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Amistad
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
Soprano Solos by:
Pamela Dillard
Orchestrated by:
John Neufeld Conrad Pope
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Regular U.S. release.
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AWARDS
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Nominated for an Academy Award and a Grammy Award.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you are drawn towards John Williams' more intelligent
exercises in restraint, with themes that won't sweep you off your feet
but rather entertain with their cultural adeptness.
Avoid it... if a comparatively short Williams score defined by its
multi-cultural title theme doesn't offer enough overwhelming melody or
robust action to sustain your interest.
BUY IT
 | Williams |
Amistad: (John Williams) While the history books
had never pointed much light on the events of the Spaniard slave ship La
Amistad and the rebellion of its 53 captured Africans, director Steven
Spielberg revived interest in the topic with a quality 1997 film that
follows most of the basic historical facts. After the slaves kill most
of the crew of the ship and inadvertently sail onward to the American
coast and are captured, their trial represented the tug of war between
the claims of the American government, Spain's queen, the ship's
surviving crew, and the American naval officers who captured them.
Inspiring their defense is former president John Quincy Adams, whose
portrayal by Anthony Hopkins is a highlight of the film. The production
qualities of Spielberg's effort are exactly as you would expect, raising
memories of the equally powerful Schindler's List. But
Amistad failed to muster the same emotional attachment in
audiences as the previous classic, and the film withered after causing a
flurry of initial public inquiry about the event. Nevertheless, an opera
based on the subject debuted the same year, countless books were offered
about the subject, and the film received its fair share of recognition
during awards season. One of the production's Academy Award nominations
came to John Williams, who extended his lengthy streak of nominations
during his years of production with his highly stylistic music for
Amistad. The year of 1997 was one of much anticipation for fans
of the maestro; after three years of rather mundane and sparse activity,
he wrote a respectfully strong score for Rosewood, a marginally
satisfyingly robust sequel for The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and
a melodic and rich effort for Seven Years in Tibet. Technically
speaking, Amistad is likely the best of these four scores,
showing a side of the composer's ethnic elegance that is rarely heard.
The centerpiece of the score, the "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" adaptation of
a 1967 poem, is a rousing, victorious song with spoken African
vocals.
The African flavor of parts of Amistad was of
interest to Williams fans at the time because the composer had been
commissioned to write music for the forthcoming Olympics, and many had
thought (erroneously, as it would turn out to be) that he would provide
music of precisely this international flavor for the opening of the
event. The personality of Amistad is split into two halves, which
is perfectly understandable given the plot of the film. The African
elements, heard in the title theme's song performance and a sub-theme
for Djimon Hounsou's character of Cinque, both feature instrumentation
atypical to Williams for the period and are a refreshing exploration of
tribal sounds. The American counterpart to this African half is scored
with Williams' usual noble ideas for trumpet and French horn,
respectfully tasteful at every moment. The title theme is the score's
most obvious identity, and it offered Williams a chance to assemble 50
vocalists and a variety of authentic percussion (including a slapping
metallic sound unique to this score) to accentuate the powerful bass of
the orchestral ensemble. The poem "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" by Bernard
Dadie is adapted with all the victorious bravado that Williams can
arouse, though the upbeat nature of this theme is a somewhat surprising
choice for the composer. For the slaves, there would be decades of
hardship to come, and "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" seems to handle the topic
with valiant defiance that perhaps doesn't apply necessary gravity to
the concept. The underlying theme's presence in the score is pervasive
in that it features an elegant repetition late in its progression that
is used to tie the score together. This five-note conclusion to the
theme is appended masterfully to the end of both Cinque's theme and the
American theme, symbolizing the eventual and inevitable merging of
cultures. Full reprises of the song would explode in "The Liberation of
Lomboko" and the official concert-suite arrangement at the end of the
album, though the theme's most beautiful performance comes from the
wordless vocals in the latter half of "Middle Passage." This cue
alleviates some of the problems with abrasive, dry mixing from which the
three full song performances suffer.
The theme for Cinque is provided with a concert
arrangement of its own in "Cinque's Theme" and features the solitary
longing in flute performances that Williams collectors will best
remember from Hook. This theme would interestingly be handed over
to the full, lush ensemble and conclude with a horn solo that would
seemingly foreshadow the America that the character would come to
encounter. This theme would receive a haunting resolution in the subdued
choral performance of "Going Home" at the finale of the film, once again
followed by a subtle reference to the title theme. The story's
transition to an American setting in "The Long Road to Justice" is
announced with a buoyant and optimistic trumpet and French horn theme
that represents the better halves of JFK and Born on the
Fourth of July. Williams' positive themes for Americana settings
seem to blend together after a while, and the one for Amistad
remains rather anonymous in this history. While well performed, these
good-natured passages later in the score lack the powerfully genuine
touch that Williams has provided them in times past. In both "The Long
Road to Justice" and "Mr. Adams Takes the Case," the American theme
yields to the African title theme, but maintains the Western
instrumentation. Outside of these thematic passages, there are few other
cues worth noting. Much of the remainder of the score is darkly
suspenseful, scored with a slight hand by Williams. An exception is
"Sierra Leone, 1839," which features a deep male chorus chanting to
tribal rhythms that combines the raw menace of Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom with the synthetic edge of Jurassic Park. The
same style extends into "Crossing the Atlantic," which opens with an
electronic pan pipe rhythm synonymous with James Horner's career.
Overall, Amistad does not offer sweeping melodies or attractive
action material. It is an intelligently successful exercise in
restraint, though its major detraction is the overly optimistic nature
of the title song and a few of the suspense cues. Otherwise,
Amistad is a very impressive score that compensates well for its
slower passages with outstanding thematic integration and execution. **** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check: |
For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.8
(in 75 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.67
(in 349,893 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Orchestrations Expand >> N.R.Q. - November 2, 2005, at 9:58 a.m. |
2 comments (5144 views) Newest: July 9, 2006, at 11:53 a.m. by N.R.Q. |
appreciation s.venkatnarayanan - December 30, 2004, at 1:17 a.m. |
1 comment (3460 views) |
Anyone? Expand >> Doug - November 23, 2003, at 4:34 p.m. |
4 comments (4922 views) Newest: June 30, 2004, at 10:31 a.m. by JS Park |
Total Time: 55:51
1. Dry Your Tears, Afrika (4:18)
2. Sierra Leone, 1839, and the Capture of Cinque (3:39)
3. Crossing the Atlantic (3:21)
4. Cinque's Theme (4:12)
5. Cinque's Memories of Home (2:35)
6. Middle Passage (5:18)
7. The Long Road to Justice (3:16)
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8. July 4, 1839 (4:01)
9. Mr. Adams Takes the Case (7:15)
10. La Amistad Remembered (5:08)
11. The Liberation of Lomboko (4:09)
12. Adams' Summation (2:55)
13. Going Home (2:02)
14. Dry Your Tears, Afrika (Reprise) (3:37)
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(track times not listed on packaging)
The insert includes the standard note from Spielberg, though he makes some serious
film music spelling mistakes in his notes. He mispells the names of two major composers
(out of three). Surely Williams would have caught these mistakes if he had read the proofs.
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