: (Jerry Goldsmith) At a time
when old fashioned epics of immense landscapes and larger-than-life
characters had faded from the spotlight in major cinema, writer and
director John Milius liberally adapted a true story of an abduction that
brought two of his favorite historical figures into surprising symmetry.
While the facts of the tale are skewed for the purposes of melodrama,
is still the result of Milius' significant
respect for both President Teddy Roosevelt and the famed El Raisuli
("the Magnificent") of Morocco, leader of fierce Arab resistance against
foreign powers in this region just prior to World War I. The film uses
the abduction of Candice Bergen's surprisingly independent woman of
class to draw parallels between the leaders, portrayed amicably by Sean
Connery and Brian Keith. There are no real winners or losers in the plot
of
; Milius instead uses the environment to
stir up dust, show beheadings, and allow glorious cinematography of vast
open spaces to carry the film's appeal. Despite the director's new
arrival on the Hollywood scene,
was
rewarded with significant critical praise and did quite well at the box
office, eventually yielding a pair of Oscar nominations. One of those
nominations came for Milius' chosen composer for the assignment, Jerry
Goldsmith. Though most soundtrack collectors are well aware of the
director's fruitful collaboration with Basil Poledouris,
came at a time when Milius' friend from college had not yet
established his feature scoring career. Thus came Goldsmith, initially
reluctant. It was a rare circumstance in which the veteran composer did
research into the music of the setting, discovering that the cultural
sound of Morocco was largely informed by its controlling European
superpowers at the time. Goldsmith eventually produced one of the finest
scores of his career for
, not only earning
the Academy recognition, but also allowing him to finally write grand
music for a sweeping epic. He had arrived in the industry just as such
films were falling out of favor, and Goldsmith eventually looked back
upon the assignment with respect and admiration.
True the style of Maurice Jarre's classic score for
Lawrence of Arabia, Goldsmith utilized a diverse ensemble for
The Wind and the Lion that relied upon the fury of a massive
percussion section to establish the mood of the setting. A wide variety
of struck metal objects (one of which struck and then put underwater)
and unconventional drums created a barbaric atmosphere suitable for the
old-fashioned methodology of the Raisuli and his forces. Assuaging
audience ears is the infusion of Western romanticism into
The Wind
and the Lion as well, merging extremely heroic brass tones with a
broad string sub-theme to give the efforts of the Raisuli the
appropriate balance between accomplished brute force and a refined sense
of taste. Several themes and motifs run though
The Wind and the
Lion, many of them overlapping and integrated as fragments into each
other. The most dominant progression at work is a series of alternating
complimentary notes that are open fifths in musical terminology but will
be more recognizable to collectors as the equivalent progression to the
opening of Goldsmith's forthcoming Klingon theme in the
Star Trek
films. The three notes of this motif, boldly starting and ending on key,
serve as the basis for both the score's boisterous primary theme for the
Raisuli and a more subdued and stately identity for Roosevelt. The motif
signals the Raisuli and his forces very effectively, though the full
theme to follow it is surprisingly lyrical in its flow, giving the
character an allure not only dramatic in its depth, but slightly tragic
in its acknowledgement of a changing world that will marginalize his
influence. Conversely, the theme for Roosevelt is a French horn piece
that is as mannerly as it is robust, an appropriate though comparatively
less interesting representation. Only in a couple of places in the score
does Goldsmith afford this theme some expanse in which to fly. In the
latter half of the film, the composer provides a love theme to accompany
the unrealized romantic attraction between the Raisuli and the Western
woman he has kidnapped. This idea, utilizing strings and woodwinds in
familiar roles while light metallic percussion reminds of the location,
features all of the weight of the thematic structures that John Barry
would make famous in the 1980's. It is lovely counterpoint to the
bombast of the material for the Raisuli, itself taking several
full-ensemble explorations.
