of July (John Williams) A powerful score to a
powerful film. Born on the Fourth of July is one of my favorite John
Williams scores; it's by turns emotional, complex, dark, and beautiful.
It's not only very thematic, but also very artistic, musical, and
intellectual. Every transition and passing moment in this score is a
perfect fit, both thematically and audio-visually, for Oliver Stone's
film.
Born on the Fourth of July is a film of epic scope; it tracks Ron
Kovic's odyssey from his childhood days in New York, to the battlefields
of Vietnam, to his dissolution in Mexico, and to his final redemptive
homecoming. Yet through all this, the overwhelming tragic tone is always
in sight, from the beginning to the end, and this is reinforced by the
music. The score begins with a foreboding low bass section underlying Tim
Morrison's haunting, lonely trumpet solo. The "Prologue" theme is simple
yet sad, and encapsulates Kovic's alienation. When he returned as a
cripple from Vietnam, his voice, like the lone trumpet call, went unheard
by an American public who did not want to acknowledge or recognize his
sacrifice, an American public that only desired to wash its hands of the
whole Vietnam experience.
The "Prologue" segues into "The Early Days," which is at once a
melancholic, mournful theme by the string section. Although it
accompanies an ostensibly innocent scene of children playing war, the
musical waves of darkness serve to foreshadow the horror and
disillusionment to come. The second half of this piece accompanies the
Fourth of July celebration that takes place a few scenes later. This part
of the piece is simply beautiful, beginning with an oboe solo rendition of
a theme that is redolent in Americana. Shortly after, the main theme is
heard for the first time, one of the most passionate and emotional themes
ever written by Williams. Tim Morrison's trumpet then returns with the
Americana theme. The tone of this section of the score is light and
good-spirited.
The next two tracks, "The Shooting of Wilson" and "Near the Cua Viet
River" are powerful and devastating musical commentaries on Stone's
visceral Vietnam War scenes. War in Oliver Stone's movies is not
glorious, but chaotic and nightmarish. "The Shooting of Wilson," with its
painful, wailing, high-end strings, uncomfortable timpani rolls, and
violent low string passages, brutally conveys the utter horror that Kovic
faces when he walks into the village hut and sees that his team has
massacred innocents. The dissonance and atonality of the music capture
the feeling that Kovic must have had, that his stomach was turning over,
that his whole moral world had turned upside down in a second. An enemy
attack immediately follows, and the disordered music is wonderfully
effective as Kovic is caught up in a desperate, disorderly struggle, in
which there are no clearly drawn battle lines and it is impossible to tell
friend from foe. When, at the end, Kovic staggers to gaze at the man he
shot in a panic and realizes with horror that it is Private Wilson, the
low piano crash is the perfect dramatic exclamation point for this
realization.
The music from the tail end of "The Shooting of Wilson" and the beginning
of "Near the Cua Viet River" emphasize Kovic's growing disillusionment
with war and his painful loss of focus. The sad, melancholy theme heard
in the beginning of "The Early Days" returns with an ironic vengeance now,
as Kovic finds himself in a situation that, unlike his childhood war play,
is very horrible and very real. As Kovic finds himself alone and
panicking in the midst of an ambush, the haunting trumpet call sounds,
signaling both an end and a new beginning, and it is at this moment when
he is shot. The cold and emotionally distant sampled voices that follow
as Kovic is brought to the medical camp reflects his own delirium and
mental detachment of a man near death.
"Homecoming" marks Kovic's return home, out of the darkness of Mexico and
his own soul, and Tim Morrison once again gives a wonderful performance of
another very Americana-sounding theme. The rock-based drum backing works
well to symbolize Kovic's return to his own American roots. I'm not sure
why, but I couldn't help thinking as I watched this part of the film that
this part of the score also has a shade of Caribbean/Latin influence in
the tone of performance. As the trumpet call at the end suggests, he is
still a wounded man, but a man who has found his way home nonetheless.
The final track is thus a stirringly emotional accompaniment for a man who
found his voice, his courage, and his redemption. A huge string section
launches into a truly passionate, grand, and sweeping performance of the
main theme, and the music conveys epic closure as Kovic, ready to address
the convention, says, "I feel like I've finally come home." Come home,
indeed, and Williams' music is an indelible part of that journey.
Although the score runs only at 25 minutes on CD, a shame considering its
greatness, I do think all of the best musical moments from the film were
included. I rather like the 60's and 70's pop songs on this album,
although I still think "Venus" and "Soldier Boy" are two of the most
insufferable songs I've ever heard. All in all, a hands-down terrific
score to one of the greatest war movies ever made. *****
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