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| Pope |
The Rising Place: (Conrad Pope) For the directorial
debut of Tom Rice,
The Rising Place is a simple love story set in
the deep American South during World War II, with themes of racial
relations, religious connections, and sorrowful loss serving to address
the environment of an innocent period. Every aspect of the film's
production is saturated with all that is Americana, combining several
different musical requirements into one little slice of history and
location. The film passed without much attention in 2002, as did the
score by Conrad Pope. For a long time, Pope had been orchestrating
scores for major composers, including John Williams, but he served
notice to the film music community in 2001 that he intended to break
into the composing business himself in a big way. That unfortunately may
not have happened in the long run, and his score for that year's
Pavilion of Women went equally unnoticed by many mainstream fans.
Those listeners who had the fortune of hearing that work, however, were
almost always positive about its orchestral mastery. The equally
thoughtful music for
The Rising Place marked the second time that
a score by Pope had experienced an album release. It features a strong,
pastoral effort from the composer and several songs by Grammy
award-winning performer Jennifer Holliday, who reportedly wrote her own
songs (and performed new ones) only rarely during this time. Used as
source pieces in many circumstances, the songs are an integral part of
the film; this is, with the exception of the opening piece co-written by
Pope, "God Bless the Heartaches," adapting themes heard throughout the
score that form the overall work's heart (as well as David Foster's
songwriting harmonics), and performed in yearning Country Western format
by Kendall Payne. The rest of the vocal performances are by Holliday,
whose rich, textured voice best captures the spirit of the South during
the era depicted. The songs, spread throughout the score on album, do
hinder listeners who are interested in solely focusing on Pope's
material, and anyone offended by Gospel songs (which are, in this case,
a bit heavy-handed and burdensome in the tiresome topics of God and
Jesus Christ) may be frustrated with the listening experience. Many of
these performances are, though, effectively solemn reminders of the
pains of wartime at home.
To appreciate Pope's score, which is substantial in
length on the album despite the numerous songs, you have to treat his
music much like Edmund Choi's
The Dish from the previous year.
Both efforts are so closely adapted from either temp tracks or
inspiration from other contemporary composers that you have to turn off
that little voice in your head that continuously mentions connections
between this and other scores. But by mentioning some of these
connections, you'll know immediately if you'll be able to forgive the
similarities. The tone is mostly dramatic, although guitars and banjos
in folksy rhythms offer Southern flavor directly from Thomas Newman's
Fried Green Tomatoes (especially in the light touch to the rhythm
in "Three Friends"), with decent results. A more jazzy and welcomed,
positive performance of parochial sensibility is heard in "Melvina's
Grill" and "Emily's Green Dress." These rip-snorting big band moments
are the highlight of Pope's work of only because of their originality.
The "Flyboy March" is a direct tip of the hat to John Williams'
1941, intended or not, and a percussive performance true to
Williams' style appears in "The Printing Press." The moments of pure
fluff offer smooth strings familiar to Rachel Portman's career, and the
more austere variants of these cues remind of Lee Holdridge's work.
Perhaps the most driving similarity in
The Rising Place is to
James Horner's
The Spitfire Grill, with a fluttering flute and
light piano motif taken note for note from Horner's score in Pope's
"Talk of the Town" and "Virginia Confesses." The atmosphere of the first
half of "Summer of '45" is equally obvious as a Horner influence,
especially in the light choir employed. A few moments from Pope's own
large-scale writing in
Pavilion of Women do shine through,
however, with the best cue of the score being "The Rising Place," a
fully orchestral statement of the primary theme performed by the force
of all 85 performers. On album, the score suffers from poor engineering.
Several cues are distorted in the upper ranges (especially in "Three
Friends" and "Summer of '45"), and this faulty handling of gain levels
in the mix badly retards the listening experience on a large stereo
system at regular volumes. At any rate,
The Rising Place contains
some masterful work from a talented composer, but it suffers from a few
too many references to other scores and sound quality issues to be
really successful.
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The insert includes a note from director Tom Rice about the score and songs.
