CINEMA CENTURY 2000

VARIOUS

Rating:

Original Review: Not long ago, I idly wondered to myself which record label would be the first to release a "millennium" film music compilation. I should have guessed that it would be Silva Screen, who still lead the world's field in terms compilation albums, and by an ever-widening gulf. On the back of dozens and dozens of releases, including three spectacular tributes to John Barry, concept albums for John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner, and a multitude of "themed" released, this new mammoth effort can quite legitimately be called The Mother of All Film Music Compilations. I mean, let's face it, how often do you pick up a soundtrack with four separate compact discs and music from 55 different movies, amounting to over four hours in length?

It's actually rather difficult to review an album such as this, purely because of the sheer volume of music involved. Several of the selections are classics in their own right, many of which will be familiar to even the most casual film music fan, so I'm not going to spend time dissecting each and every track in the compilation. Suffice to say, I especially enjoyed the performances of Alexander Nevsky, The Sea Hawk, Laura, The Vikings, El Cid, Dr. No, How The West Was Won, The Godfather, Papillon, Star Trek The Motion Picture, Body Heat, The Right Stuff, Jean de Florette, Basic Instinct, Independence Day and Saving Private Ryan. Instead, there were several tracks which caught my eyes and ears, especially as they were new additions into my ever-growing library of film music experiences.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that, until I popped Disc 1 into the player, I had never heard Max Steiner's incredible music for King Kong before. The 1933 classic, with its immense jungle drums and throbbing power, was one of the first truly great film scores to emerge from Hollywood, and my collection is far richer for its inclusion here. Other cues with which I had been previously unfamiliar include Steiner's superb, brassy main title from the 1954 Humphrey Bogart flick The Caine Mutiny; Lyn Murray's spellbinding suite from Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief, Paul Anka's surprisingly forceful march from The Longest Day; Johnny Mandel's Oscar-winning "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper; and the 8-minute suite of Maurice Jarre's lush music from the David Lean epic Ryan's Daughter.

I had often wondered why I could never find a soundtrack for The Deer Hunter, especially considering the subsequent popularity of Stanley Myers' haunting string "Cavatina" main theme, so its inclusion here on Disk 3 is very welcome. Similarly, collectors will enjoy the performance of Michael Kamen's electric guitar theme for Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon although, for some reason even I can't work out, it reminds me enormously of soul singer Randy Crawford's 1986 hit record "Almaz". The bizarre thing is that I haven't heard this song for years, and why I thought of it while listening to Lethal Weapon is totally beyond me, but there you go...

The performances are, for the most part, spot on, with The City of Prague Philharmonic, Nic Raine, Paul Bateman and the gang maintaining the consistency and high quality that one has come to expect from them over the years. My only quibbles are with some of the tracks from Discs 3 and 4 - their renditions of Danny Elfman's Batman and Trevor Jones' The Last of the Mohicans are both far too slow in tempo, coming across as nothing more than lazy facsimiles of the vibrant originals. The Uilleann pipes in James Horner's Braveheart, although obviously quite difficult to play, nevertheless sound rather excruciating and are totally mis-timed, while the entire opening of the suite from The Mask of Zorro is simply horrible, with the innovative clap-and-stomp percussion sounding awfully garbled and out of synch with the rest of the orchestra.

Also, I feel I ought to point out that collectors who already own some of the previous Silva compilation releases will probably already have heard most of these tracks - with the exceptions of a few new recordings, it is obvious that the majority have been culled from the vast Silva archive and put together specifically for this purpose. These small disputes aside, Cinema Century 2000 is still a magnificent achievement, although I personally feel that the compilation will appeal more to the less hard-core end of the collector's market, most of which will not already have these titles in their collection. In a way, this could be seen as being a follow up to the original Cinema Century 3-CD set from 1996, and when taken together, these seven wonderful discs contain just about all the film music the average man in the street will ever need.

Track Listing:

DISC ONE DISC TWO DISC THREE DISC FOUR Running Time: 244 minutes 01 seconds

Silva Screen FILMCXD-318 (1999)

Music conducted by Nic Raine, Paul Bateman, Kenneth Alwyn and Nicholas Dodd. Performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic, The Westminster Philharmonic, The Crouch End Festival Chorus and Mark Ayres. Recorded and mixed by John L. Timperley and Mike Ross-Trevor. Edited by John L. Timperley. Album produced by James Fitzpatrick.

Cinemusic Online
Filmtracks
Movie Wave
Score!: Review by Andreas Lindahl (*****)
Scorelogue


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