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FILMTRACKS.COM
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Review of Red Dawn (Basil Poledouris)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you are familiar with and typically enjoy the muscular
rhythmic nature of Basil Poledouris' action music of the early 1980's,
especially in the extremely menacing tones of deep brass.
Avoid it... if you, like many, have disregarded the film as a badly dated macho fantasy for teenagers, because the score is equally challenged as a representation of that era's patriotic fluff and underdeveloped synthesizers.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Red Dawn: (Basil Poledouris) In the 1980's,
Hollywood fueled young peoples' fantasies about taking huge weapons and
blowing up nasty badguys on behalf of America, expressing freedom of
will through the pumping of countless bullets into preferably Communist
foes. Director John Milius was one of the few who actually managed to
take those fantasies and apply them to pop culture teenage life, using
the already questionable premise of a Soviet invasion of the United
States to force a group of usually fun-loving teenagers into taking up
arms and fighting their way to glory. In retrospect, everything about
Red Dawn is pure cheese, from the ridiculous obsession the
country had with invasions of the homeland to sappy interactions between
teenagers struggling to express themselves. It's also amusing to
recollect just how conservative Milius had been in real life, a National
Rifle Association champion who obviously got tingling sensations in his
loins when conceiving of a group of average American teenagers justified
in their gross employment of military-grade weaponry. The film opened to
decent success in 1984, though it has dissolved into mindless fallacies
of logic since, drawing endless cable runs only due to its wealth of
attractive young stars. Milius' career was past its prime by then,
though his college friend and reliable collaborator, composer Basil
Poledouris, was still on the rise. Poledouris became known in the 1980's
for his patriotic music, using his skills at manipulating the sounds of
Americana in both Red Dawn and Amerika before moving on to
high profile Western and Olympics compositions. His music often
addressed the nation's bravado in wide open spaces, from the seas and
skies to the rugged landscape of Middle America. It is this last area
that produced the heart of his music for both Red Dawn and
Amerika, two scores with as many similarities as the films that
share so many holes in their screenplays. In a technical sense,
Poledouris' music for this environment was adept at finding the right
instrumental tone and often utilized strings of melodic ideas quite
effectively.
In the end, though, there is a certain anonymous quality to Poledouris' invasion scores that makes them somewhat difficult to appreciation apart from context. Another challenge with Red Dawn was Poledouris' employment of synthesizers directly into the live ensemble performances, a choice that gives the music a vague atmosphere of future fantasy but also causes the soundtrack to suffer from the same badly dated qualities in retrospect. The synthetic elements in the score serve to accentuate the harsh nature of the already abrasive tone of the orchestra. The group of 90 players heavily emphasizes low brass, with tubas and trombones almost perpetually grounding the work in a sense of foreboding. In some cues, this emphasis yields the kind of muscular sound that Poledouris' collectors almost always fondly recall (mainly from Conan the Barbarian). In others, the repetition of this brass blasting in each measure on key may seem like a play for cheap gravity. Solo trumpet is an element teased in the score but sadly underutilized. Strings and woodwinds predictably convey the perilous emotional journey of the kids. More interesting than the tone in Red Dawn is Poledouris' strangely overdeveloped melodic organization. It's not often that you hear a score with too many thematic representations, but Red Dawn is curiously over-thought in the intertwining of thematic ideas. The film, for instance, uses two main fanfares, one of march-like patriotic spirit and another to match the actions of the kids (the former really only heard in full during the opening and closing credits and the latter forming the basis for action when the kids attack). Another primary theme is a softer one for the concept of freedom (introduced at the end of "Main Title"), adapted into numerous guises throughout the score and really the highlight of the score. Two propulsive rhythmic identities are the guilty pleasures of the score, the first for the Russian invasion (pounded deliberately in "The Invasion" and later during the climactic helicopter ambush) and the second generating momentum for the kids' "Wolverines" group in the role of more subdued or melodramatic resistance. Beyond that, Poledouris provides two additional themes primarily for the interactions of the teenagers, one softly reflecting on a tone of remorse and the other more whimsically grasping at the concept of peace. These many thematic ideas interact and mutate significantly in Red Dawn, potentially making the score seem unfocused for those not closely familiar with the film. The title theme of immense patriotism and Wolverine theme of action are the most curiously redundant, and the pretty freedom theme representing the Colorado town at the start and the memorial at the end would seem to have been a good candidate to supercede most of the other secondary themes of conversational volume. The rambling, piano and timpani-pounded bass of the Russians' theme has a Rambo-like quality that Jerry Goldsmith fans will appreciate. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the score, you'll never be able to find enough lengthy, uninhibited development to any of the themes to really enjoy them on album, even in the presentation of the complete score. It's an effective score in context, and is impressive in short bursts on its own, but the dated nature of the concept is directly reflected in the often irritating synthetic accompaniment (which was not as refined here as in the composer's scores of just another five years later). It really does make a good companion piece to Amerika for those inclined to look back fondly at this topic of 1980's paranoia. Undoubtedly, Red Dawn has special meaning for Doug Fake and the crew at Intrada Records; the score represented the label's first ever product on LP after transitioning from being strictly a record store in San Francisco. That 34-minute album was transferred into a 1988 CD that eventually went out of print and became a collectible item. In 2007, not long after Poledouris' painful death from cancer, Intrada revisited the score and used new technologies to remix it for a complete presentation amounting to 69 minutes. This pressing of unlimited quantity (a relative rarity for the label nowadays) has benefits and drawbacks. In its favor is obviously the complete presentation (with a few alternate and source tracks) and a mastering that really pulls fine details out of the recording. On the other hand, the extra material doesn't offer a wealth of new highlights, and the extremely dry mix (as opposed to the original CD, which featured some reverb) only emphasizes the problematic tones of the synthesizers even more. Thus, the 2007 release is admirable in its expression of sentiment by Intrada for Poledouris and this score, but the music is far from the composer's most enjoyable experiences on album, no matter which product you encounter. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1988 Intrada Album:
Total Time: 34:29
2007 Intrada Album: Total Time: 69:13
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both albums include information about the score and
film, though the 2007 product features a more extensive analysis.
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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 Red Dawn are Copyright © 1988, 2007, Intrada Records (Original), Intrada Records (Expanded) and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/16/10 (and not updated significantly since). |
