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| Goldsmith |
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| Revell |
The 13th Warrior: (Graeme Revell/Jerry Goldsmith)
Oh boy, what a mess. Perhaps there is no better example of $100 million
poured down the drain than
The 13th Warrior, a film with so many
artistic and production problems that it may have been worth leaving it
in the cans. The concept was promising on paper, with veteran action
director John McTiernan breathing life into Michael Crichton's 1974
novel "Eaters of the Dead," which was the original title of the film.
McTiernan finished the film 18 months before its eventual release; due
to poor screenings, Crichton (also a co-producer along with McTiernan)
decided to use his muscle to alter the film significantly. McTiernan,
known for his tireless detail in crafting his films, walked out on the
production. Surprisingly, Crichton himself took the helm of the flailing
film and used the remainder of its vast budget to re-shoot and edit
parts of the film, as well as replace the entire musical score.
Touchstone Pictures finally flushed the film through theatres late in
the summer of 1999, with poor reviews and audience indifference both
expected and received. The story of the film merged Arabic and Viking
elements, taking the real-life 10th century Arab poet Ahmed Ibn Fadlan,
an ambassador to the Viking culture, and combining his experiences in
the North with elements of the Old English poem Beowulf. The
culture-clash produces both humor and respect, and the Arab, played here
by Antonio Banderas, eventually finds himself in the honorable position
of fighting the (not-so-) mythical beasts that inspired Beowulf
alongside his new Viking comrades. The lavish production was an
exhibition for extreme gore, with headless corpses sometimes more common
than living people, and anyone who has seen McTiernan's
Predator
can appreciate the director's willingness to glorify graphic carnage.
None of this really ultimately matters, however, because
The 13th
Warrior is so thoroughly disappointing in its final form that no
further thought should be given to its few merits. This is, of course,
except for the film's music, which has a saga all its own.
That saga began a few years earlier, when the production
was still titled
Eaters of the Dead. A distinctly multicultural
score was the intent, and among the scores used as temp tracks were
James Newton Howard's
The Postman and
Waterworld, James
Horner's
Braveheart and
Apollo 13, Ennio Morricone's
The Mission, and, most importantly, Graeme Revell's
The
Crow and Peter Gabriel's
The Last Temptation of Christ. With
the film taking on many of the characteristics of
Conan the
Barbarian, McTiernan reportedly sought the services of Basil
Poledouris, with whom he had collaborated on
The Hunt for Red
October. Poledouris, however, reportedly declined the offer in favor
of
Les Misérables. Attention then shifted to Graeme
Revell, an interesting and adept choice of composer for
Eaters of the
Dead due to his distinct ability to merge different genres of music
into one worldly sound. The original cuts of the film were far longer
than the eventual release, and Revell wrote and recorded music for a
significant portion of those early edits. He completed his work in
February of 1998, recording mostly in London and enlisting a vast array
of specialty instruments for the task. These accents include a duduk,
pan pipes, shakuhachi flute, uilleann pipes, whistles, ney, and several
other exotic wind instruments. Along with a full orchestral ensemble
(with diverse percussion section) and a few choice infusions of heavier
electronics, these elements create a striking environment that most
definitely serves the concepts of both antiquity in general and the two
specific cultures. The uilleann pipes are somewhat odd at times, showing
the direct influence of
Braveheart, though most of the score's
personality is better guided by both
The Crow and
The Last
Temptation of Christ. Only one jarring electronic cue stands at odds
with the character of the score, with its two minutes seemingly lifted
from his own
The Negotiator or
The Saint. The brass motif
performed over the distinctly modern pop rhythm is enjoyable, though
completely out of place.
On the whole, however, Revell's score would seem like a
good technical match for the story. The use of Lisa Gerrard's voice is
somewhat eerie given her eventual popularity with
Gladiator. Her
timeless performances here, as a layered accent to the orchestra, are
frightfully similar in parts to her tones in
Gladiator. Deep
voices are used to amplify the power of some sequences. The
stylistically different choral accompaniment that weaves in and out of
Gerrard's contributions, though, have a harsh edge to their enunciation,
forming a balance that Gabriel Yared would achieve well in his rejected
score for
Troy several years later. There are lengthy passages of
minimalistic or dissonant material in Revell's
Eaters of the
Dead, however, that also mirror the weaker portions of Yared's
Troy. Revell's work takes quite some time building its themes.
The primary idea for the 13 warriors chosen to battle the supernatural
beasts is well conveyed by horns in the latter half of the score. Also
evident in the middle passages is a secondary romantic motif,
highlighted by Gerrard's unfortunately infrequent performances. If you
attempt to enjoy Revell's score in film order, it would be easy to
dismiss the work based on the first eight or nine cues (clearly the
weakest set). According to Revell, Michael Crichton possibly didn't
listen to the finished score when he took over the production in 1999.