Several secondary motifs, including two for the Arabs
(one specifically during scenes of travel), are faithfully conveyed by
Goldsmith throughout
The Wind and the Lion, but it is the
intelligent interaction between the primary motif, the Raisuli's theme,
and the love theme that makes this score so effective. The propulsive
ensemble rhythms will remind some listeners of
The 13th Warrior,
though Goldsmith impressively layers these with his strong themes with
the kind of explosive effect heard in
Lionheart. There is an
excruciating level of detail in
The Wind and the Lion, with so
many lines of action concurrently performed in the score's action
sequences that the overall impact of the score is overwhelming. The cue
"Lord of the Riff" is a perfect example of how Goldsmith can take most
of the score's major themes and lesser motifs and feature them either in
progression or on top of each other in very satisfying fashion. The
composer also saves his most dramatic single moments for Milius' equally
beautiful shots on screen, including one in "A Bid for Freedom" that is
nothing less than stunning as Connery's Raisuli sweeps by one of the two
Western children on horseback and, in glorious slow motion, takes his
rifle from the boy before riding out of the story. Another momentous cue
that highlights the film is the ambitious "Raisuli Attacks," a brutal
but extremely complicated piece (especially for the trumpets) that
matches the skill of the horseman in executing his enemies. Outside of
the openly predatory cues,
The Wind and the Lion maintains its
appeal in all but its source-like cues. There is a significant amount of
source material in the film, mostly arranged for Goldsmith by longtime
associate Alexander Courage, and the original score itself has several
cues that consist of varied percussive rhythms with no assistance from
the other sections of the orchestra. These portions of
The Wind and
the Lion are its least interesting and, therefore, its only
weakness. All of its ensemble performances, however, which constitute
the mass majority of the score, maintain a level of multi-layered
excellence that, in this genre of historic bravado, would stand alone
until Goldsmith's
Lionheart. Some listeners prefer the more
soothing tones of the material for Roosevelt, highlighted by an
optimistic, full performance at the start of "The True Symbol."
Goldsmith's music for
The Wind and the Lion,
most importantly, is a very obvious production aspect in the finished
film, carrying entire scenes with the engrossing kind of prominence that
the composer would accomplish again in another of his classics,
Hoosiers. The score presented some complications of its own when
the time came to revisit it on album. Because the film shared two
studios, a situation (which occurs on occasion) arose in which one
record label owned the licensing rights to release a score album while
another label owned the rights to the studio's actual library of master
tapes from which the score needed to be mixed and pressed. In 1989,
Intrada Records transferred the old LP record arrangement to CD and that
product represented the score until 2007, when the label intended to
remaster the same mix and re-issue it. Coincidentally, Film Score
Monthly had been investigating the newly discovered, superior master
tapes of the complete score for a possible release of their own.
Luckily, Lukas Kendall of FSM and Doug Fake of Intrada coordinated
efforts in this peculiar situation and with production assistance from
Kendall, Intrada released a comprehensive 2-CD set of
The Wind and
the Lion in 2007. This non-limited album's presentation is as good
as it could possibly get for enthusiasts of this fine score, with the
first CD containing the entirety of the score remastered from the best
available source and the second CD offering a remastering of the
original album's mix along with the many source recordings. The mixes of
the album and film versions of the score often differ (and a small bit
of the material on the film-version CD does not match what is in the
actual film as well), but most listeners won't be able to distinguish
any serious differences (including sound quality in most places).
Unfortunately,
The Wind and the Lion, even when cleaned up,
doesn't sound as good as some of Goldsmith's other recordings of the era
(take the crisper, concurrent
Breakheart Pass, for example,
though as with
Inchon, much of this depends upon the recording
locale), and discerning listeners will hear some occasional harshness
bordering on distortion in the brass section. Still, the compositional
superiority of
The Wind and the Lion trumps its issues with
slightly archival sound quality, and any collector of Goldsmith's works
should seek the 2007 set with confidence. And don't forget: the Raisuli
does not sing!
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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