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Review of Napoleon (Martin Phipps)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you delight in the unusual, Martin Phipps taking
the expected instrumental and choral ingredients but cooking up a
remarkably eclectic stew of folk and classicism for this occasion.
Avoid it... if narrative consistency is your primary concern, because Phipps' multitudes of themes and disparate performance personalities in this score never unite to form a comfortable whole.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Napoleon: (Martin Phipps) One of the most important
qualities of a historical biographical movie is its researched accuracy,
and defiant director Ridley Scott decided to completely ignore such
boundaries when crafting his 2023 movie, Napoleon. If you want to
learn some semblance of truth about the French military mastermind and
emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, then don't look to Scott for your answers.
He dwells upon Bonaparte as a rough outsider with little beneficial to
emerge from his victories and reign, a byproduct, perhaps of Scott's
perspective from a British point of view. The film tells of his rise and
fall from power, showing a balance of his battlefield exploits, troubled
marriage, political intrigue, and multiple exiles. Sadly, much of this
depiction is erroneous in timing and basic fact, historians appalled by
Scott's reimagining of the man's basic character and failure to adhere
to even the parameters of Bonaparte's marriage. Some of the most
poignant scenes in the film, whether it be his slapping of his wife at
the time of their divorce or his firing upon the pyramids of Egypt with
his artillery, were completely fabricated for dramatic effect, making
Napoleon an abomination of bad fantasy storytelling. Scott
responded to all of this blowback with the following classic line: "When
I have issues with historians, I ask: 'Excuse me, mate, were you there?
No? Well, shut the fuck up then.'" Unfortunately for him, critics and
audiences both found the movie to be lacking in convincing personality,
the inaccuracies not as troublesome as the fact that most of the picture
is a brooding bore. Also natural to a Scott production is an unusual
take on its music, and the director avoided most of the pomp and bombast
one would expect to hear with a spectacle about Bonaparte's actions. He
approached acclaimed British television composer Martin Phipps for the
score, a choice not entirely surprising given Phipps's collaboration
with or succession of Hans Zimmer and his associates on a few projects
in the prior decade. Phipps' theatrical scoring career was rather sparse
prior to Napoleon, this assignment representing a significant
step upwards for the composer. To the surprise of few, he supplies a
Scott-worthy score for the film that is memorable but not necessarily
agreeable.
Scoring a Scott film can yield frustration for composers if they're not prepared for the eccentricity and butchering that can follow in the process for their work. In publicizing the soundtrack for Napoleon, a whole lot is said without actually saying anything meaningful about the music. Scott wanted Phipps to capture Bonaparte's outsider status in the demeanor of the score, so traditional aristocratic classicism wasn't an option. Rather, Phipps handled the work with a blend of classical waltz formations and Mediterranean folk, the rendering generally prickly and disagreeable in personality despite no real dominance of atonal dissonance. The era is captured by the use of accordion, harpsichord, and hurdy-gurdy, and Phipps certainly adheres to stereotypical classical figures at times, especially in "First Counsel." The prominent placement of two Corsican choirs in a handful of cues is meant to define the distinctive nature of Bonaparte, but their contributions are excessively foreign-sounding to fit evenly with surrounding material, striking a disparate tone too well for their own good. An abundance of snare and timpani, along with deep brass layers, is employed for the militaristic element, which is sometimes overpowering in force. At a few moments of suspense, as in "We are Discovered," electronic and brass manipulation are highly annoying. On the upside, the composer opens "Napoleon's Piano" with exactly that, a quick performance on a detuned-sounding piano once owned by the titular figure. The orchestrations and recording are remarkably crisp, especially in the reverb applied to the ensemble choir and percussion in a cue like "Soldiers of the 5th Regiment." This vibrance of sound helps infuse a sense of the larger-than-life feeling expected for the setting and topic, though the softer character cues typically shift back to a dry and intimate environment. Thematically, Phipps does employ an abundance of recurring ideas, and they are reasonably effective at serving their respective purposes. But nothing meaningful happens with any of them over the course of the narrative, the composer rarely mingling them and barely evolving each one for minimal development. This is not a score defined by its narrative arc but rather the performance inflection of the individual fragmentary lines that comprise its whole. Still, the five recurring themes in Phipps' score for Napoleon suffice, though most only prominently feature twice in the narrative. The theme for Bonaparte himself is a quirky identity with more than a passing structural resemblance to the main waltz from Nino Rota's The Godfather, which is a little awkward given that the historical figure was from Corsica and not Sicily. Defined during all of "Napoleon's Piano" on a variety of instruments, this theme is also heard immediately on woodwinds and accordion in "Ladies in Waiting." Meanwhile, the theme for his wife, Josephine, is related to the figures of the main waltz but vitally left unresolved at the end of its performances. Explored at 0:36, 1:39, and 2:19 into "Josephine," this theme is slighter on piano at 0:42 in "Look Down," later shifting to a subdued accordion. On the flip side, there are three motifs representing the victories and losses of Bonaparte, whether personally or on the battlefield. There are two related conquest motifs, the first accented by two-note blurting in the bass (with some faint Zimmer foghorn emulation happening) and ascending five-note phrases on top. This motif starts immediately on low brass and ominous strings in "Toulon" and consolidates throughout the pounding, highly unpleasant "We are Discovered," eventually morphing into a strangely heroic choral, rhythmic crescendo in "Russia." The second conquest motif is a descending variant that retains a similar five-note structure. It emerges on choir at 2:13 in "Toulon," recurs at 0:41 into "Soldiers of the 5th Regiment," and is transformed into the score's most humorously bizarre cue: the chanting burps, string pulses, and harpsichord rambles in "Return to France." Finally, a four-note motif of defeat is conveyed with deep tones in "Austeritz Kyrie," an abrasive synthetic edge again inhibiting its character. This idea is reprised on brass at the outset of "Downfall" and carried on by frenzied layers of choir thereafter. The defeat motif isn't really tied closely enough to anything else in the work, and that's the overarching drawback. Phipps does bring fragments of multiple themes together (mainly the conquest motifs) in "Waterloo Requiem," but the remaining ideas that stumble into the score are comparatively singular. Descending prancing with strings and puffing choir provide a unique waltz in "Make the Rain Stop," the buoyant optimism and classical nobility in "First Counsel" is a diverting fanfare, and the folk performance in "Bonaparte's Lament" has a distinctly Latin American aspect to its flair. Together, Napoleon is one of the most interestingly unique, albeit brief scores to debut in this genre for many years. That alone earns it some goodwill, but its personality is too split, its discord too great for a recommendation on album.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 47:31
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for this album.
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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 Napoleon are Copyright © 2023, Milan Records/Sony Classical and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 12/1/23 (and not updated significantly since). |
