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I take it that the 2-disc "Essential Jerome Moross" released by Silva contains the re-recorded Main Title, so that those who have both that and the 1988 BIG COUNTRY CD have the equivalent of the newer Western disc.
Are you thinking of "The Cardinal: The Classic Film Music of Jerome Moross?" That 2 CD set does not have any music from Big Country on it.
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Listening to it now. Western music doesn't come much better than this (although the film is surprisingly overlooked over here and usually not included in the Great Western canon). Heck, I haven't even seen the film myself (only brief excerpts).
You owe it to yourself to watch it. It's a bit long but quite good, a movie that aspired to be more than it is. Excellent performances and, of course, that brilliant score.
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This is far from the first or only thread about The Big Country, but a classic score like this one deserves the attention. The La-La Land presentation is fantastic, every moment another gem.
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The greatest Western score ever written for the greatest anti-Western Western ever made, in which the only hero is a tenderfoot Yankee and the Westerners, except for the noble character played by Jean Simmons, are oversexed, venal, and murderous cowards, albeit a very pretty one in the case of Carol Baker. The relative newcomer at the time, Burl Ives, who heretofore was know mainly as a folk musician, even outshines Charles Bickford in the scenery chewing department, sort of a practice run for Ives's impersonation of Tennessee Williams's Big Daddy.
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Posted: |
Sep 28, 2010 - 6:19 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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The greatest Western score ever written for the greatest anti-Western Western ever made, in which the only hero is a tenderfoot Yankee and the Westerners, except for the noble character played by Jean Simmons, are oversexed, venal, and murderous cowards
That doesn't sound like the film I know. Are you referring to the Charles Bickford and Charlton Heston characters as well? As I see it, they simply live by a different code, one that requires a man to prove his courage in a rather crude and obvious way, where the "tenderfoot" would rather do it more subtley, by himself and to himself. Your assessment seems a little uncharitable to me.
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The character played by Heston does come around to an appreciation for the quiet courage of Peck's character, but the Bickford character is an unrelieved monster.
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Plus which, it definitely defied genre expectations that the final shoot-out did NOT involve the protagonist, Gregory Peck. Plus which, it more than made its point about warfare that the two old men go gunning after each other after exhausting the supply of younger men to do their dying for them.
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Posted: |
Sep 30, 2010 - 7:28 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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I agree that it would be difficult to present a pacifist parable in the form of a large-scale Hollywood Western.
I don't see the film as a pacifist parable but as a clash of philosophies, sensibilities and obsessions. Peck is the quiet, dignified hero (as usual, and as usual effective) who doesn't need to constantly prove his courage except perhaps to himself; Heston is the product of those who adopted him, a man who believes courage only exists when it's publicly demonstrated. In a sense, Peck is as much a he-man as Heston, but much more subtle and assured about it. Heston only grows as a man when he comes to realize that being a man is a much deeper and more complex thing than he'd been taught; the tenderfoot easterner teaches him more in a few weeks than his "family" had in all his life (mainly because the head of that family is stuck in a pre-Christian, almost neanderthal code of belief about manhood and the protection of property). But the Peck character is never "pacifist" to my mind, or why go wake Heston in the middle of the night and indulge in a "slugfest", as you call it? Surely no pacifist would ever have done that. Yes, there's a message there that violence in the service of ego and greed is destructive, but also that there's a time and place for it.
I'll have to watch the film again as my memory of it is clouding. Doesn't Peck face Chuck Connors in some sort of gunfight toward the end? No, he doesn't kill Connors when he has the chance, but he was clearly prepared to if he had to. Maybe someone can refresh my memory on this part of the film
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If am not mistaken this is the 1st thread about this over-the-top soundtrack. So I will add my small contribution here. I received yesterday the La-La-Land CD. Presently I haven't put much attention to differencies between this edition and the LP version. But LLL CD seems just perfect.
Anyhow, what a delicious surprise to apprehend that John T. Williams was among the orchestra players during the original recording sessions! Congratulations for completeness shown in the liner notes.
Having admired the writings of the author of the liner notes for several years, I was dismayed that he described The BIG Country as an M-G-M production, when in fact it was a United Artists picture.
Actually, I still get a bit peeved when I see Leo the Lion roaring over the start of all these UA titles on DVDs, etc. Sad how it's all turned out...
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