|
Over the years, there have been many recurring director/composer collaborations of note. Who can watch a Alfred Hitchcock movie without thinking of the obsessively recurring string and harp patterns of Bernard Herrmann? Who can imagine the world of Steven Spielberg sans John Williams' soaring musical accompaniment? And Tim Burton's oddball cinematic universe would be a much less lively place without Danny Efman's invaluable assistance.
Such is the case with British director David Lean and French composer Maurice Jarre. The strange thing about their cinematic partnership, however, is how few films it produced. Over a period of 22 years, Lean and Jarre made only four movies together; 1962's Lawrence Of Arabia (Jarre's first American feature), 1965's Dr. Zhivago, 1970's Ryan's Daughter, and Lean's cinematic swan song, 1984's A Passage To India. All four of these movies featured impossibly vast, Cinemascope vistas and emotionally repressed characters that ached for music to fill those panoramic sights with exotic and melodic sounds, and Jarre's distinctly European sense of drama fit the bill with spectacular results, earning him a trio of Academy Awards for his work (of the Lean films, only Ryan's Daughter failed to bring Jarre a trophy, losing to Francis Lai's pop-flavored score to Love Story).
More than just fellow filmmakers, Jarre and Lean became fast friends, and when Lean passed away on April 16th, 1991 at the age of 83, Jarre was understandably grief-stricken, and the tribute concert he conducted several months later became a de facto celebration not only of his collaboration with Lean, but also of their long-term friendship.
The concert, recorded live at the Barbican Centre in London, was recorded for posterity by director L.A. Johnson and Milan Records producer Emmanuel Chambordon. Blessed by a spectacularly lush recording by soundtrack veteran Shawn Murphy, this concert not only stands as a fitting tribute to a master filmmaker and the composer who was so vividly inspired by the images in his  films, but also as a great, stand-alone concert for anyone craving some lavish orchestral blood and thunder.
The concert opens with "Remembrance", a haunting, four-minute medley composed by Jarre specifically for the concert, which weaves major themes from the four Lean films into a tapestry threaded through with new material. It's a great curtain-raiser for the proceedings.
We then are treated to a generous, ten-minute suite from Ryan's Daughter, with lush melodicism and spectacular solo performances.
Next, a ten-minute selection from A Passage To India, which deliberately eschews the cliches of "Indian" music (not a sitar in sight) in lieu of Jarre's typically peerless melodic gifts punctuated by the glassy, electronic textures of the Ondes Martinot, a theremin-like keyboard instrument Jarre often employed in his film work.
Another ten minutes are devoted to Dr. Zhivago, with perhaps Jarre's most famous movie composition, "Lara's Theme", given many inspired variations.
"Offering" then follows, a three-minute piece Jarre composed as a gift to Lean on the occasion of his marriage to his second wife.
 A six-minute cue from A Passage To India ("Garden Of Statues") offers something unique in a concert setting; an entire scene from the movie is projected for the audience behind the orchestra, while Jarre meticulously times his conducting specifically to the on-screen action. This is a rare, fascinating look at the precise control required to match music to film.
Finally, a whopping thirteen minutes are devoted to Jarre's most famous score, Lawrence Of Arabia, which still stands as some of the finest "epic" scoring in movie history (the recurring "desert" theme was once used to humorous effect on an episode of The Simpsons, with Jarre's music accompanying Homer and Apu on a journey across India to visit the world's first convenience store). This brings the concert to a fittingly rousing conclusion.
As the applause swells into a standing ovation, an exhausted, visibly moved Jarre takes the microphone and delivers the only dialogue heard during the entirety of the 55-minute program, a touchingly simple dedication;
"Sank you. I sink 'e would 'ave been 'appy."
With this, he gracefully exits the stage, and the audience's deafening applause plays out over the end credits and a shot of the now-deserted stage, bringing this wonderful concert of exquisite film music to a close.
 Presentation
Presented in non-anamorphic 1:33.1, this looks about as good as one could possibly expect from a 15-year-old concert shot on videotape...in other words, mediocre. Fuzzy and indistinct, with the generous film clips interspersed throughout looking washed-out and grainy. But who watches a concert for the visual aspect? The Dolby 2.0 stereo presents Jarre's music with excellent fidelity, giving a proper, room-filling ambiance to the largest sections while still allowing the most delicate solos to come through with pristine clarity.
Extras
The concert proper receives a full-length audio commentary with Jarre (in subtitled French), who dishes on his relationship with Lean and tells a funny story about the recording sessions for Dr. Zhivago, where one take suddenly had all of the musicians begin trailing off. When Jarre looked at the recording booth to see what everyone was staring at, he saw the film's producer standing there with Sophia Loren! He also talks about his nervousness in conducting such a tricky concert live, with no room for error  (you can clearly see this in his eyes during some of the close-up footage). More with Jarre can be found in a recently-conducted 35-minute interview with Christian Lauliac (again, in subtitled French), with Jarre talking about his pre-Hollywood career, how the producer of Lawrence Of Arabia refused to pay for a plane ticket and accommodations so Jarre could attend the Academy Awards (he eventually received his statue when visiting said producer's office months later, spying it on one of his shelves, and exclaiming "Hey, that's mine!"), and how Lean was still making preparations for his next movie, Nostromo, when he died (even asking Jarre to start coming up with ideas for the score even though he had yet to shoot a frame of film). This is a lively, entertaining chat that Jarre fans will love. There are also the obligatory pages of biographies, filmographies and discographies for Jarre and Lean, and , last but not least, a bonus CD featuring the entire concert (sans the "Garden Of Statues" cue from A Passage To India), for those who want to rip the program to their iPods
The Final Word
Maurice Jarre is representative of a literally dying breed of musician. The past four years have been dark ones for fans of film music, with many of the giants of the field either passing away (Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Basil Poledouris) or entering into self-retirement (John Barry, Ennio Morricone) in response to an environment which has little use for their "old-fashioned" sense of melody. Jarre himself hasn't scored a movie since 2001, so the concert preserved on this disc now acts as a tribute to Jarre's career every bit as much as it does for David Lean's. With so many of today's film scores blending into a indiscernible mush of blandness (quick, hum Steve Jablonsky's theme to Transformers), this concert stands as a potent reminder of the true power of music to elevate a good film into a great one.
|
