For
The Missouri Breaks specifically, Williams
abandoned the orchestrally vibrant approach of his earlier Westerns and
adapted the style of more modern bluesy works like
Conrack and
The Sugarland Express into a score almost as curious as the
film's two leads. The score is, in short, a hip 1970's bastardization of
the Western genre, infusing pop rhythms and instrumentation into a genre
that very well could have done without it. In the context of the film,
the score is spotted very sparsely, the land itself provided no
authority and the emotional gravity of disturbing scenes, "The Drowning
of Tod" in particular, supplied either silence or strangely shallow
ambience. In many ways, Williams writes the score's non-love theme
moments from the perspective of Brando's wacky character, which isn't
entirely surprising given his performance on several instruments
throughout the film. (He complains at one point about a horse urinating
loudly during one of his harmonica performances.) Some avid Williams
enthusiasts will argue that the reason
The Missouri Breaks sounds
so awkward today is because the score is extremely dated in style,
hopelessly tied to its era. In the 1970's, you could get away with a
combination of wild harmonica and honky-tonk piano with electric bass,
electric harpsichord, and other modern elements. Now, it seems so cheesy
that
The Missouri Breaks is a potentially unlistenable
experience, and it damn-near ruins the film. The eccentric score opens
with a blues and jazz theme that defies Williams' career and features a
very small ensemble of expected Western instruments in conjunction with
a modern band. A handful of supplemental players, mainly tied to
timpani, harp, and piano, occasionally contribute. There is swagger and
attitude hinted in some of the thumping rhythmic passages of the main
theme, but these elements unfortunately diminish when additional layers
are added to the recording. A secondary love theme receives lengthy
treatment in the score, and it is an extremely poppish affair consistent
with Williams' songwriting at the time. Its performances on solo guitar
and harmonica survive the test of time much better than the electric
harpsichord and chimes, both of which are difficult to tolerate.
Even more awkward are the many explosions of honky-tonk
action cues in
The Missouri Breaks, beginning with "Arrival of
the Rustlers" and exploding with full comical force in "The Train
Robbery." There's no doubt that these cues were meant as a
tongue-in-cheek accompaniment to the ridiculously bumbling actions of
Nicholson's gang of thieves, but, for some reason, Williams' take on
this style doesn't feature the same listenability as Jerry Goldsmith's
many similar ventures into the same realm at the time. Even less
interesting are the darker tones for deep bass harmonica and other
menacing sounds that Williams conjures for Brando's character. There are
singular moments of intriguing instrumental use by Williams, especially
involving deep range piano accents during the few suspenseful moments,
but for the most part, the pop rhythms, both subdued and with their
frantic banjo accompaniment, define the score. Overall, you can
completely understand what Williams was trying to accomplish with his
humor in
The Missouri Breaks, but the result accentuates the
film's faults and remains too dysfunctional and dated to withstand the
test of time. As typical for the era, Williams re-recorded a selection
of highlights from this score with a more acoustically pleasing tone for
the original LP album release. This music and three notable cues from
the film version sessions were released in 1999 by Rykodisc, and of the
label's often great re-issues of classic 1960's and 1970's scores in the
late 1990's, this one ranked among the weakest. A 2004 re-issue from
Varèse Sarabande added no new content. In 2013, Kritzerland
offered a 2-CD set of
The Missouri Breaks with the original
re-recording on one CD and the full film version, including several
Brando-inspired source cues as a bonus, on the other. While this album
presentation treats the score about as well as could be achieved, the
film version (much of it unused) is even more abrasive and mean-spirited
than the re-recording, reducing the humor as to make the listening
experience measurably less attractive. The label also pressed only 1,200
copies of the product, causing a quick sellout; this is not the first
time that label has frustrated collectors with an inadequate pressing.
In the end, this disservice will not prove as impactful with
The
Missouri Breaks, as it remains one of Williams most challenging and,
at times, repulsive scores, one inextricable from an era of musical
experimentation best forgotten.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
