: (James Newton Howard) Director
Edward Zwick is a thinking man's moviemaker, giving intellectually
world-conscious viewers tremendous historical films to chew on. In the
case of
, the setting is Sierra Leone in 1999, torn
apart by civil war, smuggling, and meddling by foreign powers. The film
tells the story of three individuals brought together by the conflict:
one a farmer violently torn from his family and in desperate search for
them, one a South African soldier of fortune seeking an illegal diamond
to sell, and one an American journalist risking her life to expose the
diamond trade. Zwick shows the horrors of the region without hesitation,
with violence so hardened that the atrocities strike your attention away
from the narrative of the three primary characters. It's a rare miss
overall for Zwick, who hired veteran composer James Newton Howard for
the extremely diverse music for
. Howard joins James
Horner and Hans Zimmer as notable collaborators with Zwick, whose films
often tend to yield strong, if not outstanding scores. The diversity of
Howard's talents would be confirmed to the highest degree in
, with the resulting score offering a wide range of cultural
sounds appropriate to the region. He merges an orchestra (minus a
traditional woodwind section) with multiple choirs and a plethora of
soloists, ranging in specialty from the oud to the duduk. Prayer samples
from Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn are even interpolated. These performers and
vocals originate from all over the world, providing
with a score rich with fascinating ethnic performances. Howard would tie
all of these elements together with a variant on a tribal song that
serves as the relatively simplistic, but extremely satisfying title
theme for the film.
From the perspective of a film score collector, the
most interesting observation about the music for
Blood Diamond is
that it sounds in many parts like a true Hans Zimmer score. Maybe Zwick
had
Tears of the Sun in mind when consulting with Howard, but,
conversely, maybe Howard achieved the sound completely by accident.
Either way, Howard proves in
Blood Diamond that he can expand
upon Zimmer's styles better than Zimmer himself. The concept of
Blood
Diamond is this: take a simplistic set of themes and rhythms and
flesh them out with outrageously diverse sounds and mix them into a
result that defies the underlying simplicity. While the primary theme
resembles the qualities of a tribal song, it also follows stereotypical,
minor key progressions of a very basic Media Ventures theme. Howard
often hands this theme to a unified string section, furthering the
connection. The action pieces feature frenetic, rhythmic pounding of
varied percussion and quick brass spikes also reminiscent of a score
like
Tears of the Sun. A nearly constant electronic element is
also present, from the synthetic wailing of a guitar to an extremely
powerful base. A solo flute over percussion, solo female voice,
expansive bass, and heavy strings in "Crossing the Bridge" absolutely
begs for comparison to similarly harmonic sequences in Zimmer's
Beyond Rangoon. Where Howard manages to excel beyond this Zimmer
template is in two areas: pacing and instrumentation. The selection of
specialty instruments has already been applauded, to some extent, though
a special mention also needs to go to the merging of the two different
choirs for the project. When Howard inserts his set of vocals over a
percussively powerful thematic progression (as in "Solomon Vandy"), it's
more elegant and authentic in its rendering.
The superb pacing of the score is a carry-over from
Lady in the Water, a Howard effort from earlier in 2006 made
irresistible by its keen sense of movement. The simplicity of the title
theme in
Blood Diamond allows Howard to roll it along as
effortlessly here as he did in
Lady in the Water. Several
sensitive cues extend lengthy performances of this theme, and while it
may be repetitive in the fact that it has only one measure of variation
in its bars, its highly exotic conveyance is addictive. The light
electronic presence at the end of "London" is complete proof of the
effectiveness of synthetics in a stunningly beautiful role amongst a
full orchestral and choral ensemble. The action material is not quite as
listenable, and with their faint similarities to the brutality of
Black Hawk Down, wild cues like "Village Attack" and "Fall of
Freetown" will interest you for only one listen. Overall,
Blood
Diamond is a fascinating, but somewhat unrewarding listening
experience. If only Howard had been able to fuse the pacing and mixing
of the softer cues in some way to make the action cues flow with better
consistency, the score could have been magnificent. As it stands, parts
of it suffer from a hyperactive bass region caused by incessantly
rolling percussion. Still, the six or seven conversational cues
featuring the title theme, along with the harmonious "Crossing the
Bridge" cue, make for a very strong listening experience apart from the
film. On the other hand, the rap song featured over the end credits of
film is a horrific inclusion (Zwick actually had a hand in writing that
trash?), and score collectors will be well served by ignoring the songs
at the end of the album. The score has its flaws, but with some
rearrangement on your own compilations, what you get from
Blood
Diamond will be extremely satisfying.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 70 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.36
(in 86,418 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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