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Review of Dracula (John Williams)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you love the tragic and melodramatic portions of John
Williams' scores from the early 1980's, for Dracula extends this
morbidly heavy material to explosive proportions.
Avoid it... if you prefer your Williams scores to abound with extensive thematic subtleties, a trait not as evident in this score by construct and in part because of lingering issues with muted sound quality.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Dracula: (John Williams) Countless variations on
Bram Stoker's classic vampire tale have existed through the years, but
none had attempted to take such a sensual, romantic view of it until
John Badham's 1979 version starring Frank Langella as the bare-chested,
womanizing title character and Sir Laurence Olivier as his nemesis, Van
Helsing. A fair amount of sex appeal and graphic violence punctuated
this unusual adaptation, and Dracula was criticized heavily by
loyalists of the concept for sharing more in common with the stage
variation of the story (from which Langella came) than Stoker's original
vision. The film was mocked by such viewers, driving the mainstream away
from what was otherwise a decent production. The director of
Dracula was thrilled to have signed the top blockbuster composer
of the era, John Williams, to stir the dead with a rousing performance
from the London Symphony Orchestra. Williams confessed at the time that
he had never viewed a single vampire-related film in his life, and
Badham considered this fact to be a great virtue given the new direction
he was attempting to take with the lore. What he desired of Williams was
a score that underlined the romantic tilt of the production, pointing to
Gothic grandeur rather than an exposition of dissonant horror bombast.
Williams, given his own tendency to embrace the same general notion,
obliged with a score that is among the most melodramatic of any to
accompany a Dracula film. It's a work built upon harmonic deviancy that
is morbidly conceived and forcefully performed. It sounds far less like
a horror score and instead plays as though it belongs in the fantasy
drama genre. Many of its progressions, counterpoint techniques, rhythmic
devices, and instrumental choices reflect Williams' forthcoming approach
to The Empire Strikes Back, with several sections
indistinguishable from the more famous score's latter half. All of
Williams' fan-favorite techniques are paraded in this score, from the
chopping, turbulent bass string rhythms to pulsating mid-range brass and
resounding crescendos of pounding timpani that culminate in a massive
gong strike.
Subtleties do exist in the music for Dracula, including a variety of softly whiny string interludes, but Williams usually states his intentions with a heavy hand throughout the work. This doesn't mean that any part of it is religiously influenced; aside from occasional pipe organ accents, there's nothing in Dracula that foreshadows the ambience of the "Gloria" piece in Monsignor. Along with the absence of liturgical chants, the score also mostly ignores the controversial period and location of the narrative. One aspect in which Dracula differs from most Williams scores of the era is in its surprising lack of thematic diversity. The composer tackles this film with only one major theme, a relative rarity given how complicated he typically made his intermingling of motifs for films of much lesser inspiration. The eight-note theme for Dracula himself is the foundation for the entire score, its opening and closing pairs of two-note progressions bracketing a classically-informed twist that gives the score its only true hint of the period. The individual two-note portions are given their own duties in the score, though most of the statements of Dracula's entry and influence are afforded variations on the full theme. The idea reaches monumental proportions by the concluding two cues, matching the Ark's theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark in intensity. Williams chose not to provide a secondary love theme for Dracula, instead reducing the primary idea down to solo horn and other more intimate performance inflection. When the romance on screen hits its heights, Williams treats these occasions with the same broad ensemble strokes as the scenes of killing and battle. Each cue in the score, even if containing quiet string plucking for a short time, eventually yields an overblown level of tonal activity certain to please any collector of the composer's early 1980's music. The shift of the main theme from its constant minor mode into a brief explosion of major key victory late in "Night Journeys" represents one of the more notable scorings of an orgasm ever heard on screen, the cue among the work's most appealing in its passion and tonally vital to the titular character's dilemma. The alternate "The Love Scene" rendition of this cue is even more brazenly triumphant. Other individual highlights abound, from the scherzo in "To Scarborough" that climaxes with a decisive gong hit (a la Lord Vader's entrance) to the eerie female vocals that prevail in the swirling strings of "Night Journeys." With the help of an organ, "Dracula's Death" is as tragically rendered as Han Solo's freezing the following year (but does suffer from a bad splice with 20 seconds to spare on the original album). The score's parade of explosive ensemble expressions of high drama is interrupted by "The Bat Attack" (later known as simply "The Attack"), the album's only grating detriment. Some listeners will find interest in Williams' sole secondary theme for the film, one for Van Helsing introduced in "Grave Trampling and the Asylum" but really shining at 2:10 into "Van Helsing's Solution" (a hidden highlight of the score for true Williams collectors) and continuing into "Into the Crypt." This idea shares significant suspense characteristics with the following E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. There is, unfortunately, a major downside to Dracula, and that is the extremely muffled sound quality that has plagued it from the start. Both in film and on album, Williams' score is badly constrained by a soundscape that significantly marginalizes individual elements in the ensemble and leaves only the many overtly loquacious moments for your enjoyment. Making matters worse, Dracula had been difficult to find on CD for decades, its sole early release matching the equally muffled LP presentation in 1990. In 2018, Varèse Sarabande finally located superior sources for the recording and remastered them for an attractive two-CD set that improves upon the audio quality situation but not to the degree hoped. The additional material provided on the 2018 set is interesting but not particularly vital, as much of Dracula is redundant given Williams' extensive development of the main theme. By the end of especially the longer presentation, listeners will likely remember nothing about the score outside of its many extroverted recapitulations of that main theme. This is a score that remains in extreme need of a significant re-recording with an equally capable ensemble. There is much to like about Dracula as a composition, and the performance is unquestionably spirited, but appreciating the repetitious work in the film or on album will present challenges.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1990 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 36:33
2018 Varèse Album: Total Time: 108:52
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1990 album includes multiple notes about the score and film,
though the reproduction of the LP notes by the director are practially illegible on
the CD due to tiny size. The 2018 CD Club album contains two booklets, one in the jewel
case and the other in the exterior cardboard sleeve; both of these booklets contain
notes, and the larger one also includes information about the release.
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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 Dracula are Copyright © 1990, 2018, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/14/09 and last updated 11/29/18. |
