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| Horner |
The Perfect Storm: (James Horner) Warner Brothers
and director Wolfgang Petersen were betting that the story of the Andrea
Gail and its fate during the "perfect storm" of October 1991 wouldn't be
too much of a depressing tragedy for audiences to handle in the summer,
2000 movie season. The faithful adaptation of the bestselling 1997 novel
by Sebastian Junger,
The Perfect Storm was widely praised by
critics but did indeed fail to gain traction with skeptical audiences.
The famed demise of the Andrea Gail was a thrill for both meteorologists
and those unfamiliar with the true story of the fishing vessel, but both
the intensity and technical elements of the film's presentation, when
not filling the gaps with unconvincing dialogue not featured in the
book, were too much for some to handle. Returning to the genre of the
unforgiving sea, composer James Horner stirs up a tumultuous and
powerful effort for the score for
The Perfect Storm. Employing
his typical, large-scale orchestra, Horner re-establishes motifs and
instrumentation from his previously well-known styles and introduces a
few new sounds along the way to keep that style fresh. Ultimately, what
sank this score for many listeners, however, is its inability to
distinguish itself from other Horner scores, especially when heard apart
from the film's imagery. Although similar complaints had been building
for years, the
The Perfect Storm score blew up a not-so-rogue
wave of criticism from those film music fans who hear his previous works
in everything new he presents. And, to an extent,
The Perfect
Storm deserves some of that criticism. With both
Titanic and
The Mask of Zorro, the composer had appeared to be expanding into
new stylistic territory, though with
Deep Impact and
Bicentennial Man came a return to an all-too-familiar call of
duty for Horner in the conductor's box. To his credit, he did attempt to
insert some variety into each score during that period, but on the
whole, nobody can deny that the vast majority of his material for these
scores, as well as
The Perfect Storm, is molded from the same
template.
So what makes
The Perfect Storm any more
remarkable than
Deep Impact or
Bicentennial Man? They're
all decent scores, very well suited to their environment in each
context, but
The Perfect Storm has proven over time to be the
most interesting of the three on album because it pulls from a wider
variety of previous "Hornerisms" and never allows itself to get stuck in
the same melodramatic rut as the other two previous efforts. The
ensemble for
The Perfect Storm is standard for Horner at the
time, with the exception of the addition of both acoustic and electric
guitars. A synthetic choral element is used to accentuate some of the
fantasy moments late in the vessel's voyage. Otherwise, however, the
instrumental usage is very familiar. Thematically, Horner employs two
themes in the score, and while neither one is particularly memorable,
the interactions of the two often produce a far greater result. Both
themes are presented in succession in the opening cue on album, "Coming
Home from the Sea" before Horner adeptly overlaps the two. The first
theme heard is a standard dramatic affair for Horner, most in line with
the romantic melodies heard in
Deep Impact or
Bicentennial
Man. As a character theme representing humanity, it's certainly
adequate, but it's not going to satisfy critics of the composer. More
interesting is the theme for the ocean, which debuts in the second
minute of the aforementioned cue and dominates many of the action cues
thereafter. This six-note motif is somewhat overshadowed by other
techniques that Horner uses for the ocean later on, though it's an
astonishingly flexible progression that appears in fragments all over
those action cues. The use of the character theme, when not in battle
with the one for the seas, does get repetitive. Its lengthy performance
in the final cue on album, "There's No Goodbye... Only Love," as well as
its adaptation in the John Mellencamp song, "Yours Forever," do become
tiresome after a while. The song, since Horner had a hand in it, does
offer the theme for the ocean as counterpoint at several places, which
is a neat touch.
The major attraction in Horner's
The Perfect
Storm, though, is in its tone. The presence of the acoustic guitar
is obviously meant to accentuate the warmth of the character theme, but
the electric guitar gives the score a gritty, defiant edge that well
represents the attitude of the crew. Horner had used the electric guitar
in a few scores throughout the 1990's, but usually as only a singular
accent piece. It had a noticeable impact as a slashing reminder of the
perils of war in
Courage Under Fire and had the distinction of
marking the single moment in
Titanic when the film dramatically
shifted to its second half. Here, it is used more frequently as an equal
to any other performing member of the ensemble, and is mixed as just
another bass element. At 4:05 into "To the Fleming Cap," as in a few
other places, the higher pitches of the instrument mimic a seagull call,
but it's usually more of a three-dimensional percussion piece for most
of the rambunctious rhythms of the fishing sequences. The buoyant
enthusiasm of these cues recalls the best of Horner's adventure scores
for children's films, including
The Rocketeer. As the score
shifts into troubled waters, the "worrisome" cues (highlighted by "The
Decision to Turn Around") exhibit significant characteristics of
Apollo 13, including the tapping percussion best known in that
score. By "Coast Guard Rescue," Horner is in a brutal action mode
(complete with the four-note motif of evil from
Willow) and lets
rip with orchestral mayhem more forceful than anything since
Brainstorm. The raw energy of these cues is a reminder of the
composer's earliest days, and it is because of this material that
The
Perfect Storm excels. Horner also achieves the rolling movement of
the oceanic waves through the use of fluctuating strings, woodwinds, and
the cymbals; it's not as impressive as Joel McNeely's storm music in
Virus the previous year, but it is nevertheless quite engaging.
Overall,
The Perfect Storm is an exhausting, but ultimately
rewarding score. After 75 minutes on album, regardless of the high
quality of the action cues, the saccharine, endlessly repeating
character theme can still be as unpleasant as swallowing seawater.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 103 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 192,918 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes credits and lyrics for the song.
