: (James Horner) Delayed for a long time
due to the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the historical epic
was slow in recovering its publicity and eventually
faded without much hype. Famed Hong Kong director John Woo proved with
this film that he remained skilled with graphic depictions of violence,
but his talents in the heavier dramatic genres were severely lacking.
The long delay in post-production unfortunately didn't yield a reworking
of the script to shift the pieces of the film into a more coherent
whole, leaving it instead as a story with little audience engagement or
depth in characters. The plot of the gory Woo film deals with the use of
Navajo American Indians as a source of military encoding through their
native language in World War II, a code that the enemy could not break.
The film's handling of the various facets of racism was criticized
heavily for being too simplistic. On the other hand, praise was afforded
the director for his painstaking use of vintage equipment for his
several largescale battle scenes. The extra time in post-production was
also not kind to James Horner's score for
, which Woo
rearranged mercilessly so that very few of the composer's cues were
eventually placed in the proper location. He often chopped them into
pieces and fit them in like library samples, yielding an unsatisfactory
aural experience in the film to accompany the equally messy visuals. The
composer's orchestration team, with instruction from Horner, ultimately
tried to assemble new cues from existing material in early 2002, but
even some of these re-recorded takes were edited to irrelevance. After
several years of writing music of a smaller scope, Horner had returned
to weighty genres of drama and war in the year he wrote
. His scores for
represented a movement in Horner's
career back towards heavier orchestral projects. Understandably, when
Horner's name was mentioned as a candidate for assignment to
, many of his collectors immediately recalled his work
for the early 1990's film
, for which Horner took a
minimal ensemble and created a hauntingly effective Native American
score. The use of ethnic instrumentation, experimental or native, had
been declining for Horner in the years in between, so
offered him a chance to reassert those characteristics from an era that
many argued to be the prime of his career.
For the most part, however,
Windtalkers follows
more of a familiar pattern of generic Horner action and drama material
rather than pulling the best from his earlier works for a more engaging
listening experience. As an accompaniment for war, Horner's composition
for the film is powerful, brooding, heroic, and somber all at once. Its
functionality should not be doubted; while some listeners have
inevitably documented the similarities between this effort and
Enemy
at the Gates, the mass of music for
Windtalkers makes for an
adequate war score even if it doesn't test new grounds in Horner's
career. At least this work doesn't step on the toes of so many classical
composers and the cliches from Horner's own works, a tendency which
essentially ruined
Enemy at the Gates for many listeners.
Unfortunately, that does cause the score to be significantly more
generic in its sound. Along these lines, the major detraction from
Windtalkers for most fans of the composer will be the obvious
underplaying of the Native American elements. Horner utilizes a very
restrained combination of sampled ethnic vocal chants and a single
native flute (which he terms a "Lakota flute") to constitute the Navajo
element, and while both efforts succeed to the extent to which they were
used, the majority of the score invariably suffers without their
influence. Collectors know that Horner is more than capable of using
Native American voices, drums, and other instrumentation to an
incredible effect due to
Thunderheart, but he didn't opt for that
tact here, and the score for
Windtalkers cries out for more of
the same kind of ethnic magic that Horner had once gone to extremes to
explore. Some might argue that the film demanded a straight forward
score for the wartime situations that, on the whole, had little to do
with Native Americans in a broader sense. But Horner doesn't even
interpolate these ethnic elements in subtle ways throughout, choosing
instead to apply them in an almost token formula. There are more than a
few rousing action cues in
Windtalkers that could have benefited
enormously by the harmonious integration of the American and Najavo
elements. Unfortunately, Horner of the 2000's was not emphasizing the
same distinct instrumental colors of his 1990's works. The action
sequences involving battle, such as the lengthy "Taking the Beachhead,"
are very effective in their purity of American bravado. Horner even
manipulates the four-note "danger motif" from his previous works by
appending two additional notes that give it a slightly less ominous
personality.
Most interestingly, the structures and orchestration of
the battle cues in
Windtalkers remind of John Williams'
equivalents in parts, especially on cello. The use of the main theme
with full snare rolls and trumpets blazing in these cues is among the
most explosive material that Horner had put out in years. It's not as
dramatically significant as, say,
Glory's like-minded cues, but
it is much more inspiring than much of Horner's other action material
from the era. Despite early complaints that this score was devoid of
themes, it indeed faithfully utilizes one primary idea. While the score
on its original album does not introduce the theme in full until the end
of "A New Assignment," the score quickly establishes and ends with the
uplifting and elegant theme representing the full set of main
characters. It's an inverted form of the controversial love theme from
Enemy at the Gates, rising in its progression instead of falling.
In the softer moments, the native flute performs the theme with the same
delicacy heard in the somber sequences of
Casper. Fuller
expressions of theme by the entire ensemble are satisfying in "Taking
the Beachhead" and "Calling to the Wind." A secondary theme of military
service is conveyed by trumpets in "Navajo Dawn" and "Calling to the
Wind" as well. While the score has its flaws, thematic dedication is not
one of them. There are countless cues, however, that are less than
inspiring for Horner, the composer meandering on auto-pilot through
anonymous light war drama, but the majority of this music is at least
interesting enough for a second listen. Rather, disappointment in
Windtalkers comes back to the mysterious lack of ethnic
integration throughout the mass of the orchestral material. A greatly
expanded, 3-CD presentation from Intrada in 2023 reveals only minimal
additional material of this type, instead shining a light on the rest of
the suspense and battle music for the most part. Casual listeners will
likely find the album to be highly redundant, though it does finally
convey the thematic narrative fully. Intrada's treatment of the music is
admirable, resisting the urge to attempt to emulate most of the late
screen edits of the recording and offering fascinating alternate takes
that are significantly different from the final ones. While the score as
it stands is a strong three-star entry on any album, it could very
easily have been a noteworthy four-star score if Horner had approached
Windtalkers with the same kind of ethnically personal intensity
as he had with
Thunderheart. A simple repeat of the prior score's
tone would have been inappropriate, of course, but to hear the same
powerful, ethnic tone combined with the orchestral might of wartime
heroism would have been a great pleasure and undoubtedly an effective
sound for the film.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,346 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
