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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Dances With Wolves (John Barry)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the definitive 2015 2-CD set if you are one of the few in
a generation to have never before owned the classic symphonic score,
John Barry's triumphant crowning achievement while nearing the end of
his career.
Avoid it... if you have grown tired of Barry's trademark stylistic simplicity of the 1980's and 1990's, because despite this score's perfect emotional tone for the film, its instrumentation and themes are extremely derivative of the composer's prior work.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Dances With Wolves: (John Barry) According to the
studios during the production of Dances With Wolves, actor Kevin
Costner did everything wrong for a first-time director. He sought to
make a historical drama with expansive vistas, utilized various
challenging animals in an era prior to special effects, insisted upon
faithful interpretations of a dying language, and, most importantly, ran
over budget. Costner's faith in the story, however, caused him to invest
his own money in the 1990 production, and, against all odds, the movie
not only proved to be an overwhelming critical and popular success
(winning seven Academy Awards and earning over $400 million on a budget
of roughly $20 million), but it revived Westerns in Hollywood and
allowed other reinventions of the genre to gain similar notoriety soon
after. With Costner in the lead role, Dances With Wolves tells of
a disillusioned Union lieutenant during the American Civil War who is
sent to man an abandoned fort in Colorado, only to become enamored with
the local Sioux tribe, learning its language and marrying one of its
members. When the American Army catches up with him, he is defended by
his newly adopted community and seeks permanent seclusion in the West,
completing an unlikely journey that includes much sorrow along its path.
Costner knew from the start of production that he wanted a massive
symphonic score for Dances With Wolves, the film's tribute to the
disappearing Western plains requiring music of significant scope to
accompany its striking scenery. The logical choice at the time was Basil
Poledouris, whose "Lonesome Dove" television music was considered a
standard for the genre at the time. After being contractually bound to
the picture, however, Poledouris withdrew from Dances With Wolves
because its recording schedule was set to overlap that of the ridiculous
action flick Flight of the Intruder. Poledouris felt so strongly
about his friendship to director John Milius that he abandoned Dances
With Wolves only to discover, later, that the Milius film would be
delayed by half a year, opening up the entire time in which Dances
With Wolves was scored. Such was the inglorious end of Poledouris'
best hope of ever capturing an Academy Award.
Into the equation stepped British veteran John Barry, who was in the latter stages of the prime of his career. In the late 1980's, the composer had already begun to experience a lengthy series of illnesses that would largely sideline him as the 1990's progressed. After winning an Academy Award for Out of Africa, he suffered a ruptured esophagus and later dedicated his score for Dances With Wolves to the doctors who saved his life. Artistically, Barry's shameless self-repetition in style was beginning to take a toll on his career, ultimately leading to several rejected scores in the 1990's. With everything from Somewhere in Time to Out of Africa all beginning to sound very alike in structure and instrumentation, Dances With Wolves really represented Barry's last attempt, whether he knew it at the time or not, to parade his broad string and simple melodic style at its best. If ever there was a perfect cinematic match for Barry's trademark symphonic romanticism of the 1980's, Dances With Wolves is that film. It's a blend of sound and sight that requires music critics to turn off the intellectual sides of their brains, because there is much in Barry's very simplistic approach to the movie that will frustrate any student of composition. His insistence upon repeating each phrase of a theme twice, utilizing static, slow tempos and instruments in the same roles in almost every circumstance, and rarely manipulating or layering his melodic ideas with any technical acuity all cause a score like Dances With Wolves to make cynics roll their eyes. Make no mistake about it, this is not a spectacularly complex score, despite the fact that Barry wrote more themes (and the most sheer quantity overall) for this assignment than he usually did for other productions. Each theme is applied like a mini-movement in a symphony, rarely interacting satisfactorily with other ideas or evolving in such a way, singularly or as a whole, to form a convincing narrative arc. The predictable progressions in those themes will remind you of half a dozen prior scores from Barry (including some of his later James Bond work, no less) and a few still set to come later in the 1990's. But if you're stuck lamenting the arguably problematic circumstances just described, then you're missing the point of Dances With Wolves. It remains a classic score by nearly all definitions because of its perfectly tailored emotional appeal in the context of the film and its harmonic resonance on album, precisely the characteristics you hoped for when Barry was able to take this assignment. The instrumentation of the