: (James Horner) A
British production from Walt Disney's United Kingdom division, BBC
Films, and Miramax,
is a strongly
praised adaptation of the depressing John Boyle novel that was publicly
termed "unfilmable." Director Mark Herman makes little attempt to hide
the mostly British origins of the cast, allowing their natural accents
to speak towards issues of class and history that often inhabit many of
the country's best arthouse productions. The tale of
is as harrowing as you expect it to be, telling a
Holocaust story from the perspective of a young German boy whose father
is transferred to a job as a warden at a concentration camp during World
War II. He befriends a Jewish boy through the barb wire of the camp, and
it is through their innocent eyes that the majority of the tale unfolds.
The film contains an unrealistic, horrific conclusion, though Herman's
ability to maintain the environment of a child's perception through even
these events is the primary attraction to an otherwise bleak plot.
Veteran composer James Horner, himself Jewish, reportedly lobbied the
director for this assignment, ultimately receiving it and placing much
personal effort into its recording, including serving as his own
orchestrator and performer. The score represented a return by Horner to
a genre and quality of film that could have earned him Academy Award
consideration, and although neither he nor the film received the awards
recognition that was speculated upon release, the quality of his writing
indicates that perhaps some greater promotion by Miramax could have
earned him better odds. Horner's music for
is minimal in volume and scope for most of its running time,
saving its only orchestral performances of full volume for the scenes of
realization at the story's conclusion. The work is saturated with
Horner's easily identifiable styles of writing and orchestration,
utilizing techniques that will be familiar to many film score
collectors. While potentially troublesome, this fact is compensated for
by the composer's ability to once again adapt that sound into a slightly
new form, using the same building blocks to shape a remarkably powerful
score. There is a sense of gravity to the music of
that rarely develops from such minimal volumes. Like
James Newton Howard's
, this score captures the
intricacies of war and its effects on individual perceptions without
overstating the environment.
There is fine craftsmanship to be heard in
The Boy
in the Striped Pajamas. Granted, there is technically nothing new in
the ingredients. Horner's piano performances are the heart of the
recording, rolling through an elaboration of his theme for
Swing
Kids with grace and precision. The major-key sensitivity in these
performances occasionally embodies the exuberance and hope of a child's
view of the world, pushing the rhythmic density towards the territory of
A Beautiful Mind. Through the addition of notes and the
flourishes of different sections of the theme, Horner applies the idea
in extremely effective emotional variants, though slight, from "Boys
Playing Airplanes" through "Remembrance, Remembrance." Subtle emphasis
in performance is key to appreciating these alterations of mood, but the
highest praise for Horner needs to point to his ability to strike a
weighty chord while also using simultaneous devices to raise the spirits
of the music in ways that only a child's imagination could accomplish in
such stark circumstances. A proper and trim attitude at times, including
the reprise of the score's lofty thematic performance from "Boys Playing
Airplanes" in "The Train to a New Home," may be difficult for some
listeners to appreciate, though the piano material ironically becomes
its most enchanting when combined with faithful stylistic accompaniment
from countless other Horner scores. Beginning in "Exploring the Forest"
and extending to "The Boys' Plans/From Night to Day," he again proves
that nature is perhaps his best source of inspiration. From the light
tapping of a triangle, the elegant and rambling piano, and a lonely solo
oboe to synthetic choral effects, these pieces breathe life into
Horner's usual ambient minimalism at its very best. Almost always tonal,
these cues in the middle section of
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas are delicate cousins to the forest material heard in
The
Spitfire Grill and
The New World. The synthetic vocal
effects, whether imitating a distant, breathy ensemble or a boy soprano
(both are heard simultaneously in the disturbingly beautiful "An Odd
Discovery Beyond the Trees"), add a touch of eerie atmosphere to the
equation. The sense of curiosity in this style develops into an even
higher register of optimism in "The Boys' Plans/From Night to Day," a
devastating cue of false hope that rolls in waves of piano and synthetic
vocal performances that attempt to defy fate with stubborn innocence.
Together, the nature-related cues in
The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas are heartbreakingly beautiful without resorting to cheap
melodramatic ploys that betray the necessary perspective of the
work.
The overarching maturation of Horner's music for
The
Boy in the Striped Pajamas counters expectations by the time it
turns sinister and then truly somber in its closing moments. Despite the
hints of darkness in "Black Smoke," the score is a relatively relaxing
and undemanding listening experience, potentially leaving some hoping
for a strong dramatic punch in the concluding cues. Horner saves that
energy for "Strange New Clothes/An Impending Storm," a lengthy crescendo
of dissonant string layers that is appropriately painful compared to
what has come before. Along with the solitary depression that grips the
quiet piano solos in most of "Remembrance, Remembrance," the end of
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, while likely making the greatest
impact in the film during these cues, is surprisingly not the highlight
of the overall work. Even "The Funeral," with its bare bones expression
of solace, uses resonating harmony from
The New World that is
easy on the ears in a lightly dramatic fashion. In this cue, Horner also
employs the dreaded four-note "motif of evil" that is arguably the most
recognizable single idea of his career. Interestingly, however, Horner
translates its onto solo trumpet and slightly slows its tempo, as if to
signify that the evil has already struck and what we now hear is a faint
echo of the motif's explosive personality from his other works. As such,
the use of the motif is actually quite effective in this context.
Another connection between this recording and Horner's prior albums is
the use of sound effects in a natural setting. For
The Boy in the
Striped Pajamas, the sound of trickling water is heard at the very
outset of the album, slowly yielding to the piano's first phrase of the
title theme. In sum, this score isn't the type of Horner music that will
attract much attention to itself. The choice by Hollywood Records to
release the album as a digital download-only product may have
contributed to this lack of recognition; it took until 2018 before
Intrada Records provided an identical presentation on a limited CD
pressing. Those who appreciate the ambience of the morbidly haunting
"Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" cue from Horner's
The Life
Before Her Eyes earlier in the same year will appreciate the style
and personality of
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. As Horner's
forthcoming collaboration with James Cameron for 2009's
Avatar
reached its popular fever, it was easy to overlook the gracefully
restrained, classical touch of this unusual Holocaust score. Horner's
work triumphs in capturing the event from both the innocence and
curiosity of a child's perspective, transcending to a level of
engagement that competed with the year's best film music despite the
score's short duration and slight stature.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 103 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 192,627 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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