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Roland Joffe's
follow-up to his exceptional debut, The Killing Fields,
was about a piece of history considerably more distant,
as Spanish Jesuit missionaries see their work undone as
a tribe of Paraguayan natives fall within a territorial
dispute between the Slanish and Portuguese. It's not a
great film, but it looks beautiful, is well-acted (Jeremy
Irons is excellent as the passive senior missionary, Robert
de Niro as a reformed mercenery and Ray McAnally as a
papal representitive and smaller roles for Aidan Quinn,
Ronald Pickup and Liam Neeson) and then of course comes
the pièce de résistance, one of the greatest contributions
to cinema of one of cinema's all-time-greatest contributors,
Ennio Morricone. The music soars with beauty and passion,
and is cinema's most extraordinary marriage of image and
music this side of Once Upon a Time in the West.
It's no surprise
that the soundtrack album is one of the best-selling of
all time. Music plays such a key part in the film that
many people who saw it will have gone out and bought the
album; but this is the best type of film music, because
it doesn't just "work in the film" (the faint
praise given to justify any old tripe these days), indeed
it doesn't just enhance the film, it absolutely makes
the film - and then some. But it doesn't just do that
- it's such wonderful music, it pours scorn over anyone's
snobbish comments that film music is best left within
films. The notion that even the best film composers are
somehow lesser than "proper" composers is often
based on the fact that they require the stimulus of the
film in order to create - I would usually counter that
by saying it's the inherent dramatic arc within the best
film music (caused, of course, by following a film) that
makes it what I love - but on rare occasions it's by no
means a stretch to say that it's not the composer taking
his inspiration from the film, it seems entirely as if
it's the film which is taking its inspiration from the
music. Needless to say, this is one of those occasions.
Morricone's
ability to craft melodies which are enough to melt the
hardest heart has never been in doubt, but The Mission
goes beyond what even he usually conjures up - there are
half a dozen melodies in this score which all but a handful
of film composers could never dream of creating even once,
let alone six times in the same score. It's not just the
melodies though - it's what Morricone does with them,
how he arranges them, moves them along, uses them so inventively.
There might not be the astonishing creativity here of
his scores for Sergio Leone - at least not in the sense
of simply dazzling the listener with extraordinary techniques
that no other composer, let alone film composer, had tried
before - but in terms of writing such technically-proficient
music which is so gut-wrenchingly beautiful, surely this
is Morricone at his peak.
Sequencing
albums has not necessarily always been his strongest point,
but The Mission is perfect. It opens with the end credits
- titled "On Earth as it is in Heaven" - and
instantly we're into classic territory, a piece of music
whose absence from any list of the finest film music would
render that list completely irrelevant. It's a religious
film, and Morricone is a religious man, and I'll say one
thing for the Christians - they have inspired some extraordinary
music over the centuries. The mixture here of heavenly
choral chanting, subtle tribal percussion and the film's
exquisite main theme (on oboe) is enough to make anyone
fall to their knees and praise the Lord - I don't know
how many hundreds of times I've listened to these three
minutes and forty-eight seconds of musical bliss, but
one thing I do know is that even after a few thousand
more, it won't be enough. Had it been composed two hundred
years earlier, I'm sure it would be a classical staple.
Conventional
wisdom would suggest that there is considerable danger
in putting such a piece at the start of the album - surely
nothing could ever live up to it. Not in this case - "Falls"
follows and is one of the most blissful, soaring, inspiring
film themes you'll ever hear - pan flutes and then the
full orchestra play the most sensational of melodies,
and while it's not hard to imagine a composer being inspired
by the sensational image of the waterfalls which inspire
the piece, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have
been more inspired than this. Of course, the treats are
far-from-over yet - "Gabriel's Oboe" is the
main theme for Jeremy Irons's character, with Morricone
reportedly taking his inspiration from Irons's random
finger placements as his character sits and plays an oboe
- in this arrangement, with simple harpsichord accompaniment,
it's another piece which just seems heaven-sent.