Crichton apparently had his own preconceived notions of how he had
wanted the production to progress, and that plan had never involved
Revell. The composer eventually stated, "What happened was John
McTiernan, the director, who I had been working with not closely, didn't
get involved in the music very much, and pretty much removed himself
from the movie during post production. Michael Crichton took it over,
and I don't think he even listened to my score. When he took it over, I
think he just decided his friend Jerry Goldsmith should be the composer
and that was the end of that. I never really counted that as a rejection
and I don't think there was anything inferior about that score, and I'm
quite happy to still own it."
And thus, Revell's work was done. To the surprise of
nobody, over an hour of the mastered score was quickly leaked in bootleg
form to the soundtrack collecting market; whether or not Revell did this
himself is unknown, but if so, he had little to lose. The prospect of a
commercial release for this music has always been non-existent, and
various versions of the same 27-track bootleg have circulated through
the soundtrack collecting marketplace since. There has always been a
higher level of respect for the rejected score for
Eaters of the
Dead than you'd normally see. The score isn't really accessible, but
its sound quality is superb and those fans who bother to find it are the
same ones more likely to appreciate its finer details. The correct
consensus has been that Revell's score would have been adequate, if not
strong when placed in the film itself. But that consensus is also quick
to add the fact that Jerry Goldsmith's replacement score is even better.
While nobody condones Crichton's behavior, his instincts in relation to
Goldsmith on this production proved to be correct, and nearly any
collector will admit that Goldsmith's work is superior. In response to
the replacement work, Crichton wrote, "It's all that I ever hoped for -
and just what I expected. It's absolutely terrific: by turns rousing and
heroic, ominous and lyrical, defeated and triumphant." One thing clearly
made evident by that statement is the obvious fact that Goldsmith wrote
a far more accessible and straight-forward Hollywood score for the film.
Indeed, while Revell's work is something to appreciate, Goldsmith's is
more readily enjoyable. As proved customary throughout the composer's
work, the London performers on Goldsmith's hastily written replacement
gave him applause at the sessions. The rapid, last minute effort by
Goldsmith continued to the recording of some additional percussion music
in Los Angeles even closer to the release date. All around, despite the
fuzzy feeling that Crichton got with Goldsmith conducting the
replacement, the entire production was a nightmare.
Goldsmith was experiencing the last truly great year of
his career in 1999, with both
The Mummy and
The Haunting
giving his collectors plenty of strong material to enjoy. His hiring on
the renamed
The 13th Warrior had all the promise of extending his
exotic sound from
The Mummy and combining it with the epic
grandeur of
Lionheart and the percussive brutality of
The Wind
and the Lion. His score initially failed to live up to those
expectations, falling behind
The Mummy in fans' attention. One
critic even summarily dismissed this music as "an ethnic action score
whipping into the scoring fast food drive-thru window." There is some
truth that notion, due mostly to the fact that Goldsmith doesn't try to
dig too deeply into the historical sound of either culture the way
Revell did. You have to take
The 13th Warrior at face value,
accept the stereotypes Crichton was obviously looking for, and recognize
that the score is ear candy in its most basic form. Absent of rich
ethnic complexities or unique personality outside of its brute force,
Goldsmith's score never does attain the status of
Lionheart or
The Wind and the Lion. But it's both loud and fun, and to those
ends, the score succeeds exceedingly well. It has the undeniable energy
of
The Ghost and the Darkness, the rhythmic movements of
Mulan, the grand chorus of
First Knight, the percussive
power of
The Mummy, the instrumental creativity of
The
Shadow, the lack of subtlety of
Small Soldiers, and the
thematic bravado of
Rambo: First Blood Part II all rolled into
one consistent and enjoyable package. Its summary of trademark Goldsmith
mannerisms from the 1990's is likely due to the haste with which it was
assembled (originality was not likely possible, nor likely desired by
Crichton), and
The 13th Warrior is, in retrospect, given a higher
level of respect because it realistically represents the last really
strong and distinctive score from the composer before his death five
years later.
Two primary themes depict the contrasting ethnicities that
factor in the story. A third theme of a romantic, silver-screen nature
develops at the end of the film, and lesser ideas do mingle with the two
main themes for the film, but on the whole, Goldsmith's use of those two
themes is relatively uncomplicated. The dominant theme of
The 13th
Warrior represents the Viking culture, and is introduced immediately
and repeated often in the film and on album. Its robust horn performances, with a
minimal amount of fluff employed for counterpoint, follow the usual
Goldsmith format of repeating the first stanza of the theme twice before
offering a secondary interlude and then leading out with another
statement of the first stanza. There has been much academic debate both
in an outside the film score community about exactly what Viking music
should sound like, and Goldsmith takes the safe route by fleshing out
the theme with harmonic horns, pounding percussive rhythms, and deep
male chanting. It's a far cry from Mario Nascimbene's famous adaptation
of a folk song for
The Vikings many decades earlier, but in
1990's Hollywood, nothing less than the maximum of pomp would likely
suffice. The structure of the theme for the Vikings doesn't deviate much
throughout the score, with frequent references of equally forceful
rhythm and brass. Its performances are impressive if only because of
their magnitude, valiantly charging through many overwhelming,
chest-beating cues of defiant attitude. The secondary theme for the
Arabs, weighted early in the film (and occasionally repeating in lesser
guises thereafter), is heard in "Exiled," the actual opening cue of the
film's Baghdad scenes. It's equally stereotypical in its Middle-Eastern
sensibilities, and strays the closest of any material in this score to
The Mummy, though for consistency it employs the same rowdy
percussion and brass depth as the Vikings theme. Wild string
counterpoint is a highlight of this cue, as are many of the synthetic
sound effects that tie this score to
The Ghost and the Darkness,
and each element is piled on to the mix with no reservations.
