Jarre Responses

Compiled by Lukas Kendall

I love you guys. I can throw any topic out there and get a plethora of informed responses. Last week I talked a bit about Maurice Jarre and asked for readers' suggestions of good Jarre scores. They rocked my world:

From: EnterAct@aol.com

I've only begun scratching the surface of Jarre's work, myself, and I'm surprised at the riches I'm uncovering. I'm not overly thrilled with his synthesizer work; I've always thought that his synth score for WITNESS, however, belonged in an entirely different movie, though. (I guess I just couldn't reconcile the images of simple low-tech Amish folk married to the sound of a high-tech synthesizer...)

Actually, Jarre and Peter Weir decided to use electronics because the Amish have no musical instruments, and they thought this would actually be more honest to their aesthetic. Jarre and Weir also grew Amish beards for the duration of post-production. Just kidding.

From: Adilson Jose de Aquino, "Always Discos Ltda" <always@uol.com.br>

I'm happy that you open the oportunity to talk about my favorite composer. Maurice Jarre has unique style and a lot of inspiration, there are many lesser known scores that should be available on CD:

"To die in Madrid" this short feature contains a piece of spanish guitar solo and it's one more interesting and beautiful music, in the same vein of "Behold a Pale Horse" and an interesting score also has "The Train". In the 60's we can also find some good scores in the following films: "Gambit", "Grand Prix",one of the most creative and efficient for this kind of movie, "The Fixer" scored for violin & percussion, "Isadora" one of my favorite score, very touching and melancholic and one of the most neglected of his scores, I wait one day to see a complete edition of it. "Villa Rides" another very good western score with Mexican flavour, "The Only Game in Town" a Jazz score, & "Topaz". During the 70's we can not forget "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" with its funny score, "Ash Wednesday" a bad film with a charming music. There are several other scores in this decade which may be considered high level, as: "Island at the top of the World", "Great Expectations", "The Last Tycoon" I loved it, "Shout at the Devil", and "Crossed Swords". "Shogun" available only on LP doens't bring all the excellent variety of Jarre's composition, "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark", "Resurrection", "Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday", "Top Secret !", "The Bride" when Varese Sarabande will make this gift available on CD ?, and finishing the latin score for "Fires Within". I hope that these suggestions could give you an ideia of the broad and creative works of this distinguished composer.

From: Guy McKone <guymck@cims.net>

My favorite Jarre has to be 1972's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. This is an album that I "lived with" back then for a few years before seeing the film. (Columbia S-31948). I wrote, some years back in FIR (Films In Review), that I didn't care much for the Jarre style, but I grudgingly admitted to "Roy Bean" being rather pleasant, a melange of folksy tunes, touching melodies, and a rather haunting, bittersweet feeling throughout. The film's pretty good too. The song (Oscar nominated), "Marmalade, Molasses and Honey" is sung by Andy Williams during my favorite sequence, a picnic scene with Paul Newman (as Bean), a VERY young Victoria Principal, - and - a big, black grizzly bear! This scene never fails to delight me; I always seem to have a grin. Paul Newman makes his (album) singing debut, a little bit of "Yellow Rose of Texas". The most touching scoring is during the "Miss Lillie Langtry" scene, with the music underscoring Newman's narration of Bean's letter to Miss Langtry (Ava Gardner) who visits Langtry, Texas sometime after Bean's fiery demise. Jarre nailed this one, to be sure. (Available on Warner Home Video)

Director John Huston (who appears in a cameo as Grizzly Adams) does his usual fine job, and employed M. Jarre again in 1975's The Man Who Would Be King. It's an underrated "little epic", and because of the fine Amsel cover art, I sought out a poster of the film. The film (and album) are worth discovering.

The Night of the Generals (1967; Colgems COSO-5002) had a rather chilling score, but included a wonderful, slightly off-center, waltz. The strings had a "Paul Mauriat chill" to them in a couple of sequences. The Colgems album was poorly engineered; I bought this one instead of another album: Francis Lai's The Games! Live and learn. The Intrada CD reissue includes a bonus: a 12 minute suite that - to me - is somewhat different than the selections used in the remainder of the disc. Much-improved sound as well. Debbie Sherwood's liner notes on the Colgems issue stated that the music was "gratifyingly listenable". Suffice to say: it does have its moments.

