 |
| Howard |
The Saint of Fort Washington: (James Newton Howard)
Despite its compelling pair of lead acting performances, the 1993 social
commentary
The Saint of Fort Washington was a failure because the
film didn't provide any deeper analysis or solution for the homelessness
crisis it portrays. Two men on the city streets, played by Matt Dillon
and Danny Glover, face challenges in shelter and money and are both
highly flawed, but they ultimately come to rely on each other to find
inspiration and peace with life. There's a Christ-inspired religious
element at work, but the movie makes audiences feel empathy towards
these characters without offering any glimpse of hope for a broader
solution to the problem, and a particular focus on the bullying that
occurs in homeless shelters was cited by critics as an unnecessary
diversion. Most viewers were still generally positive about
The Saint
of Fort Washington, but the project lost many millions of dollars
for Warner Brothers. In the midst of an immense year of production in
1993, composer James Newton Howard took this assignment as a personal
aside, and it's by far his least remembered of that period in his
career. Howard handled all the programming, orchestration, and keyboards
on his own for this intimate project, its scope highly restricted
compared to his surrounding works. Still, there is more than enough
substance to this music to retain interest, a moderate orchestra
employed but most of the score's personality defined by contemporary
keyboards, bass, percussion, and solo jazzy trumpet with plenty of
synthetic help along the way. Strings and solo woodwinds are the only
presence from the traditional players, though it's possible the winds
are all synthetic, as there are fake exotic winds that mimic early Hans
Zimmer usage in rhythmic formations. Intriguingly, tribal percussion
suggests a foreign aspect to the lead characters, essentially reducing
them to third-world status as homeless people. Much of the
instrumentation and its usage here foreshadows the composer's later,
better-known efforts, from a synthetic marimba tone that resembles
Raya and the Last Dragon to electric guitars that clearly predict
Blood Diamond. The general tone of this work is mostly somber, an
understated environment with a few dissonant suspense passages on
synths. There are interesting singular moments and a few pretty tracks,
but not much of a satisfying narrative, leaving it as an atmospheric
tool of discomforting light drama.
Howard's themes for
The Saint of Fort Washington
are a disjointed lot, the main theme mostly repeating wholesale without
enough variation while secondary identities go nowhere. The main one is
helmed by a searching, ascending pair of notes followed by descending
pair. They're defined by an electronic wind instrument at the start of
"Main Titles," switching to strings under muted trumpet at 1:02. It's
adapted to softer keyboarding with the trumpet again in the middle of
"Rosario" and informs the hopeful beginning to "The Rainstorm" on the
contemporary ensemble only. The main theme returns to its original
electronic wind form in "Matthew Takes a Picture," and that same
performance is reprised a third time in "End Titles," Howard
frustratingly providing no advancement to it. In all three of these
nearly identical performances, there exists a secondary section to the
theme that directly reflects
Raya and the Last Dragon, starting
at 2:10 "Main Titles" under synthetic choral ambience and reprising its
watery sound late in "Matthew Takes a Picture" and again during "End
Titles." From there, the themes lack cohesion, but the best is one of
hope that consists of contemporary keyboarding at 0:17 into "Sewing
Money," the work's lovely, pure
Blood Diamond moment and the
two-minute highlight overall. The woodwinds join the guitar, keyboards,
and percussion for this remarkably upbeat passage, and the melody
struggles to revisit that mode. It tries unsuccessfully to get started
in the latter half of "Rosario" but offers some sensitivity late in
"Matthew Takes a Picture" on a keyboard. Late in the score, Howard
explores a sadness theme with a pretty piano and string rendition in
"Matthew's Casket," and he extends this idea into new directions on
evocative solo keyboard in "End Titles" and uses it to close that suite.
A bit overplayed is an adversity motif utilizing six-notes of worrisome
intent at 2:29 into "Sewing Money" and repeating ominously; similar
shades toil in the challengingly dissonant atmosphere of "Back to the
Shelter." There's nothing inherently wrong with the budget approach that
Howard took towards
The Saint of Fort Washington, but the lack of
a really tight narrative in a personable story such as this is
disappointing. The style of each performance hits the right mark,
emotionally appropriate at all times. But while the score is decent, if
not outright beautiful at times, its finds difficulty establishing a
lasting soul, even with the presence of the solo trumpet. The 30-minute
score-only presentation on the only available album nearly overstays its
welcome at that length, and Howard collectors will pick five minutes of
highlights as intriguingly clear predecessors to his future successes.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23
(in 90 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.21
(in 90,186 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
