CD Reviews: The Last Castle and Philip Glass Compilation

The Last Castle **** 1/2

JERRY GOLDSMITH

Decca 440 016 193-2

13 tracks - 42:59

After the tragic terrorist attacks on America, Jerry Goldsmith debuted a stirring anthem entitled "September 11, 2001," a new date that will live in infamy. This moving, subdued piece was both patriotic and elegiac. Utilizing a horn as its centerpiece at the beginning and drums towards the end, it captured the mood of the country in ways only music can express. This anthem was based on a theme Goldsmith had just written for The Last Castle, a film released a month after the attack. Like Goldsmith's music, the movie is also heavy on images of patriotism and standing together as a nation. The film, directed by Ron Lurie, concerns a three-star army General (Robert Redford) who is sentenced to a military prison run by a power-wielding Colonel (James Gandolfini). When the General realizes the oppression of the prisoners, he starts to defy the Colonel in a test of wills and strength (though it doesn't seem to bother the General that a lot of the military prisoners are in prison for a reason).

Without a doubt, this is Goldsmith's most accessible score since the likes of Mulan and Rudy. Die-hard Goldsmith fans may criticize the score for being too even-keeled and lacking in orchestrational variety, but I believe this is one of Goldsmith's most mature and most personal scores. While it has shadings of John Williams' Born on the Fourth of July, Goldsmith's The Last Castle is truly his own creation -- and it's one of his best, precisely because it doesn't go wildly over the top, or on the usual action-music tangents. It's true that on screen the score becomes repetitive, but as an album, the music is focused and powerful. (Although a blues song does interrupt the first part of the score, this is easily remedied with a little programming.)

Horns (mostly of the French variety) and drums (mostly military) predominate the proceedings -- these tend to be pre-requisites of Military-based Americana scores. But unlike fanfares in films such as First Knight, this is of the much less "showy" kind. None of the tracks on the album really stand out, as it plays more like a symphony, with each cue building on top of the prior one, before ending with the theme reprise, "September 11, 2001." The score truly has a built-in concert hall feel to it, so I wouldn't be surprised if Goldsmith incorporates more of it into his repertoire soon.

Is it fair for a film score to carry the weight of the tragedy that has nothing to do with the movie? No. But Goldsmith's theme, like all good music, can transcend its original intent and become an inspiration for a country when it was at its most confused and when morality was at its lowest.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Philip on Film **** 1/2

PHILIP GLASS

Nonesuch - 79660-2

Disc One (Koyaanisqatsi): 8 tracks - 73:19
Disc Two (Powaqqatsi): 18 tracks - 73:38
Disc Three (Dracula): 26 tracks - 66:49
Disc Four (La Belle et la Bite): 20 tracks - 70:53
Disc Five (Various scores):17 tracks - 76:18
 

In playwright David Ives' one-act play, Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread, a group of people in a bakery intones Philip Glass' signature repetitive style as they're ordering bread. For those in the audience who didn't know Mr. Glass' music, the short play was likely a curiosity at best. But, for people like me, who know and enjoy Glass' style, the play was hysterically funny because it hit so close to the mark.

As a classical composer, Philip Glass is probably the most wildly recognized figure for the minimalist avant-garde, collaborating with such auteur opera directors like Peter Sellers and Robert Wilson. As they're very much about the marriage of abstract visuals with repetitive musical motifs, Glass' opera and theater pieces of the '70s and '80s will no doubt be debated on its merit and artistry. When I went to see a revival of his Einstein on the Beach, watching a florescent light bulb slowly stand upright for about 10 minutes, I said to my friend, he's either very talented, or he's laughing all the way to his "genius" grants.

I've never had that feeling with Philip Glass, the film composer. Like his theater works, Glass has always collaborated with interesting, image-driven, auteur directors. From Godfrey Reggio to Paul Schraeder to Martin Scorsese, Glass has always scored films that somehow mirror his eclectic style. Starting with Koyaanisqatsi and all the way up to his most recent score, Kundun, Glass has held to the integrity of his art, while providing some of the most interesting music written for film.

In honor of this achievement, Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble have embarked on a cross-country tour of "Philip on Film." Commencing at a huge Philip Glass retrospective at the Summer 2001 Lincoln Center Festival, which highlighted the many musical facets of Glass' career, this concert tour has the ensemble playing the music live during screenings of Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Dracula, La Belle et la BÍte, and several short films, commissioned by Glass, that explore the "poetic combination of sound and images." These shorts were directed by Atom Egoyan, Shirin Neshat, Michal Rovner and Peter Greenaway.

In conjunction with these concerts, Nonesuch Records has released a limited edition 5-CD companion box set which includes a majority of the soundtracks of the films being shown, as well as a compilation of some of Glass' other scores. There are only three new or unreleased recordings: the new scores for the Egoyen and Greenway shorts, along with an older Reggio short called Evidence. The discs for Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Dracula are identical to their previous releases, while the La Belle et La Bíte disc contains music culled from the earlier two-disc release.

Koyaanisqatsi is by far the most accomplished and musically pleasing disc of the package. When I was young, I watched Koyaanisqatsi on PBS late one night, and two members of my family got out of bed to tell me to turn down the infuriating music. Without the images, the music to Godfrey Reggio's 1983 film could sound repetitive and grating, but with the images (and this movie is ALL images), the music comes alive, becomes part of the cinematic landscape, and through the speed-up camera of Reggio's vision, invites you to re-evaluate the strange world in which we live. For many people, Koyaanisqasti was an introduction to Glass' music, and there was no middle ground on the opinion of the score. Time has been good to this score -- it now seems quaint and innocent when filtered through most 21st Century ears.

I was never a big fan of Koyaanisqatsi's sequel, Powaqqatsi (1988), which seems to have less thematic consistency than its predecessor. The first cue, "Serra Pelada," sounds like a marching band on speed. The disc does include a cue newer film music fans will recognize ("Anthem - Part 2), which was used to such great effect in The Truman Show.

La Belle et la Bíte will be a hard disc to get through for people who have not seen the movie since it's more of an opera than a film score (though it is usually only performed in front of the original 1946 Jean Cocteau movie). Dracula, on the other hand, is the most accessible of the scores represented here, especially when played with the film. The idea of taking an old war-horse like the 1931 Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi) and adding a contemporary score was a risky one -- theresult could have easily been jarring and distracting, and some people find it to be just that. But, Glass is true to the source material, and the result is fascinating. The performance by Glass specialists, the Kronos Quartet, is beautifully captured on this disc.

The fifth and final disc includes many of Glass' finest achievements for film, including the beautifully executed finale for Kundun, the tense opening of Mishima and the end credits for The Thin Blue Line, which, unfortunately, still includes the sound effects. One might feel a little overwhelmed when faced with a 5-disc boxed set from such an esoteric composer. But given time, Glass' music will slowly make sense to film score fans who are used to action driven as opposed to image-driven scores. Incidentally, according to the label, Nonesuch, this box set will only be available while the "Philip on Film" is on tour, so if get it while you can.
 
 

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