Friends know that I view one of the major problems with life is that there is NO background music.  Some years ago when faced with a life-of-death situation, ONCE TO EVERY MAN AND NATION kept running through my mind -- i.e. I had that one chance to make the right decisions. (I did).  re movies, can you imagine GONE WITH THE WIND without Max Steiners soaring 'TARA?'  or the first STAR WARS where John William's music captured the spirit of a spectrum of emotions?  

As part of my search for Jamestown 2007 music (NEW WORLD, 2005 is close enough) I found a CD of the music.  The track titles are impressive:

    1 - The New World
    2 - First Landing
    .....
    5 - Journey Upriver
    .....
    7 - Pocohontas and Smith
    .....
   10- Winter Battle
    .....
   12 - A Dark Cloud is Forever Lifted

And of course the composer, James Horner, has a number of successes to his credit, not the least of which is TITANIC.

'1' starts out as you might expect a movie to do...  Close your eyes and it evokes pictures of a ship tossing in the waves, grizzled men on deck, the promise of a New World, etc. etc.

Then, admitedly just a little overstatement, IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME thereafter.   I could not believe it.  I thought surely that 'Pocohontas and Smith' would bring us something different. No.  'Winter Battle' did at least have a lot of 'fortes' and gun shots.  But the finale which before hearing it, I just KNEW would redeem the music, 'A Dark Cloud Lifted Forever' actually died with a whimper.

The final track is not even in the movie -- a song that Horner wrote.

I then went back and read the six-panel notes.  No mention of the movie itself, no mention of the stars, it lists the only names are those associated with the music.  The only complete sentences are in a paragraph of thanks from Horner, the core of which maybe explains the problems with the movie......

"A special thanks to you Pauil Broucek, without whose much needed support, keen and astute ears, and being witness and seeing for himself the incomprehensbile incoming madness and chaos that comes from a perpetually changing film, ........."
(emphasis mine)

Before listening to the music and reading that, I had assumed that after a less-than-stellar release some months ago,  the producers ahd pulled it back and were tweaking the movie and it would hit the world again in 2007, revitalized, going on to garner great honors.  But now, perhaps the background music does reflect what is going on in the movie, and therein lies the problem.

All in all, folks, the whole thing is one more flag going up that its up to you and me (and bless the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation for their leadership) to make Jamestown 2007 a success. 

Randy Cabell
The Trumpeter of Jamestowne 


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