score included 95 orchestral players and a 12-member chorus for slight dissonant shades during moments of anxious nerves. Barry chose to score the film from the lead's (John Dunbar's) point of view, dismissing any idea of recording authentic Sioux music and instead sticking to his comfortably symphonic approach on a massive scale. The composer's only earlier attempt at Native American music, White Buffalo, was by no means a success (in fact, many would consider it a monumental failure in his career) and the truth remains that Barry probably would have been incapable of attempting any other style of score than the one he wrote. Despite the notoriety afforded to the full-blooded orchestral majesty of the score's largest themes, Dances With Wolves, like many Barry scores of the era, is best tempered when toning back the ensemble to simple woodwind melodies over strings and harp, the most intoxicating moments actually reflecting lovely solo flute performances of subthemes in this score, mixed at an echoing distance from the rest of the ensemble to convey the somewhat otherworldliness of the West for Dunbar. The many themes of the Dances With Wolves score are its greatest strength, regardless of their inability to mingle appropriately or evolve significantly. The primary identity, the John Dunbar theme, can reliably be heard in elevators or department store atriums, and anyone who watches American football on television will have immediately recognized it during the prolific United Way commercials in which it was featured for over ten years. It was even a favorite tune of Pope John Paul II. The score opens with an eerie trumpet performance of this theme, immediately associating with the character's disaffected relationship to the war. It later recurs with Costner's journal reflections and as the highlight of the end credits. A lonely arrangement for harmonica rather than violins is a nod to the Western genre's usual tones, and the album version of "The Buffalo Hunt" gives the prior trumpet performance a bold and victorious tone over lightly tapped snare rhythms. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the John Dunbar theme is the fact that it defies Barry's usual method of operation by not repeating each of its main phrases twice. Instead, it follows a longer lyrical flow but features, curiously, no secondary interlude or bridge sequence. After a decade of endless performances and re-uses of this primary theme from Dances With Wolves, many listeners are likely to seek out the more obscure themes of the score for their enjoyment. The love theme, for instance, similarly extends from previous Barry scores as well, but manages to capture the same grand melodic grace of the rest of the score in more intimate and accessible tones. Heard in "Falling in Love," "The Love Theme," "The Return to Winter Camp," and the end title suite, this material only amounts to under ten minutes in length, but it is a satisfying diversion from the score's more muscular inclinations. Also serving as a tender interlude is Barry's idea for Dunbar's adopted wolf, Two Socks. In "Two Socks/The Wolf Theme" and "Two Socks at Play," he conveys woodwind lyricism that combines, ironically, the alluring solo flute performances and underlying chord progressions of his love themes for A View to a Kill and Moonraker, respectively. A theme for the Sioux takes quite some time to develop, though it is initially easily identifiable by the slapping percussion underneath its stark brass melody. The mix of the drums in this cue was reprised, not surprisingly, by Barry almost verbatim in The Scarlet Letter. The actual theme here takes hold in the late cues, highlighting "Rescue of Dances With Wolves" and without the percussion in "The Loss of the Journal" and "Farewell." This identity adopts the characteristics of Barry's early 1980's adventure themes and will likely please his collectors. One of the most enduringly frustrating aspects of Dances With Wolves is that one of its seldom referenced subthemes is actually its finest idea. The journeying theme itself became prolific in its re-use in the public arena along with the John Dunbar theme, in part because of its remarkable horn counterpoint. Its performances throughout "Journey to Fort Sedgewick" also occupied obvious placements in the movie, increasing its profile as well. It's a more generic Barry theme in terms of its repeating phrases and derivative instrumental applications, but some enthusiasts of the composer consider it to be superior to the John Dunbar theme and the singular highlight of the score. Disappointingly, you never hear it again in the work. Several smaller motifs are meant to represent lesser concepts in Dances With Wolves. Perhaps the buffalo motif in "Journey to the Buffalo Killing Ground" and "The Buffalo Hunt" is the most engaging of these ideas in its bold expressions, resembling the ballsy brass unison of Zulu. The film version of that cue contains an oddly unique middle passage with a theme that is the score's only throwback to the Elmer Bernstein style of old Westerns, orchestrated by Mark McKenzie in a major break for the young composer. Likewise, a spinoff of the Dunbar theme in "Ride to Fort Hays" is a pleasant diversion that utilizes the same instrumentation as the famous theme, but toys with different melodies over a common set of bass progressions. On the other hand, Barry's choral and string dissonance for scenes of suspense is rather weak and unmemorable. The overall tapestry of melodic ideas