From: Kirk Henderson <kirxworx@hooked.net>

Glad to hear you're a big Jarre fan. Me too, although I hold the same reservations you do about his electronic scores. One album that I would recommend is called MUSIQUES DE FILMS 1958-1964 which has a lengthy suite from LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (Eyes Without a Face), one of the few horror scores by Jarre, and if you like THE COLLECTOR, you'll see where that sound came from. The rest of the suites are quite nice as well, but mostly from French films I've never heard of. Of course, you didn't mention JESUS OF NAZARETH, but I'm sure you know that one. His score for GORILLAS IN THE MIST is quite lush as well, if not as fitting in the film. And if you liked Williams' JANE EYRE, you'd like Jarre's GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Apparently a terrible film but quite a romantic score with many memorable melodies. Other scores by Jarre that are very good that frequently get overlooked: NIGHT OF THE GENERALS, IS PARIS BURING?, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (try it!), and THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. To a lesser extent GRAND PRIX (the sound effects are a mixed bag), and THE BRIDE (hey, it's no Bride of Frankenstein, but beautifully romantic). And then there's a couple of scores that have only been released in bits or not at all but deserve more: TOPAZ (Hitchcock film) and RESURRECTION (which has one of his most beautiful themes). I'm sure there are others. Frankly, Jarre's recent work has not impressed me. I can bearly sit through A WALK IN THE CLOUDS. Its overbearing in my opinion, but I would like to hear LE JOUR ET LE NUIT, which has been better received than most of his recent output.

From: Jeff Thomas, MaestroJW@aol.com

I just read your comments on Maurice Jarre. I'm not too familiar with his work, but I am fond of Lawrence of Arabia and Witness and a few others... another one you did not mention is the forgotten Harrison Ford movie "The Mosquito Coast." I don't own the score, but I have it on the "Music from the films of Harrison Ford" CD, and I think the theme is wonderful. Its kind of new age sounding with synthesizers, neither of which am I into though I really like this piece. But, I cannot comment on the rest of the score, as I've only seen the film once and don't own the soundtrack. What do you think of the score (and the movie)?

I've just been listening to a track from The Mosquito Coast on Rhino's new box set of Warner Bros. films. I don't have the actual soundtrack album and haven't seen the film in ages, although I remember thinking it was cool. I do like the track Rhino used; it's a dreamy, intriguing score.

From: "Pulliam, Ron, GSA-RPM" <RPULLIAM@gsa.mail.co.alameda.ca.us>

Since you asked so nicely, I'll recommend something that ranks, IMO, favorably among the all-time great film scores: "Resurrection."

This extraordinary film stars Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard and Eva LeGallienne. If you are not familiar with it, Burstyn lives in California with her husband, whom she surprises with a sports car for his birthday. During their celebratory drive, the husband swerves to avoid hitting a skateboarder and the car plunges off a seaside cliff.

Briefly: The woman finds herself in a tunnel surrounded by people. At the end of the tunnel she sees her husband. As she goes toward him she is rapidly pulled away and awakens in a hospital, puzzled by her dream. She learns her husband died in the crash. She, too, died for a few seconds and she is also paralyzed. She leaves her California life to return to the midwest with her stern, cold father to live on his farm with him and her grandmother. It is there she discovers she's acquired something from her experience that can only have been a result of the what she had thought a dream.

This film is beautifully acted and directed. It really WORKS!

Jarre's score is both identifiable (bearing his trademark sound) and beautifully suited (both melodically and dramatically) to the film. This score illuminates the characters and story and always serves the film's dramatic needs while managing to offer musical moments of great beauty and power. A wonderfully poignant, often delicate, main theme is interwoven throughout the film with some of his finest orchestrations. I think it his finest work.

This film is available on video and continues to show on cable, most recently on the SciFi channel (thought it's not science fiction).

From: "William Finn" <wjfinn@iquest.net>

I also am not immune to the charms of Jarres music, especially many of his scores from the '60's and '70's. I have the Abbey road CD and will now have to go back and re-listen to "Prancer" now that you've brought it up, but "Crossed Swords" has long been a favorite Jarre film. Wasn't this the first film that the late Christopher Palmer worked with Jarre on by the way?

In any case, what I've always liked about Jarre's style is the certain coolness or dryness to his sound. His great use of percussion, especially in his earlier scores kind of helps this along as well, along with his use (sometimes overuse) of dimished chords, somewhat like Honegger. And while I am also not a huge fan of his electronic scoring (and I include the overused theremin here as well), his score for "Witness" surely ranks as one his finest. Jarre isn't a composer whose music I can listen to hours on end like others, but when I am in the mood for his sound, then nobody else will do. He just simply has no imitators.

