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| Horner |
Braveheart: (James Horner) There can be no
discounting of the ongoing popularity of the biographical epic film
Braveheart, even after several decades of time that included the
public disgracing of its director and lead, Mel Gibson. The Gibson
throwback endeavor, telling a romantic version of the Scottish legend
William Wallace and his people's fight for territorial freedom, was an
outstanding success at the time of its release in 1995, although the
true sign of the film's legacy is its continuing, almost cult-like
following many years later. Despite its graphic violence, disturbing
methods of killing, themes of romance lost, and, perhaps most
intriguingly, a liberal dramatization of a historical figure about which
relatively little was known, the film's quirky sense of humor combined
with arguably Gibson's career performance to float the movie's legacy
with a maddening stream of interest. The same crowds that flock to the
film's bandwagon often discover James Horner's expansive score along the
way, and these
Braveheart junkies caused the composer's music for
the project to reach phenomenal sales levels on two commercial albums
released in the years succeeding the film's debut. Profits from Horner's
score on the Decca/London label outweighed all three of Horner's
concurrent 1995 album releases on MCA Records (
Apollo 13,
Casper, and
Balto) combined and was briefly the composer's
most significant record store success story until
Titanic in
1997. And yet, the two most interesting aspects of Horner's music for
Braveheart are its general lack of masculinity in the gravity of
its performances and the systematic, obvious statements of typical
"Hornerisms" with greater frequency, arguably, than many of his other
works. The lack of genuine power in this score, especially compared to a
work like
Legends of the Fall, is a more nebulous curiosity, but
the repetitions of style are as blatant as ever. As he clearly stated
through the years, Horner was inspired by traditional Celtic and
Scottish influences in his works, sometimes inserting them when not
necessary, and some of his fans became downright sick of particularly
the Irish elements in non-related situations. Naturally,
Braveheart would give him the opportunity to pour the latter
ethnicity on with all of his romantic power, Gibson admitting that he
initially found it a little odd that Irish elements wiggled their way
into the music.
With Gibson ultimately shrugging off the Irish tones in
Braveheart as being inconsequential, Horner continued to blur the
lines between cultural sounds unabated, successfully counting on the
fact that most listeners won't realize the inappropriateness of the
application. After all, if Jerry Goldsmith could use pan pipes for
Under Fire (set in Nicaragua), then Horner may as well pull from
the Andes region as well and insert a Kena flute into William Wallace's
fight for freedom in Scotland. In the end, does it really matter? For
intellectuals, those few who will argue about whether the performances
of the whistle in
Braveheart stray stylistically towards either
Irish or Scottish sensibilities, the answer to the above question will
be obvious. But when you boil it down to the overall feel of Horner's
achievement here, there is no arguing that
Braveheart is an
intensely attractive score when hearing it in the context of the film.
Listeners unfamiliar with many of Horner's other works make up the vast
majority of buyers of the
Braveheart albums, so issues of
instrumental technicalities and self-regurgitations are moot. For film
score collectors, the score remains a potentially problematic entry in
his career because it is largely evidence of Horner's significant
reliance on his own material in previous scores, as well as the
foreshadowing of better development of some ideas in the future. When
wide swaths of people within that community praise Horner's work for
Braveheart as well, they seem to be willing to forget that it is
one of the ultimate self-referencing scores from the composer, starting
a trend during which, in the late 1990's, similar scores would instead
be admonished for this very same behavior. Just because
Braveheart has transformed into a cult film doesn't excuse Horner
in this case for blatantly repeating several elements from his previous
successes. In its favor, though,
Braveheart features several
redeeming aspects to its recording, extending the romantic pairing of
modern orchestra and ethnicity into ghostly realms of beauty. The heavy
romanticism, with deep string themes jerking the tears right out of
audience, is a direct descendant of
Legends of the Fall. The
chilling boys' choir's late performances are clearly derived from
Casper. The swells of battle, highlighted by Horner's newly
trademarked use of percussion at the time, take several pages from
Glory. A secondary phrase to the title theme exudes the nobility
of the concurrent
Apollo 13.
The final three tracks on the first album for
Braveheart arguably represented the culmination of Horner's best
ideas of the prior six years rolled into one fantastic suite. It is,
without a doubt, excellent standalone music in parts, but before you
detail how
Bicentennial Man,
A Beautiful Mind,
Enemy at
the Gates, and other later scores by Horner exhibit his "borrowing
habits" in a harshly detrimental light, you have to cite
Braveheart as the grand triumph of re-use philosophy. One aspect
of the score that remains extraordinarily overrated is its themes. Only
three major ideas exist in the score, with the two softer romantic ones
often blending together. The title theme heard famously on uillean pipes
near the start of "Main Title" and "End Credits" is an appropriately
respectful idea for the titular character. Fragments of the theme extend
over
Thunderheart-like rhythms in "Revenge" and two extremely
enthusiastic performances on pipes over bodhran drums (an Irish frame
drum) in "Making Plans/Gathering the Clans" and "The Legend Spreads."
