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| Vangelis |
Alexander: (Vangelis) There have been surprisingly
few films about the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in the
history of Hollywood, and none in the decades leading up to 2000. Living
from 356-323 B.C., Alexander built an empire by sweeping his superior
armies through 90% of the known world, traveling 22,000 miles in eight
years and establishing Greece as a dominant culture that would
ironically remove most of the obstacles that might have restrained the
subsequent Roman Empire from its own similar conquests. After the
outstanding success of Ridley Scott's
Gladiator in 2000, a whole
slew of people came up with the idea of producing a modern film about
Alexander all at once. While the Oliver Stone epic
Alexander was
the first to make it onto screen, similar productions by Baz Luhrmann
and Mel Gibson (for HBO) had been in pre-production for years, with
Luhrmann's version starring Leonardo DiCaprio being the most likely
competition for Stone. The cast and crew power behind Stone's film,
however, gave it a distinct advantage, first and foremost with a cast
that extends from modern pop-culture stars to veterans Anthony Hopkins
as Ptolemy and Christopher Plummer in a bit role as Aristotle. Thinking
back on
Gladiator, it would have been easy to assume that 2004's
Alexander was a project built for the masculine scoring sounds of
Hans Zimmer or, due to his previous collaboration with the director,
maestro John Williams. But Stone had a more geographically-minded and
intriguing idea in mind, one that would hopefully ensure his film as
Oscar-bait and reach out to a more historically relevant Greek sound.
His idea was Evangelos Odyssey Papathanassiou (otherwise known as
Vangelis), a varied and extremely popular international artist who,
aside from being Greek, had a knack for producing a massive piece of
music once every few years that could surely cement
Alexander as
an awards contender. On the other hand, Vangelis did not take film
scoring assignments as readily in the 2000's as he did back in the
1980's. But, as the composer states, "I've always admired Oliver Stone's
films... and Alexander the Great is a story that's a natural part of my
heritage." The fact that the film turned out to be a hideous and
embarrassing mess for Stone was not much due to Vangelis' score, which
was largely overwhelmed by the incomprehensible narrative that the
director settled upon.
With an avid fanbase in tow, Vangelis' style features a
distinct, rather simplistic, electronically-driven method of composition
that has gained him awards in several genres of music across many
international borders. In the film score realm specifically, Vangelis
plucked an Oscar from John Williams and
Raiders of the Lost Ark
in 1981 for his catchy but one-dimensional and cheesy
Chariots of
Fire, and his better known subsequent scores are those for
Blade
Runner and
1492: Conquest of Paradise. While the first two
mentioned were predominantly focused upon electronics,
1492: Conquest
of Paradise was a revelation for soundtrack fans around the world
(the album is certified gold/platinum in 17 countries and the title
theme has been a successful single in many of those countries) because
of its choral use, and it begged questions about the possibility of
Vangelis' maturing abilities leading to a breakthrough orchestral
project at some date in the future. In the 2000's, that transition was
realized to its fullest when the artist offered a muscular orchestral,
synthetic, and choral opera for NASA's Mars exploration called
"Mythodea" in 2001 and 2002. After 12 years away from the big screen,
Alexander is a continuation of Vangelis' trend towards seeking
the perfect harmony between synthetic and orchestral elements. The
result is what fans of
1492: Conquest of Paradise will likely
fall in love with in the first five minutes, the
electronically-conceived score enhanced by Vangelis' decision to employ
a full orchestra and massive choir to provide harmonically rich and
overwhelmingly powerful statements of pleasing melodies. There is more
instrumental diversity in
Alexander than there had been in
1492: Conquest of Paradise, with this 2004 score taking on some
of the fluid, specifically evolving personality of an actual film score
rather than playing totally like the contents of a new age album tracked
to a film. There may arguably be no single theme as memorable or
bankable as the main identity of
1492: Conquest of Paradise in
Alexander, but the extent of the thematic grandeur has been
extended to include several well developed ideas over four or five
concert-like tracks of significant length. The magnitude of the
orchestrations in the monstrously shifting tonal expressions defies the
constrained and sometimes harsh tone of his electronics, yielding a
timeless, larger-than-life sound suitable for a conqueror.
When thinking about these kinds of Vangelis scores
intellectually, you have to consider how the man structures his music,
however. If you rely upon the subtle nuances, the jarring shifts of
emotion, and the carefully chosen synchronization points and obvious cue
changes that will comprise a typical film score, then Vangelis'
methodology will admittedly drive you nuts. Despite his best efforts to
provide a score that travels the world with the conquerors and changes
the color of its mask in every other cue,
Alexander is still
easily identifiable as Vangelis music because it still seems inherently
structured as an album first and a score second. Each cue is lengthy in
development and features its own unique instrumental spin on the
composer's overarching ideas. Very little overlapping,
cross-referencing, or reprising of themes in different emotional
settings occurs in Vangelis' music, causing classically-trained
orchestral enthusiasts to dismiss it for events like
Alexander as
that of an amateur who simply knows how to make a whole lot of
impressive ruckus. This belief sells him short, though. To its credit,
Alexander does takes steps to appease those seeking a traditional
score format, but if you're like the majority of film music fans who
appreciate that Vangelis ruckus for what it is, then
Alexander
will knock your socks off in parts. The phrase "in parts" is important,
because
Alexander can be divided into two sections: that in which
Vangelis unleashes the ensembles and his electronics in a massive
bombardment of rhythm and theme, and those in which he attempts to
provide realistic source-like underscore for the erotic and/or Eastern
sequences. These more subtle cues are clustered on the album
presentation between "One Morning at Pella" and "Bagoas' Dance," moving
from exotic dance pieces to straight new age/rock rhythms with a heavier
emphasis on instrumental solos over an electric bass and additionally
synthetic soundscape. The "Roxane's Veil" cue, with a hint of Angelo
Badalamenti's contemporary style mixed with alluring violin solos,
specifically bridges the gap between Vangelis'
Chariots of
Fire-inspired, electronic post-modernism and this particular effort,
and it will likely appeal to mainstream crowds. Opening and closing the
score (with the exception of the final cue, which yanks the whole back
into a modern, romantic guitar/harp hybrid sound) are the cues
representing the glory of Alexander's conquests, and these are why money
will change hands for this album.
