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| Howard |
King Kong: (James Newton Howard) The last thing any
fan of
The Lord of the Rings trilogy thought writer/director
Peter Jackson would tackle next was another remake of
King Kong,
but to his credit, the 2005 version of the classic metaphorical tale has
garnered fantastic success from critics and box office results alike. As
to be expected, a film that was supposed to be about 140 minutes in
length ended up running about 190 minutes, and yet the quality of the
epic causes it to easily eclipse the 1976 version and stand as worthy
modern counterpart to the 1933 RKO Radio Pictures classic. The overall
plot for
King Kong hasn't changed much over that time, with the
notable change being the affection that the young actress feels in
return for the ape in the 2005 version. All deep meanings behind
King
Kong aside, it is essentially a monster film for the majority of
audiences, and with its endless dazzlements in the special effects
department, the Jackson film offers up creature scenes that put
Jurassic Park into surprising technological perspective. When
speaking of film scores, you will hear little argument against Max
Steiner's 1933 scoring being the first major film score ever to exist in
a motion picture. Because of that fact, some background on Steiner's
achievement should be discussed before the inevitable comparisons
between it, John Barry's 1976 interpretation, and James Newton Howard's
2005 interpretation on the same story.
Steiner's score was such a novel idea in 1933 that every
part of the composing, recording, and production processes were being
invented on the fly. With only a maximum of 46 performers, and some
having to run across the stage between instruments to play them at the
right moment during a cue, the Steiner achievement is quite amazing. It
was fierce in its brass, and defined the Golden Age of film music with
its strings, and its statement of theme and motif, while inspired (like
everything) from Wagner, presented moviegoers in 1933 with a score that
laid the foundation for much of what we hear today in film music. John
Barry never had a chance to capture the same momentous action in 1976;
he was badly mis-assigned in that project, perhaps with the studios
stuck on the romance of the epic rather than the action. In 2005, Peter
Jackson would immediately make one change from the approach of Steiner's
original. Instead of allowing lengthy dialogue sequences without
underscore, as Steiner had done (the original is a short score), Jackson
would require over three hours of music for his remake. That seemingly
wouldn't be a problem for composer Howard Shore, who had written
countless hours of music for Jackson's
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy between 2001 and 2003, and had received three Academy Awards for
his efforts. In a move that still has the film music world dumbstruck,
Jackson and Shore parted ways late in the production process due to the
always vague "creative differences" reason. Immediately, shades of
Gabriel Yared's rejected
Troy score --one that received much more
interest after the film's release than the replacement score by James
Horner-- came to the collective mind.
Exactly two months before the film's release date, and
with five weeks to completely write, record, and edit a replacement
score, Hollywood veteran James Newton Howard was hired to
unceremoniously replace Shore. With most of the Los Angeles players
already booked for other major holiday soundtrack recordings (there are
only a limited number of players and recording studios in L.A. for these
endeavors, and they are booked individually or as groups well in
advance), and a great distance between Jackson in his usual New Zealand
location and Howard in L.A., the process required a significant
employment of internet technologies to realize. Jackson and Howard would
sometimes both view feeds of the recording sessions remotely (with
Howard composing while the score was being recorded across town), and
all three locations would be linked for communication purposes.
Amazingly, the composer and director would not meet in person until the
highly touted debut of the film. Howard's production of three hours of
music didn't allow him to get overly creative with the score, and
despite a promising possibility of actual interpretations of Steiner's
crucial historical score for this 2005 interpretation, very little
influence from Steiner's work would be evident in Howard's final score.
It would be very interesting to determine if Shore's firing was due in
part to some kind of more faithful interpretation of Steiner's themes
and general rhythmic and instrumental approach.
One thing is for sure: Howard has provided an
outstanding score given the time constraints and the numerous headaches
of actually producing the recording.
King Kong is easily Howard's
most straight-forward orchestral score to date, robust in its basic
construction and shying away from the electronic and solo instrumental
creativity that has often defined his career. From the time of Steiner
to Howard, film music has become much more fluid in its progressions,
due partly to the career of John Williams, and whereas Steiner would
blast his score with all the available power of 46 performers in quick
rhythmic fashion, Howard follows the more standard modern format of
subtly foreshadowing themes, slowly developing them, varying their
instrumentation, and ultimately building to the usual choral finales.
Today's technology has allowed the concept of density to be established
in film music whereas Steiner could not rely on such nuances to make a
substantial impact. Perhaps Howard's tip of the hat to Steiner exists in
the relatively simplistic, single-layered structure of the majority of
this score, but then again, maybe that was simply done due to time
constraints. One funny aspect of Howard's score is a four-note
descending brass theme for Kong, maybe indicating that Steiner's
three-note descending Kong theme is no longer sufficient in the modern
epic (everything must be done today just a little bit larger,
no?).
Quick brass rips and percussive rhythms in the final
"Beauty Killed the Beast" cues touch at the edges of Steiner's
sensibilities, but by the time you hear a solo boy's voice in the
finale, you realize that Howard as truly taken his own approach to the
score. A theme for Skull Island is the other major idea in Howard's
King Kong, and is used with grandiose effect on several
occasions. Overall, this Howard score is very enjoyable, though one
wishes that he would have made a few more nods to Steiner's work and
incorporated more of the Kong-like sound effects outside of the island
cues. A harmonically pleasing score from start to finish, Howard
succeeds in the bouncing rhythms of his more playful interludes, as well
as the broad strokes of strings for the love interest. An almost
religious sensibility shines through in an ultra-dramatic series of cues
at the end of the score, maybe due to the metaphorical struggles behind
the Kong story, and while this may be a 180-degree turn from Steiner, it
certainly excels in its mere beauty. Howard has produced the most easily
listenable score of his career, but by no means his most creative or
intellectual, and while this work will capture the attention of most
casual film score collectors, it may not resonate as well with fans of
the composer's eclectic styles. With only roughly a third of the score
from the film on album (some cues for key sequences from the island are
missing), look for an expanded album in future years if the film
continues its success into the awards season. Howard has received around
half a dozen Oscar nominations to date without a win, and look for
King Kong to provide him with another opportunity to take home
the golden statuette. In the end, though, Steiner is still the king of
Kong.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 62 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
(in 72,252 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
