: (Elmer Bernstein/James
Horner) Among Walt Disney Studio's lesser known live action films of
recent times is
, a 1985 tale of
perseverance that fared poorly at the box office but has gained respect
through the years for its fine production values. The story is as
preposterous as any fantasy, depicting a Depression-era man who has to
cross America to take a logging job outside of Seattle but, in the haste
of his decision, has to leave his young daughter with acquaintances back
East until he can send for her. The girl is a creative and troublemaking
brat, however, and in the process of being pursued by authorities, she
embarks upon a journey to travel across the country herself to find her
father. Along the way, she sparks up a romance with another young,
homeless traveler (played by John Cusack) and is befriended by the same
wolf that would go on to play the title character in
(in fact, several in the crew would be shared between the two films,
including the primary writer). The multiple train journeys, escapes from
prison, and last second avoidance of major accidents all produced a
story that was a bit too far fetched for any credibility, but the
well-meaning, innocent tone of the film, as well as its message about
families, is all that really mattered. The music for
caused another set of daunting challenges, eventually
involving both one of Hollywood's most beloved veteran composers and an
ambitious upstart still a couple of years away from hitting the
mainstream with his own successful career. The veteran was Elmer
Bernstein, a composer whose career was still riding high in the 1980's
and whose ventures into children's films was yielding surprisingly fresh
results. Films like
were treated by Bernstein much like Jerry Goldsmith's
similar assignments in the genre at the time. Both composers handled
such films as though they were dramatic powerhouses, recording scores
that could accompany far more expansive fantasy that what was actually
seen on screen.
In the case of
The Journey of Natty Gann, Bernstein
was able once again to focus his energy on the grand scope of the great
outdoors, responding with a score that is as robust on page and in
performance as any of the composer's heralded Western genre works. Some
of the material is so grand in stature that it could well have
accompanied a blockbuster war epic. Unfortunately, Bernstein, in the
final two decades of his career, also became acquainted with the more
frequent phenomenon of rejected film scores. While a film like
The
Scarlet Letter ten years later was the kind of unquestionably
substandard muck from which Bernstein did not entirely mind his music
being removed,
The Journey of Natty Gann was a project for which
he had labored significantly to re-write his score to meet the desires
of the filmmakers. He ended up scoring much of the film twice,
attempting a third time in a few individual cues. Ultimately, only two
short snippets of his long score were heard in the finished picture. For
Bernstein's fans, this remains a travesty, because the score, despite
its weaknesses, was strong enough to carry its weight in context. The
composer conjured a bold title theme performed over muscular brass
rhythms and including a bridge section that frolics with spirits as high
as his best Western themes. Soft string and piano interludes remind of
the touching aspects of the story. Scenes involving the trains and their
associated vistas are handled with energetic explosions of layered
brass. The ondes martenot (a French keyboard variation of the theremin
and very early synthesizer) is as prevalent in the sensitive cues here
as it is in the generally concurrent
Ghostbusters and
The
Black Cauldron scores, though an acoustic guitar and solo trumpet
are warmer representations of heart for this story. Bernstein revisits
his primary adventure theme and its tender counterpart almost
perpetually during the score, with the exception of the significant
amount of period jazz that he also recorded for the film, a disparate
sound that isn't integrated into the rest of the work.
For Bernstein collectors,
The Journey of Natty
Gann is the kind of familiar score that will earn somewhere between
three and four stars, an easily listenable and affable work of a mostly
optimistic nature. There are a few reasons why Bernstein's recording may
have ultimately been replaced, foremost being the larger than life
character of the full ensemble sequences. He does counter with plenty of
soft material, but this music becomes lost in the whole. Secondly, the
ondes martenot sounds completely out of place here, especially in the
cue "Balls." The instrument's eerie tone doesn't suit this film's
Earthly narrative well. Together, these two problems create a score that
may not have been as intimately warm as the filmmakers wanted. The level
of bravado, while impressive on album, does seem a bit overblown for
this story of gritty perseverance. Solving these problems was the young
upstart, James Horner, whose career in film music composition eventually
proved him to be especially adept at writing satisfying children's
music. At the time, it was easy to root for Bernstein in the dual
assignment of
The Journey of Natty Gann, but, in retrospect,
Horner's far more lyrical approach to the film is a better match for the
heart of the story. If summarized in short, it could be said that
Bernstein scored the land and Horner scored the people. Collectors of
Horner's work will find his music for
The Journey of Natty Gann
to be even more familiar than fans of Bernstein found his, for Horner's
finished work would serve as a template for several forthcoming scores,
sometimes in almost identical fashion. In the most basic sense, one
could say that
The Journey of Natty Gann was a rehearsal for
The Land Before Time, the second and third phrases of the earlier
score's primary theme almost identical to ideas conveyed in the 1988
animation. The full ensemble performances of this theme in the opening
and closing cues of the film (aided by harmonica) are a hidden gem for
devotees of Horner's fluidly gorgeous constructs in
The Land Before
Time specifically. But in Horner's secondary family theme and
Western-related idea of comedic action, you hear ideas that would occur
more frequently in other later efforts.
The lovely family theme in Horner's score is first
explored on solo recorder in "Leaving" and the Western theme, heard in
"Into Town" and "Rustling," serve as a bridge between Aaron Copland's
"Rodeo" and Horner's second
An American Tail score. Other ideas,
including another tender theme for the budding young romance and a piano
rhythm representation of adversity (both heard in succession in
"Farewell") round out the strong score. All of Horner's music was used
in the picture except for "Hotel Escape" and another short snippet
involving the wolf; these scenes utilized Bernstein's original music
instead. Overall, both scores will appease the respective fanbase of the
composers, but Horner better captured the personal relationships with
his far more lyrical approach. Neither score received an official album
release until 2008-2009. The Bernstein score was part of a 2008 4-CD set
from Varèse Sarabande's CD Club, limited to 2,500 copies and
retailing for a hefty $60. The Horner score was released by Intrada
Records the following year, also limited to 2,500 copies but far more
affordable. Due to the use of a first-generation tape of the Horner
score in the composer's possession, the Intrada album's sound is
outstanding, indistinguishable (except for the four bonus tracks) from
the composer's later albums in terms of sound quality. By comparison,
the Bernstein score sounds significantly archival. On the whole, the
Horner score is the easy recommendation, despite being sold out;
Bernstein collectors should seek the Varèse set for his more
impressive rejected score for
The Scarlet Letter instead (if at
all). The Horner score's presentation not only sounds infinitely better,
but its arrangement makes for a solid half hour whereas the Bernstein
score (at well over an hour with bonus material) is simply too long and
redundant. Detractors of Horner's career self-references will roll their
eyes at his score for
The Journey of Natty Gann, especially with
the employment of the standard crescendo progressions that follow the
neat, accelerating effect in "Freight Train." Ultimately, this means
that these rare albums' target audiences will instinctively know if they
should fork over the higher cost for either CD. It's safe to say that
each will meet or exceed the expectations of both groups.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- The Bernstein Score: ***
- The Horner Score: ****
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,346 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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