and
the actual, real-life circumstances surrounding the depressing,
nostalgic decline of director Billy Wilder in 1978. The film was the
director's attempt to recapture the success of the concept behind his
classic
several decades earlier. Once again, an
aging actress is an elusive recluse, living on an island under a false
identity. Obsessed with her beauty from Hollywood's Golden Age, the
actress passes off her daughter as herself, even forcing her daughter to
accept an honorary Oscar while she pretends to be the mother. A
washed-up director played by a frail-looking William Holden (once again
recalling
) attempts to rekindle a working
collaboration with the actress and falls into the mystery that
tragically ends with daughter committing suicide and the real actress
dying peacefully as a fictitious countess of the island. Most of the
movie's plot ties itself to Holden's character, Barry, as he tries to
uncover the mystery of the actress, Fedora, and all her gatekeepers and
deception. It was too overly melodramatic, really, especially when late
1970's audiences expected to see starships in realistic battle. The film
was a monumental failure, shelved for a year while the studio pondered
what to do with it and ultimately identified by critics as a sadly
desperate attempt by Wilder, who was in failing health by the time, to
resurrect his reputation with another 1940's classic thirty years later.
He even went so far as to employ the services of one his last remaining
living collaborating composers, Miklós Rózsa's, with whom
he had experienced a personal disagreement for decades since their
original projects of the 1940's earned both great recognition.
Rózsa was also in the final years of his career, though while a
series of strokes would keep him from film score production much longer
after
, he continued to write concert music through the
1980's despite severe physical limitations. Only a small handful of
scores followed
, though the quality of his work never
significantly declined in his final efforts.
One of the most interesting aspects of Rózsa's
career is that he never altered the style of composition that he
established in the 1940's, even in the post-
Star Wars era of
bravado and synthesizers. His score for
Fedora, to the delight of
his longtime collectors, retains the same styles of thematic structure
and instrumentation that most of his scores had maintained for a
lifetime. The expected orchestration in this case does tend to
accentuate harp a bit more, and slight, accordion-like tones are
occasional contributions, starting in "Fedora Appears." In most regards,
Fedora is truly a score from the Golden Age recorded with better
technical precision in the late 1970's, making Rózsa's sound more
accessible to Digital Age listeners. It's not a particularly long score,
and some of it was dropped from the picture, but there's still plenty to
hear in
Fedora, with Rózsa expertly devising themes for
each character and manipulating them as the mystery unfolds. (A unique,
folk-like melodic source in "Souvenir de Corfu" is a lighter diversion.)
The merging of the main theme of romance for the aging actress and her
daughter is masterfully realized in such cues as "Oscar" and
"Metamorphosis." Both cues represent the relatively cheery side of the
situation, especially the former, which is a triumphant highlight cue
late in Rózsa's career. Highly adaptable and constantly reaching
for the next yearning height in its phrasing, this idea is quite lovely
amongst the composer's later career identities. It explodes in its most
strenuous form at the outset of the unused "Prelude," adopts its
standard personality on woodwinds and strings in "Fedora Appears," and
is barely hinted at the start of "The Island," returning to its full
form in the cue's middle. Tentatively reprised in "Always the Actress,"
the main theme is slightly panicked early in "Discovered" but retains
whimsy later, begs for forgiveness on sometimes awkward pitches in
"Disappointed," and becomes trapped in cyclical movements in "No
Escape." The main theme then receives its fullest positive performances
in "The Oscar" with all the flowery Golden Age sensibilities available.
Rózsa continues its clever adaptations thereafter, using it to
sneak around at the outset of "Search in the Villa" before trying to
recapture its grace later, the cue including some solo violin passages
that are too brief to extend a mood. A charming oboe solo carries it
throughout "Fedora's Daughter" as well.