The most obvious and dominant theme, "Titans," is a
repetitious, simplistic melody of explosive force centered around a
primary statement of three notes for choir or brass, and this theme of
war is the Vangelis calling card that would represent the score in
concert arrangements and compilations had the film been more successful.
The introductory "Young Alexander" cue and "Titans" merged together are
the highlights of the album, the former containing nearly tear-inducing
beauty of heroic stature in its ultra-melodramatic, optimistic nobility.
Not surprisingly, the best moment in "Titans" exists at the (sadly) only
once-stated interlude at the 1:20 mark, a moment of grandeur that
returns to "Young Alexander" mode. More romantic secondary themes grace
the score's latter half, as dreams and betrayals are realized and the
full-fledged glory of Vangelis' best silver-screen ideas are extended
over extended sequences of majesty. These four-minute, string-dominated
cues are each a highlight in and of themselves, swaying in the wind
partly because of the composer's wind-like effects and partly because of
the sheer colossal size and magnitude of their own performances. As
expected, Vangelis relies upon awe to win you over, for none of these
performances has any deeply layered complexity worth mentioning. Therein
lies both the one consistent aspect of the entire score (from the
grandiose portions to the underscored dancing and conversing in the
middle) and, some would argue, its greatest weakness. This isn't music
that will impress you with its technical prowess on paper. This isn't
John Williams at work. It is music that takes you on a journey by
maintaining heavy rhythmic glory that propels you from track to track
and produces an excess of noise that is beautiful in its pompous
simplicity. Ironically, the more spectacular moments of
Alexander
contain exactly the sound that Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures/Remote
Control composers had been attempting and failing to achieve for years:
the perfect, ultimate, and masculine harmony between chorus, orchestra,
and synthesizer. The rhythmic element defines Vangelis and
Alexander, and it retains your interest in the score from the
battle scenes through even the minimally stewing "Chant" and
"Immortality." The grouping of tracks from "Across the Mountains" to
"Eternal Alexander" yields over 16 minutes of highly entertaining
ambient mass. The only straight forward (and overdue) reprise of any
idea in the score comes as the main phrase of the "Titans" theme is
heard near the conclusion in "Dream of Babylon."
There are a few curiosities to be found along the way
in
Alexander. Subtle thematic references to traditional songs
(including the "Silent Night" Christmas carol) seem to arise because of
Vangelis' tendencies to keep his themes very simplistic in progression.
Also, a distinctly Christian attitude is relayed in "Titans" as the
chorus chants "Gloria" even though this story takes place in a
pre-Christian time. On the whole, however, you could run with these
arguments about the technical merits of
Alexander (and Vangelis'
usual sound) all day. A very interesting essay contrasting this score
with Gabriel Yared's rejected work for
Troy the same year could
be written. But when you get down to the meat and bones, you listen to
Vangelis this type of music for its majestic scale, and
Alexander
will not disappoint you when you're in one of those moods to impress
your friends with your film score collection. Additional music beyond
the 56 minutes on the commercial album exists on bootlegs but, outside
of different arrangements of the score's highlights, is not particularly
impressive. If you're bothered by the general simplicity of Vangelis'
constructs, then this will likely still peak as a four-star score for
you. Some consideration has to be given to the fact that this was the
artist's first film score in a dozen years (and was followed by another
dry spell), and his lack of mainstream activity in this genre is
genuinely lamented. As a casual listening experience, the score doesn't
play with the same fluidity as
1492: Conquest of Paradise because
the middle sections of
Alexander do contain a more varied
attention to location and situational changes. But Vangelis certainly
did his best to provide that easy new age flow that you had come to
expect from him, with each cue connected by an instrumental overlap or,
for instance, the sound of a solid wind blowing between "Dream of
Babylon" and "Eternal Alexander." In typical modern Vangelis fashion, an
extremely wet, echoing mixing philosophy is employed to enhance the
magnitude of the music through a perceived increase in studio size
(similar to the techniques for Howard Shore's
The Lord of the
Rings). In its attempts to insert a synthetic element into music for
this general historical period,
Alexander succeeds better than
Zimmer's
Gladiator ever did, due in part to the fine mixing of
all the elements at play. Best of all, if you are a Vangelis score fan,
you now had a perfect amount of material from
1492: Conquest of
Paradise, "Mythodea," and
Alexander with which to produce
your own compilation of Vangelis' best thematic grace and bombast. You
have to tip your hat to Vangelis for expanding upon the true niche he
has found in the world of music.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
