BALTO

WOLF TOTEM: JAMES AND THE WOLF

Hardly for the first time in a career comprised of more than 130 film scores did James Horner cross paths with the wolf, a fascinating mammal and a source of countless stories, rumors and legends. Their first meeting dates back to 1981, when Wolfen, a horror thriller by Michael Wadleigh (Woodstock) saw Indians-turned-wolves create havoc in the streets of New York. Distressing brass embodied the wolf’s dark side and its sharp fangs, continually threatening tender and innocent flesh. This musical darkness was reprised a few years later with Aliens (1986), where it evoked the stifling atmosphere created by James Cameron, illustrating the[...]

ENEMY AT THE GATES: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE EAST

"I am a stone … I do not move…" Opening shot: two characters hunched down in the snow... immobile... waiting... silent. The strands of music come and go, thin and crystal-clear. (James Horner actually has built-in pauses for this scene, truly a rarity in film scoring.) The music is in a state of suspension, mirroring the calm before the storm that is about to descend upon Stalingrad. The music breathes as the characters do, with eerie strings drifting through the scales, reflecting the glances that the hunters and prey interchange. Acting instinctively, the old hunter is torn between hunger and fear,[...]

BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND SENSITIVITY: TWO DISSECTED UNTRUTHS

Everybody has a right to judge James Horner's music and not to like it. Generally this disenchantment is reflected in terribly pejorative verbs such as dig up, borrow, pump, copy, plagiarize ... The kind of actions the composer is accused of, putting forward the idea of ‌‌a lazy craftsman's poor and sloppy work: the pickaxe as an unsubtle tool, borrowing as a sign of weakness, pumping for large quantities, copying for the lack of creativity, plagiarism as a lack of respect towards the other composers. It is difficult to go against this phenomenon because the allegations are undeniable: Indeed, it is indisputable[...]