CD Review: Amelia – Original Soundtrack
Composer: Gabriel Yared
Label: Varese Sarabande
Suggested Retail Price: $13.99
Grade: A
When a film and score crash and burn in the estimation of box office figures and critical reviews, it doesn’t mean the aircraft was faulty as much as it was misunderstood- or just plain antique in the case of AMELIA. For this voyage set out with the simple goal of using glorious production values to inspire audiences with the story of this legendary aviatrix- a mission accomplished with old-fashioned biopic virtues that wouldn’t be out of place in 1957’s THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS. So why is Franz Waxman’s score for Charles Lindbergh acclaimed like it just crossed the Atlantic, while Gabriel Yared’s music for Amelia Earhart has been relentlessly knocked for being just as big and bold? It probably has a lot more to do with how audiences, let alone critics, who have become immune to movies whose soundtracks actually said something. But for those who appreciate the kind of unabashedly melodic scores they used to write, Yared’s AMELIA arrives as a vibrant musical time capsule that swoops them back to a simpler time when heroines had moxie, and music had balls.
It’s fairly easy to see why director Mira Nair thought of Yared to score AMELIA. After all, few composers beyond John Barry have had as much experience soaring over scenic landscapes, though in Yared’s case it was the deserts of his Oscar-winning score to THE ENGLISH PATIENT, as opposed to the veldts that Barry explored for his Academy Award in OUT OF AFRICA. Now Yared gets to fly over that animal-filled terrain with findings that might have a similar orchestral voice, but go to even more exotic places.
Yared first brings in the memorable theme he’ll frequently revisit with “Introducing Amelia.” And right from its lush, trembling strings and noble brass, the music signals that we’re in the presence of someone who will achieve greatness- a soothing, gorgeously melodic tone that lifts the spirits in the same way that Earhart felt her inner calling to fly. But where Barry loved taking brass to its full resonance, Yared never quite goes so deep, as if to do so is a territory better reserved for a masculine lead. That being said, AMELIA is more “fun” as a score than OUT OF AFRICA, as it’s more about the love of a woman for the air than her bond with a great white hunter (or newspaperman in this case). Even more interesting is how Yared brings in flutes and African percussion to play the animals below her wings, going more native as it were in his approach.
But while it seems that Yared is in his natural ENGLISH element here, AMELIA is a far more straightforward movie then PATIENT, whose existential nature let Yared use a mix of ethereal electronics and orchestra that’s typified such memorable scores as CITY OF ANGELS, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY and even the horrific 1408. Here Yared’s musical flight plan is mostly symphonic as a way to get across Nair’s straightforward storytelling. But thankfully AMELIA varies from the mythic boldness of such cues as “The Ecstasy of Flying” and “The Call of the Wild” to the lyrical string and piano theme of “Amelia,” with Yared’s more personal, floating electronic touch coming across in “Amelia and George.” Yet all of Yared’s emotional moods have a distinctly feminine touch that makes its heroine stand out from the man’s world, one that views her dreams as impossible destinations for a woman to reach. Yet perhaps none is lighter on its feet than when the scratchy vintage start of “Flying With Eleanor Roosevelt” becomes a gloriously carefree gambol over nighttime LA with the greatest First Lady of them all.
While there might always be a reassuring sense of melody to AMELIA, Yared certainly doesn’t play it safe, especially in his unusual choice of using flutes in such pieces as “Vagabond of the Air” and “Radio Love Call. The winds are very much part of Yared’s French approach, while simultaneously sounding Scottish. And it’s a sound that at first takes you aback to play a woman who’s as American as her Kansas birthplace, But its Yared’s “foreign” flutes that ultimately make Amelia a citizen of the world she flies over. And though she might not be over Africa when almost meeting disaster on her “Flight To Wales,” Yared mixes his flute theme with subtly tribal percussion, all as voices and swirling orchestrations convey the true death-defying nature of the golden age of flight, let alone Amelia’s quest to fly across the world.
It’s a voyage that’s especially terrifying as the exotic percussion of “Hawaii Crash” speeds into an explosively dark orchestra, her flute theme signaling Earhart’s near-death escape. But she isn’t so lucky in the in the eleven-minute cue “Final Flight,” which serves as Yared’s suspenseful centerpiece. Beginning with a bold, Barry-esque statement to signal Amelia’s oncoming destiny, Yared brings in a dark piano figure that will ominously build with the orchestra, both playing the growing sense of desperation as Amelia and her co-pilot search for safe landing before their fuel runs out, a navy ship trying to reach her all the while. Yet Yared maintains a poetic sense of doom through this masterful, extended piece, at once capturing the terror of inevitable death with the poetic resignation of flying into the history books- the music finally resolved with a tender, and heartbreaking piano statement of Amelia’s theme.
Simply put, you will emotionally buy this score (and film), or you won’t. But for someone like me who was drawn to film scores because of their unabashed way of playing to picture, hearing the unashamedly lyrical sound of AMELIA is a thrill when so many other composers have been forced to chicken out of their bigger musical instincts, grounded by studios who don’t dare to dream with the same musical passion that Jimmy Stewart once flew to. But while such old-school masters of this craft like John Barry may have had their wings clipped, at least musicians such as Gabriel Yared are around to remind us of that symphonically passionate sound from Hollywood’s golden age. Like Earhart, he’s a daredevil who finds big scoring as a virtue instead of a hindrance. And hopefully, his music will never be brought down to Earth.
Soar with Yared and AMELIA here
