CD Reviews: 8 Femmes and Here Come the Classics

8 Femmes ***

KRISHNA LEVY

WEA Music France R2 73835

21 tracks - 40:50

If you really dug the retro kitsch value of Far From Heaven then you're going to love 8 Femmes (8 Women). Francois Ozon is practically the French mirror image of Heaven director Todd Haynes. Ozon started with hardcore indie flicks with a gay edge (Criminal Lovers), amassing a small cult following before making a critical hit (Ozon created the melancholy Under the Sand while Haynes helmed Safe). Now both men have directed successful films by mining a genre from the '50s. Haynes' inspiration was "the weepies." Ozon's is the murder mystery melodrama. But if there's a key difference here it's this: While Haynes tried hard to avoid camp, Ozon revels in it with abandon.

8 Femmes takes place in a remote house where there are indeed eight women, one of whom may have killed the only man in the house. Of course, like in Gosford Park, the murder plot is almost superfluous. The movie is really about having eight of the most recognizable actresses in French cinema let loose to see who's left standing. And did I mention that this film is a musical?

I'm of two minds regarding the songs. They were not written for the film, and except for one number, they're usually sung by one of the women as a kind of monologue. Their juxtapositions are as awkward as they were in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. And yet it is such a flamboyant stylistic device and so "out there" that it works. Of course, most of these actresses are not singers -- most come off like female Charles Aznavours. Grand dame Catherine Deneuve comes off the best with her "Toi Jamais," while the over-the-top Isabelle Huppert's "Message Personnel" is hysterically indulgent in its sadness.

Krishna Levy's approach to the score is similar to Elmer Bernstein's in Far From Heaven. It's lush, romantic, melodramatic and grand. "Theme from 8 Femmes (Generique De Fin)" is an especially fetching cue, reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's theme for Cousins.

The CD was originally only available as an import, but Rhino Records has released a domestic version for those of us lucky enough to catch the film during its initial theatrical run.  -- Cary Wong
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here Come the Classics, Volume Six: Classic Film Themes ***

JOHN WILLIAMS, HOWARD SHORE, VARIOUS

RPO 006 CD

Total Time - 67:56

Here Come the Classics, Volume Six: Classic Film Themes is a strange release that is at times pitch perfect, but maddeningly off-kilter -- and even bizarrely chosen. Let's start with the last and work our way back.

Classic Film Themes is the most recent in a series of releases by the excellent Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (an organization, by the way, that's no stranger to film scores). This series attempts to present, for lack of a better word, "light" classical compositions to a mass audience. These works are essentially background music for a party, but the RPO is clearly trying to draw more people into art music through these releases. In any event, hearing the title "classic film themes," one would expect to find some kind of concentration on film music's golden age. One would be wrong. With the exception of three cues, all the selections were composed in the last 15 years. As I mention the titles through the rest of this review, see if you think any are bizarre choices.

Several of the selections are instrumental versions of popular film songs -- it's these I find maddeningly off-kilter. From "I Will Always Love You," to "Everything I Do I Do It For You," these songs are not presented as orchestrated versions, but rather just as they were released by the recording artists, complete with horribly cheesy trap set in the back ground. Only "Windmills of Your Mind" stands up to this treatment.

In many modern film scores (and certainly all the songs represented) electronically produced instruments dominate the texture. These sounds work well often enough, but when those same sounds are reproduced by the orchestra, as in the themes from Gladiator and Titanic, they strike a false chord.

Fortunately, I saved the best for last. At least half of this album contains pitch perfect renditions of popular underscore excerpts. The RPO has a wonderful full-bodied string sound and the brass section has a warm tone (rather than the strident one found in many score recordings). When they play themes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (The book and movie have a different title in England), The Lord of the Rings, Out of Africa, Batman, Shakespeare in Loveand Schindler's List, the sound is sometimes even better than that of the original recordings. Add to this the witty and informative liner notes for each selection and you have a disc that is halfway to heaven -- but also halfway to hell. Available online at www.rpo.co.uk.  -- Andrew Granade
 

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