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Review of K-19: The Widowmaker (Klaus Badelt)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... only if you are prepared for an extremely weighty and morbidly depressing score of authentic Russian stature that salutes the topic with an appropriately grim personality.

Avoid it... if you demand an extroverted personality and a spirit of high adventure from your dramatic submarine-related film scores.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

K-19: The Widowmaker: (Klaus Badelt) Despite its star power and moderate opening, K-19: The Widowmaker lacked long-term momentum in the 2002 summer season, falling behind films with similar action but far more optimistic content. Directed ironically by a female director, Katherine Bigelow (another of James Cameron's former wives), the ultra serious plot resembles a combination of Thirteen Days and Crimson Tide, conveying a cold war conflict inspired by real life and also dealing with the environment of a possible mutiny against the backdrop of nuclear annihilation. The two conflicting top officers of K-19: The Widowmaker are played by Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson (with questionable accents), and because of the literally grave decisions they must make when the pride of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet suffers a radioactive accident and incarcerates them in a cold, grisly tomb, their performances of morbidly restrained. The same grim personality extends to the music for K-19: The Widowmaker as well. Submarine films and their scores had always aroused excitement for movie-goers more than many other war-related genre, and the recent cult status of the music for The Hunt for Red October and Crimson Tide had raised hopes that K-19: The Widowmaker would continue the same spirit of adventure. That obviously and understandably wasn't the case. Despite early advertisements indicating that Hans Zimmer would handle the score for this film (leading to grumbling speculation over whether audiences would simply hear a more serious reprise of Crimson Tide), a close student and friend of Zimmer's would ultimately end up with the assignment. Klaus Badelt had reached beyond his supporting role as a Zimmer assistant and co-composer with The Time Machine earlier in 2002, a diverse and impressively dynamic score despite its inherent problems in the area of originality. Previously, Badelt had contributed his talents in smaller roles to blockbuster Zimmer scores such as Hannibal, Pearl Harbor, and Gladiator. As Badelt took another step away from his former occupational role (and the blatant electronic sound that had defined it), much anticipation surrounded his solo efforts, and K-19 was no exception.

While researching for the musical roots of the genre, Badelt grasped onto Russian classicism as a means of aiding the authenticity of the film's semi-true plot. The desire to create an intelligent fit for both the genre and the submarine's crew carried Badelt to a study of modern Russian composers as well, leading to a sufficiently true cultural environment that suits the setting of the film better than the typical, run of the mill submarine action score. With the extremely melodramatic and tragic tone of the story at heart, Badelt went overboard in his emulation of an appropriately stoic Russian sound. The brooding, moody, string-heavy result for K-19 is remarkable in that it exhibits Badelt's talent for working in a mould, setting an exact style and expanding upon that sound for a lengthy amount of introspection. He even went so far as to write a considerable concert arrangement of his own (and others') music for the project. The album release is highlighted at its start by a complete "Suite for Orchestra and Chorus in G Minor," in four movements ("Fear," "Fate," "War," "Soul"), and the climax of the album's presentation (in "Reactor") features an extensive adaptation of Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light" piece. The overarching spirit of Badelt's efforts is convincingly Russian in tone and carries the stern weight you'd expect to accompany the deadly scenario amid cold war tensions. The interesting aspect of the K-19 score as a sum, however, is the seeming fact that, despite its remarkable effort to be genuine, it doesn't always function as an effectively engaging score. Badelt blessed K-19 with an equally heavy theme, a typical Media Ventures, minor-key idea of origin in The Peacemaker that is burdened with a similarly dramatic, Holstian power. But even as such, the theme is not dynamic enough to service a wider range of emotions; thus, it is repeated too often in its same form, causing the score (by its final cue) to be highly repetitious. There's a slight hint of jovial warmth to the theme on solo woodwinds at the outset of "Home" and it's hard not to be stirred by the heroic choral rendition of the idea throughout "Journey," but outside of these cues (and a few ultra-tragic, slower tempo performances in late cues), the theme is stagnant in its development. The action material, heard best in "War - Allegro III," is extremely reminiscent of Gladiator, too, but at least without the obvious and controversial references to classical composers.

The most memorable aspect of Badelt's work for K-19 is its extremely oppressive style of morbid contemplation. The lengthy cues of meandering underscore (for mostly strings) not only exist to accentuate the burden of the crew, but that of the listener as well, yielding an almost immediate squashing of any initial enthusiasm that many first time listeners will have due to the concert arrangements. The score's lengthy conclusion in "Reunion," for which Badelt really cranks up the melodrama in the final statement of the theme, outstays its welcome to the same extent that the entire scene seems tacked on unnecessarily to the end of the film. On album, the soprano vocals in Einhorn's material are another unneeded distraction from the previously cohesive material. Overall, when you place the score for K-19 next to its peers, it is clearly an attempt to authenticate its genre, and thus is not what most casual listeners will expect to hear. It is by no means a score of high adventure; in fact, it could be safely classified as a depressing and somber abnormality in its genre. If Badelt had been better able to express his naturally dynamic inclinations while maintaining the heavy, classical Russian foundation necessary for the topic, K-19 could have been an outstanding score. It is difficult to say, also, whether or not the extremely solemn performances by the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus contribute to the same flaws (though it should be noted that parts of the score were recorded in both St. Petersburg, Russia, and Washington, D.C.). The performances by the Russians are accurate and certainly convey the authenticity of the music as it was written, but at the same time, they exhibit a weakness in their inability to match the emotional ranges required by almost any film score. In other words, the performance have an extended sense of fluidity that lends itself well to a concert or album setting, but doesn't always function like a tight fit in the film itself. Without judging it on the merits of mere functionality, comments can still be made about its accessibility for an extended listening audience. The classical nature and lack of dynamic action in the music will cause disappointment for the majority of film score enthusiasts unless they are prepared for the length to which Badelt journeyed to authenticate his tone for this topic. The album becomes repetitious at over an hour in length, and despite its occasionally gripping power and true Russian heart, the product stands a few steps behind the great submarine scores of times past.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 68:59

• 1. Fear - Largo I (4:03) • 2. Fate - Adagio II (2:42) • 3. War - Allegro III (3:39) • 4. Soul - Misterioso IV (5:30) • 5. Home (4:01) • 6. Heroes (8:20) • 7. Journey (13:11) • 8. Capt. Alexi Vostrikov (2:05) • 9. Missile Launch - The Rescue (10:00) • 10. Reactor - Selections from "Voices of Light": Victory at Orleans, Interrogation, Abjuration, Relapse, Karitas, The Final Walk* (8:06) • 11. Reunion (7:17)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a note from the film's director and executive producer mostly about, curiously, the other aspects of the film's production and not the score.

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