Perhaps the
score's most striking feature is the choral music - frequently
performed on-screen by huge choirs of natives, including
in the film's greatest moment - and "Ava Maria Guarani"
is a fine creation by Morricone - to write music like
this, whose presentation as an authentic 18th century
piece within the film never rings untrue, and yet which
functions within the sensibilities of a 1986 film score,
is a great achievement. And with all these great themes,
Morricone still finds time to craft a charming, lilting
piece for guitar and flute, "Brothers", which
plays over happy moments between de Niro and Quinn just
before de Niro is prompted to commit the most violent
act which ultimately convinces him to become a reformed
character. If this were the main theme in any other score,
everyone would rave about it - here it's almost buried
by the exceptional music all around it.
Five tracks
gone, all of them of the most beautiful variety imaginable,
yet this is a film with extremely dark undertones so inevitably
darker music arrives at some stage. "Carlotta"
underscores a moment of high violence, with desperation
and anger rippling below the surface. "Vita Nostra"
reprises the choral chant of the opening cue (and is indeed
the first time it is heard in the film) - a similar arrangement,
but this is a piece of music that few would ever tire
of hearing. "Climb" slowly builds, never leaving
anybody in any doubt that beauty is around the corner,
and as it reaches its climax with the reprise of the waterfall
theme, it's almost orgasmic. "Remorse" goes
back to the darker side - the swirling music perfectly
representing the deep psychological trauma on-screen -
it's a technique also employed by Bernard Herrmann in
his day, and has lost none of its power. "Penance"
is based around the score's darkest theme, with Morricone
again fashioning a piece which builds and builds, a simple
idea being repeated by an ever-rising ensemble until the
pay-off, which feels entirely justified.
"The Mission"
reprises the waterfalls theme, this time in a slightly
slower, more contemplative arrangement (sans pan flutes).
When I joined my "real job" back in 1999, and
I phoned up to arrange the interview, the music which
played when I was put on hold was this track. I instantly
knew this was a company I wanted to work for. "River"
is one of the score's finest pieces, as the main choral
theme builds and builds in the most beautiful fashion,
as the papal representative in the colony is taken up
river to the mission (sadly when he gets there he decides
to have it burnt down and the natives all slaughtered
- the Lord moves in mysterious ways, I guess). A reprise
of "Gabriel's Oboe" follows, in a fluid arrangement
with a terrific ending. A short choral piece, "Te
Deum Guarani", is brief but just as fine as its predecessors
in the score.
One of the
darkest cues on the album now follows - "Refusal"
is a rather dissonant, uncomfortable piece, reminding
us that things are not all heavenly. "Asuncion"
combines pan flute, pizzicato strings and ethnic percussion
for a piece representing the hustle-and-bustle of the
Paraguayan capital - all set to the melody of the main
choral theme. It's a nice piece (and Morricone would go
on to write a very similar one a few years later in the
wonderful Nostromo). Darkness returns in "Alone",
with real dissonance this time, though it doesn't feel
out of place. "Guarani" continues the more uncomfortable
feeling, but in a different way - this time the dominant
force is one of mystery, stressing the different culture
which has become mixed up in European politics. "The
Sword" reprises Gabriel's theme again (no oboe this
time though), even throwing in a slightly heroic lilt
to the orchestration; and the album ends with the magnificent
"Miserere", a stunningly beautiful arrangement
of the waterfalls theme for solo choirboy.
Film scores
as good as this one come along at extremely rare intervals,
and must be treasured. I don't see how it would be possible
to write a more beautiful one than this - having been
writing on the internet since I was 18 years old I've
more than used up my allocation of the word "genius",
but in film music terms, if it applies to anyone then
it applies to Ennio Morricone. I'd probably go as far
as saying that it's not only film music that could never
get better than this - quite frankly, music couldn't.
(Of course, there is the exception of Herbie Hancock's
Round Midnight, which beat it to the Oscar.) An essential
part of any film music collection, The Mission represents
the absolute pinnacle of what music can do for a film,
and what a soundtrack album can do to enrich the listener's
life.
Tracks
On Earth as
it is in Heaven (3:48)
Falls (1:53)
Gabriel's Oboe (2:12)
Ava Maria Guarani (2:48)
Brothers (1:30)
Carlotta (1:19)
Vita Nostra (1:52)
Climb (1:35)
Remorse (2:46)
Penance (4:00)
The Mission (2:47)
River (1:57)
Gabriel's Oboe (2:38)
Te Deum Guarani (:46)
Refusal (3:28)
Asuncion (1:25)
Alone (4:18)
Guarani (3:54)
The Sword (1:58)
Miserere (:59)
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