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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Windtalkers (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you're a James Horner collector seeking an adequate
and sometimes powerful war score with a token ethnic element referenced
at occasional intervals.
Avoid it... if you expect the same artistic integrity and personal intensity heard in Horner's previous scores that better address ethnic plot points.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Windtalkers: (James Horner) Delayed for a long time
due to the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the historical epic
Windtalkers 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 Windtalkers, 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
Windtalkers. His scores for Enemy at the Gates, A
Beautiful Mind, and Iris 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
Windtalkers, many of his collectors immediately recalled his work
for the early 1990's film Thunderheart, 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 Windtalkers
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. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
2002 RCA Victor Album:
Total Time: 66:55
2023 Intrada Album: Total Time: 214:30
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 2002 RCA Victor album includes no extra information
about the score or film. That of the 2023 Intrada Records album contains
extensive notation about both.
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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 Windtalkers are Copyright © 2002, 2023, RCA Victor, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/12/01 and last updated 11/28/23. |
