, further explained the bizarre world
in which the concept had resided since its inception in 1979. These
films, often led in praise by
, depending on the country of release), are exhibits of
post-apocalyptic carnage in which the people of Australia have resorted
to primordial behavior to survive. They are best remembered for their
striking chase sequences involving intriguing, but battered vehicles,
and franchise director George Miller agreed to return for the third film
only to handle the similar chase scenes in its screenplay. He would
eventually toil throughout the 2000's in his effort to direct a
long-awaited fourth installment. Whereas the first two films depicted
the global meltdown just prior to nuclear annihilation and the immediate
aftermath of the ensuing devastation,
concentrates on the early rebuilding process and offers a glimpse of
hope for the surviving younger generation of Australians. Mel Gibson
returns as a police officer turned rogue warrior, fighting to survive
while reluctantly transformed into a savior for a group of children
marooned after the apocalypse in a crashed commercial aircraft. The
appeal of
, however, is the road
warrior's discovery of Bartertown, a crude civilization in the desert
that has rudimentary electricity and laws. A fight sequence between Max
and the massive bodyguard of the town's engineer in the famed
"Thunderdome" remains one of the most interesting combat scenes in the
history of film. Running Bartertown is the always entertaining Tina
Turner, though her involvement with the production ultimately led to
complications with the soundtrack that the franchise had not previously
dealt with during its relative obscurity. Australian composer Brian May
had written the scores for the 1979 and 1981 films, but with
came not only the inevitable Turner vocal
performances but also a shift to the legendary Maurice Jarre. The
production came under criticism for the hiring of Jarre because, unlike
May, the composer was not native to the land. Still, Jarre took the
style of the franchise's music from May's bleak blend of synthesizer and
orchestra and gave it a distinctly epic scope of majesty.
Jarre was no stranger to the concept of writing expansive
music for vast desert landscapes; his most impressive and recognized
career work was
Lawrence of Arabia. But
Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome required two levels of unique characteristics: brute
force to represent the uncivilized nature of humanity in Bartertown and
the mystical, hopeful environment of the children's oasis and eventual
migration to the re-populated Sydney. There was a distinct disconnect
between Jarre's massively over-thought score for
Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome and May's previous music for the franchise, but during
the chase sequence at the end of the third film, Jarre does incorporate
rougher tones to connect his work to that of May. On the whole, though,
it's very easy to say that Jarre provided
Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome with a score much more complicated and intricate than
was necessary for a film of this relative schlock. Both the depth of his
ensemble and the thematic complexity of Jarre's composition are
surprising, though obviously welcome. He accented the 90+ members of the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with varied choral tones, three Ondes
Martenot players, a didgeridoo player (flown in from Australia), a rock
band with a wild saxophone soloist, a collection of four anvils, an
organ, plastic tube effects, and the overlaying of several pianos struck
violently in their lowest registers. Other than the Ondes Martenot, a
Jarre and Elmer Bernstein favorite at the time, the ensemble created all
of its diverse tones organically, an impressive feat when considering
the range of growling and clanging tones that inhabit much of the
score's darker half. The Ondes Martenot performers, along with the
choir, represent the beauty and salvation embodied by the children and,
eventually, Max's legacy. The didgeridoo stereotypically accompanies the
scenes of the oppressive desert environment (and is an interesting
rebuttal to critics who found Jarre's replacement of May offensive
because he wasn't Australian; with the didgeridoo, Jarre's music is
ironically better tied to the continent). The struck percussion and
organ bolster the seedy atmosphere of Bartertown, and the chase that
culminates at the climax throws the pianos into that equation. The rock
band and sax accompany Turner's Aunty Entity character with flashy
pizzazz. Jarre is able to allude to these various musical affiliations
without outwardly stating one of his many themes for the film, though he
expertly overlaps incongruous themes and instrumental references to
accentuate the conflicts on screen.