Finally, my own favorite and usually overlooked Jarre score is from "The Train". Only winds, brass and percussion are here as Jarre drops the strings from his orchestra. But the effect of his wind scoring for scenes of locomotives and Nazis in WW2 is simply as stellar as it gets. At many points, the sound of the wind ensemble literally becomes the sound of the Train, so it really helps to see the film in order to truly appreciate this score, but it is definitely worth checking out, particularly if you're a Paul Scofield fan. And there is also a solo wind theme for Jeanne Moreau that is also quite special. If Rykodisc isn't looking into reissuing the old United Artists LP on a CD, then somebody else definitely should be.

From: "Brown, Alphonse V." <ABrown@tmh.tmc.edu>

I noticed in today's article that you didn't mention "Ghost". True, "Unchained Melody" took the spotlight from the rest of the score when the CD was released, but if you could forgive him for some of the electronic noise in some of the tracks, there's a pretty nice score underneath it all.

I agree. Ghost always cracked me up because there are three scores with virtually the same theme: Battlestar Galactica, Beastmaster, and Ghost (Jarre's theme, not the Alex North song).

From: CLauliac@aol.com

Last year, upon the release of "le Jour et la Nuit", Maurice Jarre said the folowing things: "I have reached a point in my life where I need to be strongly motivated by a project to accept it". In other words, Jarre seems reluctant to score too many films from now on. I've been told He now writes concert pieces. Yet, I am disappointed to see he wasn't approached by Peter Weir to score "The Truman Show". I'm sure Andrew Niccol's screenplay and Peter Weir's sensitivity would have stimulated Maurice Jarre's imagination and brought him back to intelligent hollywood filmmaking.

For further listening, I humbly recommend Maurice Jarre's wacky scores for the Georges Franju movies, done in late fifties. For these gothic tales of suspense and murder, Jarre fashioned highly inventive scores, a lot more convincing than his electronic experiments in the eighties. Jarre recorded a Georges Franju Suite for his "Abbey Road" album. Although it sounds great, it definetely lacks the intimacy and the rough, unpolished sound of the original recordings. I've always felt the "Abbey Road" album to be sometimes overblown, especially with Jarre's french works, which he overorchestrated to fit the scope of "Gorillas in the Mist" or the ironic "Bombay March" from "A Passage to India".

The original Franju recordings can be found on a french CD compilation, released three years ago. I think it is still available. This release focuses on Jarre's french films, done between the 1959-64 period. It is full of the lyrical melodies and the obsessive rythms he does so well. it is great to discover he brought this individualistic, abrasive style to a mainstream hollywood film like "Lawrence of Arabia". I still can't understand how a composer like Leonard Rosenman was so appaled by this score and Jarre's "Doctor Zhivago", claiming it was "full of wrong notes" or something... I also recommend Jarre's scores for "The Bride", a seductive and pastoral score released by Varese on a digital LP in 1985. On CD, "The Night of the Generals" is also quite satisfying, featuring a very sad and melancolic love theme, followed by a strange and psychotic waltz. "Jacob's Ladder" is also a cult favorite of mine. The only Jarre score to successfully blend electronic and orchestral stuff in a hypnotic and ominous way. "Ghost" is an overrated score: nice love theme but boring and shapeless electronic cues. And for the hopeless romantics, I recommend "Ryan's Daughter". The movie is sublime and Jarre's score is gorgeous. Jarre wisely avoided any reference to irish music for this one, simply because director David Lean hated it! Now, James Horner is still trying to figure out how why... Anyway, although he'll be 74 next fall, Jarre rocks!

From: "Madapaty, Lakshmikanth (Lax)" <lmadapati@lucent.com>

One of the most haunting of scores/themes is the one Jarre did for a little know (for good reasons - it's a BAD film) film "Julia and Julia". The movie is too bizarre but the theme caputures the lead character's melancholy and sadness in a wonderful way. Jacob's Ladder and After Dark My Sweet are in the same vein but not nearly as haunting. As you pointed out, he is quite erratic but sometimes very engaging. I don't like his recent work at all.

From: Preston Jones <pjones@fulpat.com>

Glad Lukas mentioned some of my favorites, including THE COLLECTOR. WITNESS is obviously a major Jarre effort, but I'm very glad he re-recorded the Barnraising with an orchestra...

JESUS OF NAZARETH -- haven't heard it for ages, but I remember the main theme being a fine one.

BEHOLD A PALE HORSE -- Not available on cd, I believe, but a lovely, tinkly effort from his early prime period.

ONLY THE ONLY -- tender, compassionate.

Maybe more to follow, but these came to mind first.

Thanks everyone! If there's anything else to be said about Jarre, send it this way! JarreBag@filmscoremonthly.com