The theme turns melodramatic on strings in "Sons of Scotland" before the
highlight of the score hits audiences at the 6:05 mark in "Freedom/The
Execution Bannockburn," when Horner states the theme in conjunction with
its secondary interlude of nobility. The two romance themes mingle
throughout the score, both receiving beautiful performances in "For the
Love of a Princess" and the middle portion of "End Credits." The first
of these two is the flowing string melody that shares its final bars
with a theme from
Legends of the Fall, and it also receives
treatment in "A Gift of a Thistle" and, faintly, in "The Princess Pleads
for Wallace's Life." The other romantic theme in
Braveheart is a
far more tragic one to represent the character of Murron (part of this
material, in fairness, is based upon the melody of a traditional folk
tone from the region), punctuated by a gorgeous choral performance at
3:10 into "End Credits" that very strongly recalls the melancholy tone
of
Casper. This theme additionally graces "The Secret Wedding"
and "Murron's Burial" with similarly depressing tones. Both of these two
romantic ideas receive performances by a Kena flute (the first one in
"The Princess Pleads for Wallace's Life" and the latter in "The Secret
Wedding"), and while these renderings are effectively pretty, the sound
of the culturally misplaced instrument might be a distraction for some
listeners. The ever-effective combination of the London Symphony
Orchestra and a boys' choir lends a familiar tone to the romance themes
in "The Princess Pleads for Wallace's Life" and "Freedom/The Execution
Bannockburn" (along with the "End Credits").
Less heralded in
Braveheart is the Wallace
family thematic material that is littered throughout the end of picture
but actually truly represents Wallace's father; the ethereal,
synthetically-enhanced pair of cues, "William's Father Leaves to Fight"
and "A Father's Final Return," was not initially offered on album and
was therefore often overlooked by listeners. The action material in
Braveheart is yet another highly overrated portion of the score.
Both "The Battle of Stirling" and "Falkirk" fail to stir up a genuine
sense of excitement or even panic at any point, a curious circumstance
when considering that Horner was better able to pull upon his great
action motifs of the 1980's in projects as flimsy in adventure as
Sneakers. The source-like passages sometimes offer a bizarre
combination of the Celtic and South American elements, the opening
"Wallace Courts Murron" awkwardly exploring this merging over the
composer's rambling metallic panic rhythms of other scores. Still, with
all of this cautionary objectivity expressed, both mainstream listeners
and a healthy portion of Horner fans will argue that
Braveheart
is the composer's best work of 1995 and thus deserved to win Academy
Award that year. Horner's supporters split their votes between this
score and the more inspirational
Apollo 13 that year, thus
allowing the likeable but inferior
Il Postino by Luis Bacalov to
steal away the statue. Debates about the merits of
Braveheart and
Apollo 13 will continue, pitting patriotism versus romanticism.
Technically and dynamically,
Apollo 13 is the more memorable
work. Conversely,
Braveheart has more palatable romance
highlights and the (albeit misplaced) flair of ethnicity that will
remind listeners of
Titanic. On album,
Braveheart suffices
as a strong background listening experience, with several lengthy
passages of lush but subdued underscore. The first Decca/London album
contained a full 77 minutes of Horner's most significant material from
the film and continued to be a sales juggernaut more than a decade after
its release. As mentioned before, the final three cues are the main
attraction, with Horner's suite of material for the "End Credits" often
performed by orchestras around the globe. The artwork for the
international edition of the first
Braveheart album was altered
to take advantage of actress Sophie Marceau's greater appeal in Europe.
Due to the growing demand for
Braveheart music as the cult
following erupted and maintained itself, a second volume of music for
the film was released by the same label in 1997; it motioned the
beginning of a marketing habit by labels to release "More Music from..."
for several years to come.
The sequel album for
Braveheart hasn't
critically fared as well as those for
Titanic or
Gladiator, however, because the second
Braveheart album
really doesn't offer much of anything vitally new. Only seven minutes of
previously unreleased Horner music is presented unimpeded by dialogue
from the film, and while these tracks are pleasant enough, they don't
feature a blockbuster cue to get excited about. Instead, the album
relies on scenes taken directly from the film, sound effects and all, so
that the album is a sort of audio souvenir from the motion picture. The
traditional bagpipe songs in its contents are better suited for
enthusiasts of the Gibson spectacle than the majority of film score
collectors. In 2015, in part in celebration of the 20th anniversary of
the movie and in tribute to the composer after his unexpected death in a
plane accident,
Braveheart was revisited by La-La Land Records
and provided a truly proper presentation, one the last album masters
agreed upon by Horner before dying. A significant amount of newly
released music awaits enthusiasts of this score on the 2-CD set,
including a nicely chronological presentation that finally fleshes out
the early scenes involving Wallace's father and the many cues leading up
to the closing "Freedom/The Execution Bannockburn" sequence. While the
music for the former, early scenes is, as mentioned already, an
important guide to Horner's thematic development in the picture, it is
not particularly romantic in its conveyance. In fact, much of the
newly-released material is atmospheric. One major exception is the
outstanding love theme performance in "Romantic Alliance" late in the
story, the actual film placement of the "For the Love of a Princess"
suite of romantic identities. Given the popularity of this score,
regardless of how derivative it may be for learned ears, it's fantastic
to hear this loyal presentation of the work on the 2015 set, and La-La
Land enjoyed brisk sales of the product. Limited to 3,000 copies, the
set eventually sold out, prompting the label to re-issue it in 2022 for
another run of 3,000. The sound quality remains about the same as before
on these sets. Overall,
Braveheart is a well arranged collection
of some of Horner's best romantic writing for lush orchestral
situations, but if you want scores with many of the same ideas and a
more unique punch, then
Legends of the Fall and
Apollo 13
are both more advisable, with
Casper and even
Cocoon fine
supplemental recommendations. Expect the legend of the film to continue
propelling the legacy of this music, however, this review of
Braveheart positioned as the most popular at Filmtracks for years
before being overtaken by Hans Zimmer's controversial
Gladiator.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1995 Albums: ****
- Music as Heard on the 1997 "More Music" Album: **
- Music as Heard on the 2015/2022 Albums: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 107 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 197,460 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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