The quantity of themes employed by Jarre in
Mad Max
Beyond Thunderdome is startling, reinforced by a strong loyalty to
these constructs and their evolution throughout the picture. Six major
ideas interact intelligently in the score, though for causal listeners,
many of them will blend together in meaning and application. Max himself
surprisingly receives the score's most harmonically pleasant, uplifting
identity, a theme often confused with the one for the children. It is
Max's soft theme that actually exists throughout the track "Children's
Theme" on the albums for the score (no wonder there's confusion!),
developing from faint hints in "The Desert" to the massive orchestral
climax in "Epilogue." The children receive a flowing string theme
introduced at the end of "Magical" that is provided source-like demeanor
in "Ceremony" while merging its constructs with Max's theme to form an
overarching representation of hope that together define "Epilogue." The
other four themes are all for the villainous or primordial aspects of
the story. The most impressive is actually the least referenced; Jarre
wrote a densely brass, organ, and timpani fanfare for the Thunderdome
cage itself that was meant to open the original "Main Titles" cue before
it was replaced with a Turner song; as such, only the opening and
closing moments of "Thunderdome" feature this immense fanfare. The duo
of Master Blaster receives a descending bass motif that repeats in
rhythmic form, heard clearly at the outset of "Master Blaster/The
Manipulator/Embargo/Entity Humiliated" and translated into a heroic
march when Blaster is introduced into the cage in "Thunderdome."
Bartertown receives a nebulous, meandering theme that doesn't really
make an impression until "Bartertown Destruction;" its official opening
statement in "Bartertown Theme" is dominated by Jarre's usual collection
of bizarre struck percussion. Finally, the theme for Turner's character
is a splashy diversion compared to the remainder of
Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome. Its simplistic, repeating saxophone phrases over rock
percussion obviously address the seedy nature of the town, albeit
perhaps a bit over the top in terms of style. This theme eventually
receives a very dramatic orchestral statement in "Bartertown
Destruction," a redeeming development of the idea. One of the
intriguing, aforementioned overlapping of one theme's instrumentation
with another's melody comes in "Pigrock," which offers several
statements of Entity's theme before the contemporary instrumentation
continues to set the rhythm for Master Blaster's theme on low brass and
eventually Max's theme on Ondes Martenot.
A few excellent summaries of Jarre's themes exist in
two cues in the score, first in the unused "Main Titles" and then in the
dynamic "I Ain't Captain Walker." Unfortunately, to get to the best
music in
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, you have to wade through a
significant amount of ambient material. The album situation for the
soundtrack was for decades dominated by Turner's two rather unmemorable
songs for the film (definitely not her best), "We Don't Need Another
Hero (Thunderdome)" and "One of the Living," the latter replacing
Jarre's music over the opening titles. Both were chart toppers and were
recognized for major awards (earning the production a surprising Golden
Globe nomination), thus defining the albums as well. There had
originally been talk about offering both the songs and full score on a
two-LP product at the time, but the score was eventually condensed down
to three suites and subjected to a secondary role at the end of a much
re-issued CD product emphasizing Turner's songs. A full presentation of
Jarre's score was long an ambition of Silva Screen's James Fitzpatrick,
and after countless years of finding the master tapes, preparing and
mastering them, and wrangling away the rights, he offered such a
complete product on the Tadlow label in 2010. There is no doubt that the
long popular song and score combination (which did provide 26 minutes of
music in a well-rounded collection of cues from around the entire film)
is a good starting point for casual enthusiasts of this cult favorite
film. The Tadlow album finally allows Jarre collectors to appreciate the
composer's incredibly intelligent work, however, containing the complete
score and the added bonus of the other album's suite arrangements, some
overlay recordings (which are more for intellectual appreciation than
enjoyment), and a performance of "Fanfare" and "I Ain't Captain Walker"
that Nic Raine conducted the City of Prague Philharmonic for Silva's
very good 2000 Jarre compilation album (between this suite and
Lawrence of Arabia alone, that compilation comes highly
recommended). The Prague performance does expose one of the faults with
the original recording: extremely dry ambience. With all of the rowdy
percussion and brass in
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, it really
could have benefited from the addition of a touch of reverb, and the
re-recording does that. At $30, the Tadlow product, which is a limited
edition of 3,000 copies, may be too expensive for those who consider the
score nothing more than a fun guilty pleasure, and it also doesn't
impress much with its bland packaging and error-prone notes. But this
score was Jarre's last adventure in the desert and is perhaps
underappreciated because of the film's reputation as a B-rate cult
favorite.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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