FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW

Review of Love and Treason (Basil Poledouris)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... only if you absolutely insist on maintaining a complete collection of Basil Poledouris' music, because Love and Treason has little life in its purely synthetic constructs.

Avoid it... if you demand any sense of vibrant or dynamic sound in the drab and predictably shallow soundscape of this low-budget television production.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Love and Treason: (Basil Poledouris) This television suspense thriller of 2001, which aired on CBS without much fanfare, was produced by the same team that brought Flight of the Intruder and The Hunt for Red October to the big screen. Based loosely on the cover-up and exposure of military secrets, Love and Treason is a revenge tale that pits an escaped convict against the ex-wife who put him in prison (both were military officers). Unfortunately, the film performed so poorly that it was never released on video or DVD throughout the rest of the decade. Because of their long-standing collaboration with composer Basil Poledouris, the producers asked him to score the 100-minute movie. Discovering how miniscule the budget for the score was, however, caused Poledouris to laugh for a moment. With less than 5% of the amount that had been allocated to The Hunt for Red October's score available for this one, Poledouris, who enjoyed the film enough to want to be a part of it, took a new approach to scoring it. For some time, Poledouris had been collaborating with his friends and associates to create the "Blowtorch Flats" studio in Venice, where the composer (along with others) could use state of the art digital recording, mixing, and mastering technologies to synthesize less expensive scores. If that intent sounded familiar, then it was because such an enterprise was not entirely different from the direction that the entire film scoring industry was headed. With smaller budget films seeking more and more diversity in their scores, Poledouris' "Blowtorch Flats" studio could have represented the birth of another Media Ventures outfit of the budget scoring business, though the composer's decline in health and consequent death just a couple of years later didn't allow that studio to blossom as he may have hoped. That said, with Love and Treason still came the opportunity for Poledouris to test out the new studio equipment and produce, essentially, a two-man score. If you thought that the composer's music for Kimberly from the previous year represented his style at its most minimal level, then you might be disappointed by Love and Treason.

What Poledouris did with his array of synthesizers at Blowtorch Flats is really no different from what the Media Ventures composers had already accomplished for countless other productions. An enormous number of orchestral sounds are transformed into digital samples that could be manipulated and mixed together on keyboards operated by one person, using ready-made loops and software to adjust the combined result into a specific intensity necessary for nearly any situation. While that concept was not new, Love and Treason functions as something of a trial run, and it was still light years away from the more refined sound of the Media Ventures artists. The soundscape of Love and Treason has all the basic synthetic cellos, drum pads, and straight electronic keyboarding that most artificial scores feature. But one of the aspects that Poledouris apparently wanted to test out with this project was space, and that's the one problem that the studio still suffered from in this recording. The sound quality of the finished mix is dull and flat, lacking the vibrance that Hans Zimmer, Don Davis, and even the likes of Vangelis had already managed to create. Some of that problem seems to reside in the stereo mix as it weaves in and out of synchrony on album. With the finished mastering playing without much life or style, Love and Treason exists as more of a practice run rather than an engaging and entertaining standalone score. The best parts of the score are those in which Poledouris goes back to his roots. The keyboarding heard in "Kate Follows Rondell" needed to be expanded upon to allow Poledouris' native piano skills to punch through with more regularity. Also among the highlights are "Davis Meets Mobster," "It's Your Mother," and "Kate's Blood/Air Speed," in which Poledouris and co-performer Todd Haberman insert much needed consistency in rhythm to carry the suspense and action sequences significantly better than the meandering synth cellos can alone achieve. With these brief moments, combined with a farewell sequence that almost breaks the lifelessness of a score devoid of theme, Love and Treason offers about five to ten minutes of decent material. But unlike other digitally conceived scores in the modern age, Poledouris never created a synthetic sound that wasn't blatantly electronic, and even his collectors may find little merit in this restricted work.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 34:26

• 1. Main Title (2:19) • 2. Kates Profiles Davis (1:14) • 3. Dock Run (1:05) • 4. Cop Hit (1:20) • 5. Location Device (1:03) • 6. Attack on Kate (1:40) • 7. Davis in the News (1:08) • 8. Davis Meets Mobster (1:46) • 9. Waking Phone (1:08)

• 10. Kate Follows Rondell (2:22) • 11. The Ring Tradition (1:03) • 12. Flashback, FBI Arrival/Bullet Holes (1:30) • 13. It's Your Mother (1:40) • 14. Bank Robbery (1:25) • 15. Into our Lives (2:39) • 16. Kate Captured (4:58) • 17. Kate's Blood/Air Speed (3:05) • 18. Kate and Eli Farewell (2:30)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert contains an anonymous note about the production and the following comments from Poledouris:

"When Nick Grillo called about my availability to score a TV pilot that he, Alan Barnette, Bob Rehme and Mace Neufeld had produced, I was immediately interested. I had previously scored The Hunt for Red October and Flight of the Intruder for Bob and Mace, both quintessential producers who are involved and knowledgeable about the needs and potential of a film composer's contribution. When Nick told me the budget I was amused. He wanted a score with the power, mystery and richness of The Hunt for Red October for about 4.5% of its cost.

I saw the film, a suspenseful, darkly romantic, contemporary drama and wanted to find a way to be involved. Over the last two years Tim Boyle, my engineer, and I have been seeking ways to incorporate current digital synthesis and recording technology into our already state of the art recording and mixing studio, Blowtorch Flats. Love and Treason afforded the opportunity to put my theories about fusing orchestral film scoring techniques of traditional orchestration with many devices used in record production (rhythmically insistent drumming, synthesizers, percussion and above all - space).

Nick and Allen were supportive of this approach and we are all pleased with the results as I hope you, the listener will be as well."

Copyright © 2001-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Love and Treason are Copyright © 2001, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/2/01 and last updated 2/7/09.