: (James Horner) Director Martin
Campbell's love story painted on a canvas of the world's ills that
didn't last long at the box office, failing to make either a political
or romantic statement of any lasting value. The story sends a married,
wealthy English woman to the worst poverty and famine-stricken regions
of the world to help deliver her contributed aid, falling in love with a
relief worker who obviously complicates matters. The execution of the
film's plot gives
the feel of a forced public
service message, a documentary with a falsely conceived love story that
doesn't particularly make sense. Despite a publicity campaign that sat
lead actress Angelina Jolie next to United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan at a screening (perhaps the unlikeliest of combinations), the
elements of romance and politics in the story didn't mesh on screen,
placing James Horner's score into the role of choosing which part of the
film to accentuate. With three other, concurrent scoring projects set
for release in late 2003, the composer's efforts for
quickly faded from the spotlight, though it gave Horner the
opportunity to continue a collaboration with Campbell that included
, a project that inspired him to reach into a
barrel of whole new musical ideas. While some faint hints of Horner's
romantic tendencies do shine through in his largely electronic and
solo-inclined score for
, his attention seemed to
be squarely aimed at capturing the essence of the wretched third world
conditions in the film's locations. Horner reaches far back in his
career for ideas that, at the very least, will leave his critics stating
that in this case, the self-references were lifted from lesser-known
material from an era long ago in his writing. The score's construction
and recording is organized as necessary into three sections: Ethiopia,
Cambodia, and Chechnya, the primary settings along the film's journey.
While the instrumentation between the three sections does differ,
typically varying in the level of electronic accompaniment, there really
isn't any vastly unique sound to any of them. A modest orchestral
ensemble for
was recorded in Los Angeles, and an
ethnic flute, children's chorus, and solo voice were added to an
equation heavy with Horner's electronics.
The synthetic elements proved to be the kicker, for
these portions of the score offer both its beauty and its headaches.
There are some very intriguing musical ideas presented by Horner in
Beyond Borders, and if you extract fifteen minutes from various
parts on the album and arrange them in your own suite, then you'll have
a fantastic piece of music. But the disjointed nature of the project as
a whole leaves listeners with a troublesome package. On the positive
side, Horner does manage to avoid all the pitfalls of his repetitive
styles; there are ten minute sequences in
Beyond Borders when
even a Horner collector would have no idea what composer had written the
music. His title theme is performed with a distinguished, native rhythm
and delivered with the same ethnic spirit that was heard in
Bopha!, but thankfully without wailing, incongruous vocals in the
background this time. These performances (bookending the score) are
satisfyingly harmonic and present their ethnic colors without
overwhelming the soundscape. The solo female voice offers a more
free-flowing performance from the heart in "Ethiopia: ii" and reappears
occasionally throughout the score. A children's chorus with introductory
notes similar to those in the theme from
Glory is utilized in the
opening and closing cues. Subdued piano solos occupy considerable time,
such as the entirety of "Chechnya: iii," and their sensitivity is
equaled by the somber orchestral underscore heard best in the later
Cambodian portions of the score. The only propulsive orchestral action
comes in "Chechnya: iv," completed by Horner's use of tolling chimes.
The title theme established at the start of the score is heard quite
often, and it is more personal than the larger-than-life string themes
that Horner provided for
Radio and
The Missing at roughly
the same time of release. The theme seems to rise from the shared heart
that floated on the soul of
Casper, presenting Horner enthusiasts
with a marginally refreshing angle on the composer's usual thematic
styles. The beginning of "Chechnya: i" presents a gorgeous rendition of
a subtheme with the ethnic flute, Horner's synths, and melancholy
percussion. Here arises the multifaceted issue of the use of the
electronics, however, an element that will make or break this score for
you.
Without a doubt, Horner utilizes his electronics here
in ways that hadn't been heard since the days of
The Name of the
Rose, and
Beyond Borders is a rare, 2000's Horner score
orchestrated and arranged largely by the composer himself. The synths
exist in two fashions: first as a tool to saturate the foggy depths of
his music with a softer sense of harmony, and second, to unleash havoc
through harsh rhythms, dissonant tones, and ambient sound effects. In
the first application, the meandering, pleasant tones of the synthetics
represent a style straight from the careers of Mark Snow and Christopher
Franke, with portions of the melodic cues sounding remarkably similar to
Snow's
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Franke's
Babylon
5. The keyboards often lend a hand to the bass strings in broadening
the lengthy whole notes underneath these cues. On the other hand, the
scratching and clawing sound effects that Horner alternately uses for
the horrors of the third world completely destroy whatever mood is
established by the romantic cues. The first two cues for the Cambodia
sequence deliver some needed emotional punch, but they do so with sound
effects that border on the threshold of pain for the ears. These are not
the creative Horner variety of effects, such as the helicopter powering
up in
Courage Under Fire, but rather a series of distorted notes
climbing in intensity with the low pounding on the piano until such a
time that you may realize that you have a headache developing. This
difficult writing by Horner is compounded in "Chechnya: i," in which the
excellent statement of theme mentioned above is followed by suddenly
tolling chimes and obnoxious synth effects at significantly higher
volumes. Thus,
Beyond Borders is a score of ups and downs, beauty
and distortion, and if you are fond of taking Horner's scores and
creating your own compilations of his best work, then this album will
offer you several worthy cues of somber loveliness. It marked the first
Horner score released by the Varèse Sarabande label in over a
decade, followed soon after by
House of Sand and Fog. A generous
amount of music (over 55 minutes) was pressed on the
Beyond
Borders album (albeit without track names), and while it may not be
as easily accessible as Horner's other scores of 2003, it exhibits some
new ideas and a refreshing look at some old ones.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 200,400 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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