CD Review: The Fury Deluxe Edition
By John Takis
The Fury - The Deluxe Edition **** 1/2
JOHN WILLIAMS
Varèse Sarabande CD Club VCL 0702 1011
Disc One: The Soundtrack - 23 tracks - 55:26
Disc Two: The Album - 9 tracks - 40:17
The Fury is one of John Williams' minor masterpieces. The 1979
supernatural thriller by Brian DePalma remains a superb example of what
music can do for a film. "Psychic teen" movies haven't been in vogue for
a few decades, and seem hard to take seriously in any context. But The
Fury has two things lending it some desperately-needed credibility:
a strong performance by seasoned leading-man Kirk Douglas, and a magnificent
score. Williams treats the action with such compelling sincerity that the
viewer is swept away without really having time to reflect on the overblown
melodrama disgorged on the screen.
The secret lies partly in his Herrmannesque approach. The project was
originally intended for Bernard Herrmann, who, before his death, had worked
with DePalma on Obsession. Williams accepted the challenge, using
it as an opportunity to pay tribute to the late maestro. The score remains
vintage Williams, but the Herrmann influence is readily apparent, from
the hypnotic waltz at the heart of the score, to the almost campy use of
a theremin for spook value.
Only about half of the film is scored, but when music is present it
dominates the narrative. The best example of this is the lengthy "Gillian's
Escape" sequence, which contains a broad spectrum of action and emotion.
The scene is so exaggerated as to border on ridiculous, but DePalma takes
exactly the right approach, all but eliminating dialogue and sound-effects,
allowing Williams to carry the moment. This is indicative of the way the
music works in the film in general: present exactly where it needs to be,
and with just the right amount of presence to "steer" the audience.
Obsessive thematic repetition is a key factor in many Herrmann scores,
used to generate tension and serve as a sort of aural assault on the audience.
Williams accomplishes much the same thing with The Fury's main theme,
a simple eight-note melody and its variations. This theme threads its way
through almost every cue in the score, appearing in various guises and
degrees of prominence. For counterpoint, we have love themes for the film's
female leads: a soaring, romantic theme for Gillian, and a more subdued
theme for Hester. In addition, Williams employs the usual handful of motifs,
some of which would crop up in future scores (the four-note motif that
opens "Descent" can be heard in Jaws 2, and the opening of "Gillian's
Vision" makes an appearance in The Phantom Menace).
Varèse Sarabande's Deluxe Edition is two discs long by virtue
of, to use Williams' own words, "a fortuitous accident" that gave him two
extra days with the London Symphony Orchestra prior to recording Superman.
The resulting album version of The Fury is a symphonic tour-de-force.
Williams has made a habit of "reconceptualizing" major set-pieces from
his scores as concert works, or for album presentation, with varying degrees
of success. The Fury is a winner in this regard: the album hits
most of the score's high points, combining some cues, expanding on others,
and featuring an all-new "Epilogue."
The inevitable comparison of film version to album version leaves us
with a situation similar to that of Williams' own Jaws: each has
its merits. The album is perhaps a stronger, more concise presentation
of the material, with a unique epilogue and some demented "source music"
for the carousel. The film version, on the other hand, is complete, with
previously-unreleased cues that add texture and atmosphere. Another significant
advantage of the film soundtrack is the powerful theremin presence -- the
difference most noticeable in "Gillian's Power" (compare with the last
few minutes of the album's "Death On The Carousel," which is actually an
amalgam of several film cues, and which uses something that sounds like
a weak electronic approximation of a theremin).
Varèse's Deluxe Edition of The Fury marks the first time
the original tracks have been made available outside of the film. The album
version differs from its previous CD incarnation in two regards: significantly
remastered sound, and the removal of a "bonus track," (the original version
of "Death on the Carousel") which never really belonged in the album arrangement
to begin with; it has been restored to its intended position on Disc 1.
Thorough liner-notes by Nick Redman help to put the film, score and
album in proper perspective. The Fury came between Close Encounters
and Superman, written amidst the dizzying five-year period that
spanned Star Wars to E.T. And though it remains relatively
obscure, the score holds its own alongside its titanic siblings. The Deluxe
Edition is a Limited Collectors Edition of 3,000 copies, so you'll probably
have to look for it online. You'll be glad you did -- the set will undoubtedly
sell fast, and if you miss your chance, you may wind up...furious.
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