In the second half of
Fedora, the main theme
fights the darker identities and loses late in "Butcher!" Fragments
attempt to congeal but fail throughout "Star Mother," and the theme
turns to bright variations in the flowingly lovely "Metamorphosis"
before once again stripped down and somber in "Deception" and struggling
unsuccessfully against the Barry theme in "Escape." To close the score,
Rózsa extends the open flightiness of "The Oscar" into a positive
fanfare ending in "Finale." A brooding, forceful theme for Holden's
character is perhaps more creative in its ability to crouch and stew,
though even this theme makes use of the same lush instrumentation as the
rest of the score. Even in its darker shades, Rózsa's touch is
undeniably melodramatic in his trademark layered strings and woodwinds
solos. The composer employs repetitive, descending three-note phrases
with a hopeful but doomed, ascending answer for Barry, almost like an
investigation theme in its propulsion and frustration. Brooding on lower
shades at 0:06 into "The Island" and defining the latter half of the
cue, this theme establishes more heightened anguish in much of
"Dejected" but is reduced to sadness early in "Rain" and explored in
secondary phrasing, during which it battles with the score's despair
motif extensively throughout. The Barry theme then extends directly out
of the main identity early for a phrase in "Always the Actress,"
punctuates the realization in "Discovered," and continues lightly in the
first two minutes of "Search in the Villa," expanding with weight later.
The idea reaches its own panic point in the middle of "Butcher!" and
pushes a more aggravated tone in "Escape," never receiving true closure.
Two secondary motifs punctuate
Fedora in support of its darker
facets, first being a despair motif that is most menacing idea in the
score, rhythmically driven and often accompanying the gatekeepers for
Fedora and her daughter. This tool forcefully opens "Dejected" on low
strings and consolidates throughout the middle of "Rain" for additional
string threats, fighting the Barry theme in the latter half of the cue
and alternating with it frequently. Adopting the main theme's
instrumentation at 0:33 into "Always the Actress," the despair motif is
slight in the middle of "Discovered" but supplies taunting counterpoint
over the main theme early in "No Escape," reasserting itself with low
brass dread in the last passages of "Search in the Villa" and becoming a
massive action piece in "Butcher!" with resounding brass presence.
Additionally, for the melodrama of the main character's
deception, a downfall motif adds two notes to the Barry theme's descent
to make the composer's preferred 5-note phrase that permeated most of
his scores of this era. Often more stark than the Barry theme in
demeanor, this motif creeps into the scene early on low strings in
"Disappointed," tickles around 2:15 into "Search in the Villa," returns
in the middle of "Star Mother," and slinks into "Escape." While these
darker passages are melodically interesting, the art of the Golden Age
fanfare is not neglected in
Fedora, either, with both the
"Prelude" and "Finale" cue presenting outstanding brass announcements of
the main theme at the highest dramatic ranks. Unfortunately for
Rózsa, when Wilder realized that the film was too steeped in
yesteryear, much of the score was either removed or inserted in the
wrong places in the picture. As had happened a few times in his past,
this rearrangement reportedly angered and disappointed Rózsa
greatly, and understandably so, since the music was obviously an
appropriate throwback in the context of the film's story. Listeners did
have the opportunity to hear the score's album recording in stereo on LP
in 1979 and CD ten years later from Varèse Sarabande. The latter
product was the second in the label's original Club series, limited to
only 1,200 copies and retaining top value for Rózsa collectors
not influenced by subsequent bootlegs and desiring an original copy.
Also in that presentation was a suite of cues from Rózsa's 1950
score for
Crisis, a film starring Cary Grant as an American brain
surgeon kidnapped and forced to botch an operation on a Latin American
dictator but who refuses and creates a nasty dilemma. It was noted as
the only major studio film score at the time to be performed by solo
acoustic guitar, and while Rózsa's attempt at creativity is
noble, the score is hardly an enjoyable listening experience, especially
compared to the romantic and lush
Fedora. The same presentation
was reprised by Varèse in 2014 in a 1,000-copy Club pressing that
also sold out quickly, and revisiting the score once again only
reaffirms the enduring appeal of the throwback nostalgia and impressive
sound quality of the
Fedora album recording in Germany. This
presentation, regardless of
Crisis at the end, is a solid, if not
necessary inclusion for any Rózsa collector, and among the
composer's last few comfortable scores,
Fedora remains perhaps
the loveliest coda to the composer's grand romantic past.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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