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Review of Nineteen Eighty-Four (Dominic Muldowney)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you've ever been curious about what the original score for Nineteen Eighty-Four sounded like before it was rudely replaced by the studio with pop material by the Eurythmics.

Avoid it... if you expect this score to express the passion and soul of the film's story, for Dominic Muldowney's music provides all the basic emotional tools but expresses them without any true power.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Music of Oceania: (Dominic Muldowney) The most definitive adaptation of George Orwell's classic vision of both post-war England and the potential future under the likes of Hitler and Stalin came in 1984 itself, when director Michael Radford sought to completely recreate the exact times and locations in Orwell's story. With the help of a strong adaptation in the script and appropriately troubled performances by lead actors John Hurt and Richard Burton (who died shortly after finishing this film), Nineteen Eighty-Four became a critical and popular success, especially outside of Britain. The production's extremely gloomy visuals were among its other great assets, though the soundtrack has always remained its most controversial aspect. Virgin films, a fledgling studio at the time, badly rearranged parts of Radford's work, to such an extent that he declined a BAFTA nomination for "Best Picture" that year (he would, though, eventually be nominated for an Oscar for 1995's Il Postino). The studio's most unforgivable blunder in the opinions of many was the replacement of most of the original score by young British composer Dominic Muldowney with pop song alternatives by the group Eurythmics, which was a leading band at the time for Virgin. The problem with this move was that Muldowney had been brought into the fold early in the production due to the film's need for a fair amount of source music. Muldowney composed and recorded 25 minutes of material that would be used as that source material, sometimes involving singing by the cast, during the filming. Upon being impressed by this work, Radford asked the composer to write the remainder of the score. In the end, most of that recorded material was removed from the picture by Virgin, and the score fell into obscurity. There had been a widespread effort in the early 1980's to experiment with non-traditional rock elements in situations that didn't naturally suit them (Toto's score for Dune the same year as Nineteen Eighty-Four was likely the most famous of these attempts), and, as expected, the odd balance between the remaining Muldowney score with the synthetic Eurythmics tones causes consistency problems in the picture.

Granted, Muldowney's career, limited to theatre and television, may not have merited this scoring assignment; it remains his highest-profile cinematic work even decades later. And his music is so lacking of passion that perhaps it is understandable why it was replaced. But Muldowney still made many smart choices for the score. His music for the world of Oceania is an intelligent blend of bleak orchestral tones and militaristic marches, with a few hints of Golden Age romance thrown in for the purpose of hope. Each of these sections of the score is adequate in representing the various tones of the story (to which he wrote; he hadn't seen the finished picture), but, in the end, an intangible lack of power and passion is what sinks this score. Balancing its undeniable highlights are performances that don't evoke the kind of emotions necessary for this tale. The score lacks a soul, which is a trait that only should apply to the "big brother" half of its recordings. For that oppressive element, Muldowney wrote a series of pompous British marches led by layers of trumpets in full fanfare form. An overarching theme for Oceania is delivered occasionally in this style, though it also strays into straight, militaristic choral chanting and, in its more hopeful half, an operatic variant for female soprano voice. A love theme for the characters of Winston and Julia is understated and barely registers. The distinctive tones of the specialty instruments, from Cynthia Millar's ondes martenot (in usual Elmer Bernstein mode) to mammoth pipe organ, subdued synthesizer, fiddles, and pennywhistles, all meant to express the extremes of emotion, are undermixed. Overall, Muldowney's themes and instrumentation aren't why Nineteen Eighty-Four is a disappointment (given such raw inspiration). It's the lack of passion in the performance and mixing that causes this score to bore. Still, it has its moments of beauty, and thanks to the just-formed Airstrip One Company label, Muldowney's full 54-minute score was made available. With source music that shifts significantly in volume between traditional score cues, the album can be difficult to enjoy. The material on paper is strong, though, and begs for a charged resurrection by an enthusiastic performing group.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 54:28

• 1. Aria (1:12) • 2. This is Our Land (1:26) • 3. Main Title: "Oceania, 'Tis for Thee" (2:44) • 4. Winston's Diary/The Dream (4:22) • 5. Dead Insects and Cheap Perfume (2:32) • 6. The Ministry of Truth (3:09) • 7. Thoughtcrime (1:45) • 8. The Chestnut Tree Cafe/Victory March for the Returning Heroes of the Malabar Front (4:43) • 9. Paddington Station/"The Hiking Song" (2:12) • 10. Winston and Julia (3:14) • 11. Party Rally (1:59) • 12. A Room Upstairs at Charrington's (3:15) • 13. Was There Ever a Time? (0:14) • 14. Winston Meets O'Brien (1:02) • 15. Leaving the Proletarian Zone (1:43) • 16. The Inner Party Speaker (1:12) • 17. Memories of Mother (2:02) • 18. Victory Square (2:49) • 19. "The Washerwoman's Song" (2:08) • 20. The Place Where There is No Darkness (3:00) • 21. The White Cell (0:53) • 22. The Corridor to Room 101 (1:50) • 23. Winston at the Cafe (0:46) • 24. End Titles (4:07)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The album includes extensive notes about the film, score, album, and composer. Also included are lyrics to the source songs. Below is a part of that notation, as also seen on early presses releases for the album:

Director Michael Radford (Il Postino) and his producer-partner Simon Perry brought to the screen the definitive adaptation of George Orwell's 1948 classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Shot in and around the precise locations and on the dates chronicled in Orwell's novel, the cast included John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack, Gregor Fisher and, in his final screen role, Richard Burton. The film opened to unanimously favorable reviews and was nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy) Award for Best Picture. Nineteen Eighty-Four recently became a permanent addition to the Sundance Institute Collection as a classic work of 20th century cinema.

Composer Dominic Muldowney ("The Ploughman's Lunch," "Emma," "King Lear") created an original orchestral score for the film and a series of "source music" pieces for the dystopic world of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The album combines lush, romantic suites, large choral works and grand, moving anthems into an aural rendering of the film. Controversy arose at the time of the film's release, as its distributor, Virgin Films, replaced much of the score with pop songs by Eurythmics. All of Muldowney's original score has been digitally remastered and mixed by academy award-winning sound designer and composer Alan Howarth using the original 24-track recordings, and can now be heard here for the first time anywhere.

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