: (Jane Antonia Cornish) The
second film from director and writer Nikolaj Arcel,
is reportedly the largest children's fantasy film ever to come
from Denmark. The Danish-language adventure was built as a tribute to
the classic 1980's movies of Steven Spielberg, intentionally infusing
American blockbuster magic from yesteryear into a story inherently
strong on Danish sensibilities. The story involves a group of diverse
youngsters in a coastal Danish town who attempt to save one of their own
when he is accidentally possessed by the spirit of a Wiccan from a
hundred years prior who is engaged in an ongoing battle with a powerful,
dark magician who happens to be a soul-corrupting necromancer. Now the
kids, led by the possessed boy's sister (a Wiccan herself), join the
battle to save him and, possibly, the whole world. Dark forests and
mystical concepts meet modern technology and the kid next door,
thrusting
and the flurry of other related fantasy films pouring out of
Hollywood in the 2000's. The movie features a stunning 623 special
effects shots and, in Arcel's spirit of raising the good old American
adventure films of the 80's from the dead, a sweeping and massive
orchestral score. On board the production came British composer Jane
Antonia Cornish, a talented musician who wrote her first symphony at the
age of 12 and chose to explore composition for film while in college.
With a few independent films and commercials to her name after
graduation, she re-located to Los Angeles, where her career as an
orchestrator included work on a handful of notable scores. Her score for
in 2005 won a BAFTA award, though the lack
of an album release failed to gain her much attention for the score in
America. For
, she would travel to Denmark
and record with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and the
enthusiasm with which she approached the project is easily evident in
the quality of the score and its recording.
For film score collectors, a group consisting
predominantly of males with musical tastes outside of mainstream, it
would be easy to imagine widespread surprise that a score of this
magnificent scope of fantasy and horror could come from a woman with
such a striking appearance as Cornish, though with the work of fellow
female British composers Debbie Wiseman and, to a lesser extent, Rachel
Portman, in the genre, such surprises are becoming fewer. Scores like
Island of Lost Souls and Wiseman's
Arsène Lupin are
entertaining both because of their outstanding technical merits and
because, frankly, the perception of the film scoring community as a
male-only club needs to be put to rest. Portman may not have done her
gender many favors in these regards with her fluffy romantic writing for
her most famous works, but the next wave of composers following her is
proving their talents in far more diverse genres. All gender discussion
aside, though,
Island of Lost Souls is a remarkable score no
matter its creator, and with the work receiving a commercial release
from Milan's European branch, perhaps Cornish will receive the attention
merited to her for both this and
Five Children and It. Like that
previous effort,
Island of Lost Souls was inspired in part by
John Williams. As the director stated in early 2007, "She really hit the
right note in
Island of Lost Souls. That's an enormous boon to
the film. It's practically Wagnerian. The film has 70 minutes of
symphonic, bombastic music." Many reviewers of the film seem to have
made the Williams comparisons, too, though the styles that Cornish draws
from also define the careers of other major composers working today.
While there are intangible connections to the structures of Williams'
scores for the two original
Star Wars sequels, there are also
similarities in thematic progression and orchestration to the works of
David Arnold, John Ottman, and Elliot Goldenthal. Unlike some
contemporary film scores, during which the connections to previous works
by others can become tiresome, such similarities in
Island of Lost
Souls are purely positive. Cornish's composition is a challenging
and intelligent extension of the genre during each of its cues.
The bold title theme for
Island of Lost Souls
may be both rather simplistic in structure and reminiscent of other
blockbuster works, but the style with which it is rendered to page and
performed by the enthusiastic Danish ensemble gives it, and Cornish by
association, a sound all its own. It's the kind of gritty, brassy theme
that is memorable enough to support a franchise; its progressions remind
strongly of Ottman's title theme for his
Fantastic Four scores,
but the performance of the material for
Island of Lost Souls is
executed with such bravado that it approaches the territory of David
Arnold's early blockbusters. The use of the full sonic spectrum is the
closest resemblance to Arnold's frenetic action writing, with
Island
of Lost Souls constantly stretching the limits of the bass and
treble with deep, resonating strings and brass at the bottom while
wildly flourishing woodwind lines occupy the opposite end. The
complexity of the balance between harmony and dissonant textures is a
reminder of Goldenthal's more impressive works. The use of the choir is
unique to this score, however, ranging from religiously terrifying,
throaty male performances and alluring, other-worldly performances by a
meandering female voice (as heard best in "The Cave"). The full ensemble
choral accompaniment to several of the ambitious action bursts is not to
be missed. A secondary character theme is introduced for solo woodwind
in "Death of Linea" and touch upon again in "Lulu's Theme" and in
fragments thereafter. During these slower portions of the score, which
are quite few on album, the intelligent roles of the harp and other more
delicate instruments are exposed. Most of the score is reserved for the
massive action cues, with "Final Battle" and "Soul Bridge" serving as an
outstanding survey of the score. The opening fanfare in "Island of Lost
Souls" is one of the most robust introductions to a theme in quite some
time, and the "End Titles" are a very satisfying summary of all the
ideas. The Milan album features only about half of the score, preceded
by an odd assortment of pop songs that score fans will want to skip
over. But the 40 minutes of extremely well recorded orchestral material,
with a sound quality as clearly resonating as any in recent years, will
impress any fan who shares the love of 80's fantasy scores that Cornish
has emulated with great success.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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