Outside of the two main themes, which are at battle
with one another throughout the album (with the Arabic one in lesser
tones), there is lack of the usual, obvious secondary romance theme that
graces most Goldsmith scores. The closest thing to such a theme is a
string affair that is touched upon at the start of "Exiled" and receives
marvelous treatment in the last minute of "Valhalla - Viking Victory"
and "A Useful Servant." This theme most likely represents Banderas'
Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, though given that the melody closely resembles parts
of "God Bless America" (heard frequently in the Unites States after
September 2001), there's a distinctly odd feel to it no matter what or
whom it represents. Another motif in
The 13th Warrior is a call
to arms signal for the Vikings, heard most prominently at the outset of
"The Horns of Hell." The upward slurring of the conclusion to the first
stanza is used as an abbreviated representation of Viking heroism and
sacrifice in several other cues, most obviously in "Viking Heads." The
slurred movements in this cue are interestingly an inverted form of a
similar idea used for mystery and brainwashing in
The Shadow. The
numerous battle sequences in
The 13th Warrior rotate between
these and several other ideas, some of which are as simple as the
banging of chimes to represent the clanging of swords. Instrumentally,
everything in
The 13th Warrior exists in the low and medium
ranges of the orchestra. You won't hear much work for the trumpets or
flutes here. Nor do you get a significant dose of electronics (outside
of the standard effects that Goldsmith used in every score other than
The Edge at the time). The percussion section receives an awesome
workout, and is responsible for most of the ethnicity conveyed in the
score. While Goldsmith offers some token elements of ethnic diversity in
the score, he by no means approaches the level of worldly authenticity
of Revell's work. Goldsmith rarely used choirs in his works, but his
employment of deep male chanting in this score is both monumental and
harmonically pleasing.
On the whole, the score isn't a technical masterpiece,
but it's a guilty pleasure in the highest sense. A lengthy action cue
like "The Fire Dragon" is irresistible in its explosively tonal
progressions, and when the chorus joins in the fun, fans are treated to
extended variations on the climax to
First Knight. Goldsmith
emphasizes long thematic development, with few of the random ensemble
blasts that existed more frequently in his other 1999 scores. Since most
of this score was recorded in London instead of Los Angeles, the cheaper
production fees led to a very generous release of 55 minutes by
Varèse Sarabande. While twenty additional minutes from the London
sessions were left off of the product, the unyielding nature of the
score makes the commercially available 55 minutes almost too tiring. The
sound quality of the recording is once again stellar; the recording and
mixing work of Bruce Botnick for Goldsmith's scores of 1998 and 1999
offers the perfect blend of detail and reverb, and the dynamic
soundscape only serves to extend the impressively resounding size of
Goldsmith's music for
The 13th Warrior. The clarity of the choir
and percussion in this recording is just as impressive as the drum pads
and other electronics were in
Small Soldiers, and unfortunately,
the quality of Goldsmith's recordings would start to diminish to
previous levels after
The 13th Warrior. Fans who can't get enough
of this adventurous music slapping them on the face for only an hour
have long circulated bootlegs that include those other twenty minutes of
material from the London sessions. The last minute Los Angeles
recordings were not included with these leaks. In some cases, film and
album versions are different, likely due to more last minute editing
demands by Crichton. Interestingly, as if the situation couldn't get any
more complicated, director Ridley Scott used parts of the "Valhalla" cue
underneath a key speech in 2005's
Kingdom of Heaven. It's
mind-boggling to try to sort out the mess that this production caused,
and the endlessly varying bootlegs don't help. For most casual
listeners, the commercial release of Goldsmith's score is all you really
need. If you seek the bootleg for only one of the two scores to
accompany the Varèse album, go for the more intriguing work by
Revell.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Graeme Revell's Rejected Score: ***
- Jerry Goldsmith's Score: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Jerry Goldsmith reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.29
(in 115 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.32
(in 146,964 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The Varèse album's insert contains a note from Michael Crichton and pictures
of Goldsmith at the recording sessions (with Crichton hovering closely by his side). The
packaging for the bootlegs is typically sparse or non-existent.
