: (Rachel Portman)
Director Robert Redford has always had a soft spot for vintage sports
movies, and in 2000 he attempted to use the story of a resurrected
golfer of the 1920's much in the same fashion as
had
done for the sport of baseball earlier in his career. Dreamworks'
was supposed to balance that fine line
between box office hit and arthouse favorite, with a spectacular visual
representation of the era hosting a reverent style of character study, a
sporty underdog element, and the always thoughtful analytical
comparisons between a game and real life. Bankable young stars Matt
Damon, Charlize Theron, and Will Smith acted under the narration of Jack
Lemmon, and while Redford attempted to use Smith's wise character of
Bagger Vance to help reignite the soul of the talented, but war weary
golfer Rannulph Junuh (played by Damon), critics regularly pounced on
the predictably two-dimensional aspects of those characters. Because of
the failed adaptation of Steven Pressfield's novel, audiences missed the
point of
, leaving it as a beautiful
but rather pointless sports story. Composer Rachel Portman was seemingly
a perfect fit for the film; her career was still at the height of its
award-winning popularity in 2000, and her style of composition was
synonymous with dramatic romanticism in a timeless fashion that only her
whimsical piano, string, and woodwind-dominated ensembles could provide.
She was the modern incarnation of John Barry, and as both a female
artist and a composer of simple, beautiful themes, she was the darling
of the industry. It would be difficult to imagine that her Oscar
nominated score for
, for the latter score is a flourishing
extension of the previous score's style. As Portman stated at the time,
Redford "was keen to get me involved as early as possible and was
closely involved in helping me find the right direction in the score.
The inspiration for the music came from the themes and characters in the
film. It is a story about a hero who has lost his will to succeed, and
his spiritual journey."
Because her score so closely resembles the elegant
romanticism of her previous dramatic efforts (like
The Cider House
Rules and
Only You, among others), the large segment of the
film music community hostile to her compositional style has always
written
The Legend of Bagger Vance off as a mediocre to average
score at best. But there are several aspects of
The Legend of Bagger
Vance that set it apart from those previous efforts. First, it would
prove to be the last of Portman's sweeping, romantic scores for many
years, largely concluding her string of success in the genre. Secondly,
the score would serve as the ultimate maturation of the structures heard
through her those famous romantic scores, diverging from her
monothematic tendencies as well as her limited instrumental palette.
Finally, a combination of the film's cult following in subsequent years
and the fact the album was pressed by the Chapter III Records label just
as it was going out of business caused the limited press run of the
album to be in extremely high demand. As a side note, the score was
additionally the final one to be recorded in England's famed CTS Studios
before the landmark's demise to make way for the construction of Wembley
Stadium. The first two defining aspects of the score introduced above go
hand-in-hand. It's fitting that Portman's last large-scale venture into
this style of writing be her best, and it's unlikely (though certainly
possible) that she'll be able to provide a better packaging of that
era's beauty in another score. Her ensemble is expanded to include
notable roles for both brass and, in a very unusual move for her, choir.
The number of themes in
The Legend of Bagger Vance is no less
than five, and while four of them share similarities in the basic chord
progressions familiar to her career, each flows with its own share of
full attention from the ensemble. A final theme, meant to represent the
comical side of the story, emulates the kind of marching scherzo dating
back to
The Adventures of Pinocchio and
The Road to
Wellville, with lively roles for tuba and French horn. The scope of
The Legend of Bagger Vance is thus far more broad than Portman's
previous efforts in the genre, ensuring its quietly graceful
superiority.
While the score may reach into the well of romanticism
with a far larger hand, Portman stays true to the respectful dignity and
almost mystical spiritualism of the film's story. It's a score rich in
the heart and soul of the film's sensitive touch, turning normal
conversational cues into eerily magical explorations of harmony. No
other score in Portman's career, with the exception of parts of
Only
You, exudes the same balance of restraint and electricity. It's an
inspirational score more than anything, foregoing the usual, overt
sports appeal that Jerry Goldsmith so brilliantly utilized and opting
instead for a soul-searching expression of the each character. What's
remarkable about her success in this case is that most of the elements
are the same; the piano, for instance, establishes rhythms joined
eventually by strings and woodwinds in the same fashion as always. But
in cues like "Junuh Sees the Field" and "Junuh Comes Out of the Woods,"
Portman slowly increases the tempo in proportion to the number of
players performing the motif, eventually leading to gorgeous choral
accompaniment in both cues. She had experimented with wild tempo
variations previously, but never with the subtle touch she exhibits
here. The individual themes don't particularly need to be
differentiated. The title theme in the opening and closing score tracks
on album, as well as "Hole in One," is led by solo trumpet (perhaps an
inspiration from William Ross'
Tin Cup golf movie score) and
eventually receives the bloated string layers from
The Cider House
Rules in their fullest grandeur. Others, such as the similarly
layered subtheme for Vance in "Bagger Offers to Caddy for Jonuh," are
equally attractive in their upbeat attitude of survival and success.
Overall,
The Legend of Bagger Vance seemingly floats in mid air.
Portman's whimsical meanderings, with her delicate piano solos, flighty
strings, and inspiring chorus, offer a continuously rewarding listening
experience.
Outside of the scherzo's appearances late in three cues
and a victorious snare-led variant of Vance's theme in "Bagger Leaves,"
this is a consistent score that effortlessly conveys a positive feeling
of soaring freedom. It is an appropriately spiritual collection of cues
that can tell a great story in and of themselves, regardless of
Redford's use of the music, and this is a quality of an expert
composition. The album release by Chapter III Records contains about
forty consecutive minutes of score and three appropriate period songs at
the beginning and end. The label had only been releasing film scores
since late 1998, and after a series of substandard score releases
through the subsequent 18 months, the label released two outstanding
albums in 2000: an expanded release of David Arnold's impressive
Tomorrow Never Dies and, in its final days,
The Legend of
Bagger Vance. The Portman score's album wouldn't receive a
full-length factory pressing and/or distribution, causing it to sell out
quickly from stores and driving its price on the secondary market to
astronomical amounts. Many years later,
The Legend of Bagger
Vance still fetches frightening sums in used sales, speaking to both
the cult popularity of the film and, more extensively, the quality of
Portman's score and the loyalty of her collectors. Make no mistake about
it: if you have never cared for Portman's romantically melodic and
admittedly simplistic scores prior to this one, then you'll likely be
left wondering what all the fuss is about. For such listeners, it'll be
a pedestrian experience. For Portman's collectors, however, there hasn't
been a score in her career that has been better matched with its film.
Unfortunately for those listeners, the film's lack of immediate success
sunk the score's chances at an Oscar nomination, and her career has not
since flourished with music of equivalent sensitivity and grace.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Rachel Portman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31
(in 30 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 28,139 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
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