in Dances With Wolves may not be well woven, but it hits the right emotional notes in each case. As previously published by Jerry McCulley with great accuracy, "Utilizing Wagnerian structure, Barry's main themes recur in magisterial symphonic form. [They have] become an almost subconscious part of modern life, utilized as Muzak and underscore for public events great and small. Barry's skills as an arranger color his themes in subtly shifting orchestral hues, giving even the most repeated melodic passages new emotional weight." Barry summarizes the John Dunbar theme, love theme, and identity for the Sioux in the "End Credits" suite, and true enthusiasts of the score will recall that pop variations of the John Dunbar and journey themes were commonplace on the radio airwaves at the time as well. In the decades since, the Dunbar and buffalo hunt themes in particular have been re-recorded by various performing groups for other labels. Of particular note is a recording by the City of Prague Philharmonic available on the Silva Screen label, the film version of the "Buffalo Hunt" sequence resurrected in stunning surround sound before the original performance was available commercially. Unfortunately, the powerful journeying theme has remained strangely neglected in the majority of the re-recordings through the years. The original recording of Dances With Wolves, conducted by Barry, has endured its own long story on album. The original release that accompanied the film's explosive popularity in 1990 contains all the necessary music for novice listeners and has always remained readily available many years later. It achieved astounding sales statistics on par with later Digital Age favorites like Braveheart and Gladiator. The "Gold" release of Dances With Wolves in 1995 (otherwise known as the "Definitive Collector's Edition,") was one of a string of gold-colored releases made available for highly popular, best-selling scores of the era, a series that eventually included Schindler's List and Apollo 13. This supposedly limited album featured three additional tracks of previously unreleased music, none of which appears directly in the film. The last two are the pop versions of the themes as mentioned before, re-orchestrated by Barry in 1991. The first one, encompassing the John Dunbar and journeying themes, is pleasant to the ears, but the second one is a rather awkward combination of James Bond style and dramatic Dunbar substance. These two tracks are the same ones contained on a promotional CD circulated to radio stations in prior years for mass appeal. The third track previously unreleased on a Dances With Wolves album is the "Fire Dance" selection from the Narada album, "Last Frontier," and it is very misplaced in the middle of Barry's score (its more contemporary rhythmic style is far too disparate to function here). In 2004, as part of a celebration of Barry's 70th birthday, Sony released Dances With Wolves once again, thankfully removing the pop tracks and featuring about twenty minutes of previously unreleased material and alternate versions of famous cues that had also been unavailable in original form. The extended material is sprinkled through the album with a few negligible extra minutes in existing cues. The full film versions of the "Buffalo Hunt" and "John Dunbar Theme," as well as an extension of the love theme in "Falling in Love," were very welcomed additions, however. Unless you were a serious John Barry collector, though, this expanded album may not have offered you much more satisfaction than the previous offerings. Despite the press stating that the 2004 Sony album features the entire score, Barry recorded 100 minutes of music for Dances With Wolves, and only in 2015, when La-La Land Records offered a 2-CD set of the score, did a substantively complete product become available. Once again, nothing spectacularly new is to be heard in the additional cues on this album, but the newly released ones do tend to further explore melodic passages rather than reveal simply ambient muck. The sound quality is top-notch, and the second CD reveals a number of intriguing alternate takes. The 2015 set is the definitive presentation of the score, but no matter which album version you decide to enjoy, Dances With Wolves remains the crowning achievement in Barry's career and stands as an epic, yet tender score of historical and popular influence for an entire generation. *****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1990 Original Album:
Total Time: 53:29
1995 Gold Album: Total Time: 64:12
* previously unreleased 2004 Expanded Album: Total Time: 75:46
* previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material 2015 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 144:06
* composed by Peter Buffett
NOTES & QUOTES:
The original pressing's insert contains minimal information about
the film and score. The gold CD packaging features a slip cover and different
artwork on the insert; the CD itself is 24-Karat Gold and the sound is a
"20-Bit Digital Transfer using Sony's new 'Super Bit Mapping' (SBM)
Process." The 2004 album contains expanded notes about the score, but a
return to traditional packaging. The insert of the 2015 product contains
extensive information about the score and film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Dances With Wolves are Copyright © 1990, 1995, 2004, 2015, Sony/Epic/Legacy, Sony/Epic/Legacy, Epic/Sony Music, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/2/97 and last updated 3/11/16. |
