: (John Williams) Countless variations on
Bram Stoker's classic vampire tale have existed through the years, but
none had attempted to take such a sensual, romantic view of it until
John Badham's 1979 version starring Frank Langella as the bare-chested,
womanizing title character and Sir Laurence Olivier as his nemesis, Van
Helsing. A fair amount of sex appeal and graphic violence punctuated
this unusual adaptation, and
was criticized heavily by
loyalists of the concept for sharing more in common with the stage
variation of the story (from which Langella came) than Stoker's original
vision. The film was mocked by such viewers, driving the mainstream away
from what was otherwise a decent production. The director of
was thrilled to have signed the top blockbuster composer
of the era, John Williams, to stir the dead with a rousing performance
from the London Symphony Orchestra. Williams confessed at the time that
he had never viewed a single vampire-related film in his life, and
Badham considered this fact to be a great virtue given the new direction
he was attempting to take with the lore. What he desired of Williams was
a score that underlined the romantic tilt of the production, pointing to
Gothic grandeur rather than an exposition of dissonant horror bombast.
Williams, given his own tendency to embrace the same general notion,
obliged with a score that is among the most melodramatic of any to
accompany a Dracula film. It's a work built upon harmonic deviancy that
is morbidly conceived and forcefully performed. It sounds far less like
a horror score and instead plays as though it belongs in the fantasy
drama genre. Many of its progressions, counterpoint techniques, rhythmic
devices, and instrumental choices reflect Williams' forthcoming approach
to
, with several sections
indistinguishable from the more famous score's latter half. All of
Williams' fan-favorite techniques are paraded in this score, from the
chopping, turbulent bass string rhythms to pulsating mid-range brass and
resounding crescendos of pounding timpani that culminate in a massive
gong strike.
Subtleties do exist in the music for
Dracula,
including a variety of softly whiny string interludes, but Williams
usually states his intentions with a heavy hand throughout the work.
This doesn't mean that any part of it is religiously influenced; aside
from occasional pipe organ accents, there's nothing in
Dracula
that foreshadows the ambience of the "Gloria" piece in
Monsignor.
Along with the absence of liturgical chants, the score also mostly
ignores the controversial period and location of the narrative. One
aspect in which
Dracula differs from most Williams scores of the
era is in its surprising lack of thematic diversity. The composer
tackles this film with only one major theme, a relative rarity given how
complicated he typically made his intermingling of motifs for films of
much lesser inspiration. The eight-note theme for Dracula himself is the
foundation for the entire score, its opening and closing pairs of
two-note progressions bracketing a classically-informed twist that gives
the score its only true hint of the period. The individual two-note
portions are given their own duties in the score, though most of the
statements of Dracula's entry and influence are afforded variations on
the full theme. The idea reaches monumental proportions by the
concluding two cues, matching the Ark's theme from
Raiders of the
Lost Ark in intensity. Williams chose not to provide a secondary
love theme for
Dracula, instead reducing the primary idea down to
solo horn and other more intimate performance inflection. When the
romance on screen hits its heights, Williams treats these occasions with
the same broad ensemble strokes as the scenes of killing and battle.
Each cue in the score, even if containing quiet string plucking for a
short time, eventually yields an overblown level of tonal activity
certain to please any collector of the composer's early 1980's music.
The shift of the main theme from its constant minor mode into a brief
explosion of major key victory late in "Night Journeys" represents one
of the more notable scorings of an orgasm ever heard on screen, the cue
among the work's most appealing in its passion and tonally vital to the
titular character's dilemma. The alternate "The Love Scene" rendition of
this cue is even more brazenly triumphant.
Other individual highlights abound, from the scherzo in
"To Scarborough" that climaxes with a decisive gong hit (a la Lord
Vader's entrance) to the eerie female vocals that prevail in the
swirling strings of "Night Journeys." With the help of an organ,
"Dracula's Death" is as tragically rendered as Han Solo's freezing the
following year (but does suffer from a bad splice with 20 seconds to
spare on the original album). The score's parade of explosive ensemble
expressions of high drama is interrupted by "The Bat Attack" (later
known as simply "The Attack"), the album's only grating detriment. Some
listeners will find interest in Williams' sole secondary theme for the
film, one for Van Helsing introduced in "Grave Trampling and the Asylum"
but really shining at 2:10 into "Van Helsing's Solution" (a hidden
highlight of the score for true Williams collectors) and continuing into
"Into the Crypt." This idea shares significant suspense characteristics
with the following
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. There is,
unfortunately, a major downside to
Dracula, and that is the
extremely muffled sound quality that has plagued it from the start. Both
in film and on album, Williams' score is badly constrained by a
soundscape that significantly marginalizes individual elements in the
ensemble and leaves only the many overtly loquacious moments for your
enjoyment. Making matters worse,
Dracula had been difficult to
find on CD for decades, its sole early release matching the equally
muffled LP presentation in 1990. In 2018, Varèse Sarabande
finally located superior sources for the recording and remastered them
for an attractive two-CD set that improves upon the audio quality
situation but not to the degree hoped. The additional material provided
on the 2018 set is interesting but not particularly vital, as much of
Dracula is redundant given Williams' extensive development of the
main theme. By the end of especially the longer presentation, listeners
will likely remember nothing about the score outside of its many
extroverted recapitulations of that main theme. Massive Williams sets
in 2023 and 2025 re-issued only the LP record's contents. This is a score that
remains in extreme need of a significant re-recording with an equally
capable ensemble. There is much to like about
Dracula as a
composition, and the performance is unquestionably spirited, but
appreciating the repetitious work in the film or on album will present
challenges.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on Album: ***
- Overall: ***
| Bias Check: |
For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.68
(in 91 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.51
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