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The Legend of Butch & Sundance
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Composed, Conducted, and Produced by:
Arrangements and Programming by:
Eric Colvin
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Specialty release, limited to only 1,500 copies on CD and available
for download. Upon selling out, the CD's value shot up to $45.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... if you've always shared Basil Poledouris' love of
spirited folk rhythms, for his final score is a tribute to his minor-key
themes performed with great energy by acoustic guitar, mandolin,
accordion, and fiddle.
Avoid it... if you prefer Poledouris' muscular, fully symphonic
Western style, a mode not available for this cheeky but often intimate
score of sincere character.
BUY IT
 | | Poledouris |
The Legend of Butch & Sundance: (Basil Poledouris)
Thirty-five years had passed since George Roy Hill's 1969 popular
favorite Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid put Paul Newman and
Robert Redford firmly into the roles of the famous bank robbers, and
another filmmaker was finally ready to take another stab at the concept.
A regular assistant to Steven Spielberg, veteran television director
Sergio Mimica-Gezzan shot another loose adaptation of the characters for
a 2004 pilot on NBC that went largely unnoticed. Similar liberties were
taken to ensure that the concept would be a lively entry in the romantic
comedy genre, and anyone hoping for a realistic portrayal of the
historical characters will continue to be horrified. Despite a good deal
of positive spirit, the pilot tanked and nothing more became of it on
NBC or elsewhere. The production became the extremely unlikely final
assignment of veteran composer Basil Poledouris' career before he lost
his battle with cancer in 2006. The path that Poledouris took from the
height of his career many years prior to The Legend of Butch &
Sundance was one of tough personal choices. Aside from his long
illness in the 2000's, he had completely shifted his priorities in life,
refusing major assignments and instead only picking and choosing smaller
films that he could pour his heart into. At the same time, he was in the
process of setting up a state-of-the-art studio in Rome and moving away
from his family to Seattle, a shift that shook the film music community
at the time. Some say that Poledouris became eccentric in both his
personal and professional lives in the 2000's, and that shift caused his
only assignments of that decade to be bizarre at best. Standing alone in
the last four years of his life was The Legend of Butch &
Sundance, a production that did not believe it could afford
Poledouris at the time but was more than thrilled when the composer
sought it out. In retrospect, this choice by the composer was as
compelling an exit as one could imagine, though perhaps a soaring
orchestral score for a topic on the high seas would have been its equal.
The composer was so fond of folk rhythms and the instrumentation native
to the intimate Western genre that this score (after a failed bid to be
part of Kevin Costner's Open Range) was a perfect close to his
career. More than a dozen years earlier, his epic music for Lonesome
Dove had, after all, brought him his only major awards
recognition.
Because of the limited budget for The Legend of
Butch & Sundance, Poledouris made use of a handful of soloists
spanning traditional symphonic tones and those native to the folk genre.
To augment these players, he used his best sampled versions of
orchestral sounds in order to provide some meaty backing to the more
vibrant portions. The resulting sound is remarkably similar to the tone
of Marty Stuart's soothing All the Pretty Horses, but without the
heavy bass mix. Despite the many action sequences in The Legend of
Butch & Sundance, Poledouris really only brings the totality of
these ensemble performers together in "Butch and Sundance: Main Title,"
a piece with all the minor-key pizzazz that Poledouris' most rowdy
Western rhythms can bring. The somewhat weak faux brass samples in this
cue are countered by the wild attitude of the acoustic guitar, mandolin,
accordion, cello, and violin in the composer's spirited and distinctive
movements. These instruments perform two recurring themes in the score,
neither earth-shattering but both quite effective. The title theme from
the first cue extends in its rhythmic form into the impressive "Riding
Contest (Butch Meets Sundance)" and several subsequent cues that each
rotate the soloists in the forefront of the ensemble. The three robbery
sequences in the score use prolonged chords as Robert Rodriguez might
for confrontational melodrama, though the general tone of even the most
frenetic action cues remains light-hearted enough to maintain the film's
overarching airiness. A tender love theme on solo cello and seemingly
synthetic flute is the counterbalance in "What Could Happen?" and "The
Man I Love," and while this theme is certainly pretty, it isn't as
evocative as some of Poledouris' others. Later in the score, Poledouris
shifts the folk atmosphere south of the border, playing to Mexican
stereotypes that are affable though a bit predictable. Dull xylophone
and slapping snare define the score all the way through its "Finale."
The last few cues are a bit cerebral and therefore underplayed, but one
last fiddle, accordion, and mandolin revisitation of the title theme and
its snappy rhythm is closed with the synthetic gong effect that he uses
throughout the work to give its minimal power some depth. For any
Poledouris collector, The Legend of Butch & Sundance will be a
pleasant close to an accomplished career, with fans of his trademark
folk material served especially well. Limited to 1,500 copies, the
score's only CD release from MovieScore Media (the 4th of its Discovery
Collection) sold out quickly, testimony to the composer's lasting impact
on so many film music collections.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Basil Poledouris reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.54
(in 35 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 35,992 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 51:20
• 1. Butch and Sundance: Main Title (2:08)
• 2. Released/Butch Goes to Mike (1:59)
• 3. School House (1:24)
• 4. Riding Contest (Butch Meets Sundance) (2:12)
• 5. Toast to the Wild Bunch (2:12)
• 6. First Robbery (2:33)
• 7. No Drinking With No Coward (1:07)
• 8. First Kill (1:59)
• 9. Sunrise Bonding (2:17)
• 10. Third Robbery (1:08)
• 11. What Could Happen? (1:22)
• 12. Not Him!/The Train Heist (3:02)
• 13. Pinkertons Attack/Mike Shot (1:41)
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• 14. Outlaws (3:13)
• 15. The Man I Love (1:20)
• 16. You're Crazy Mister/Getting Horses (2:08)
• 17. Pinkertons Arrive at Train/Funeral (2:45)
• 18. Mexico (1:24)
• 19. Etta Takes Picture (1:25)
• 20. Church Robbery (1:45)
• 21. Price of Being an Outlaw (1:09)
• 22. Slugfest to Durango/Sergeant (2:28)
• 23. Rescue Etta (3:10)
• 24. Finale (1:25)
• 25. Wyoming (2:41)
• 26. Two Weddings/End Credits: Butch and Sundance (1:37)
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The insert includes extensive information about the composer and
the circumstances behind this score.
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