Grand Prix & Ryan's Daughter

Two contrasting scores for two very different films, both by the inimitable Maurice Jarre. The first is Grand Prix which is apparently one of the best films about motor racing ever made. In fact it's probably one of the only films about the sport ever made, the only other similar one I can recall is the considerably more recent Days of Thunder (and look how bad that turned out). Director John Frankenheimer was apparently a great fan of the sport and was desperate to make it come across as exciting as it could without Murray Walker spitting blood to make it seem exciting. The result being that the motor racing scenes are superb, but the rest is soap opera level back room drama.

Maurice Jarre's score is a curious mixture that never holds together, in much the same way I suspect the circuit and behind the scenes action never quite gelled in the film. His Overture starts off with a psychotic percussive outburst and has brass chords that mimic a car zooming past - a neat idea, although it does sound more like a Spitfire fly past. The main theme is typical Jarre, but with a jazzy edge to it that makes the gives it an unbalanced heroic, yet bouncy feel. The other themes aren't really terribly appealing; a couple of dated sounding bossa novas for the Scott's theme and the love theme. The few maniacal racing cues fit awkwardly beside what sound almost like source music and so the whole thing lurches from one thing to another before coming to a crashing halt at the end. Quite fitting really.

Ryan's Daughter was number three out of four collaborations with David Lean and seemingly the least successful as the film seems to have been badly received and the score is the only Lean/Jarre collaboration that didn't result in an Oscar for the composer. In fairness, it's not hard to see why. Lawrence of Arabia just bellowed sprawling epic and nobody has come close to matching Jarre's unforgettable desert music, but Ryan's Daughter is a bit of a muddle of jauntiness and drama. One moment it can go from sprightly and then launch into a gushing version of the main theme, as it does in You Don't Want Me Then. Several of the cues are (I think) unintentionally comedic such as the rather silly opening to Michael's Theme. These instrumental touches might have worked had this been a comedy and not a David Lean romantic epic.

Although the main themes for both films are regular entries on Jarre compilations, the scores themselves aren't really top ranking. Perhaps Jarre's own superb precedent of superbly written scores means I'm judging harshly, but neither really come together to be more than the sum of their parts. Admittedly, it's extremely good to be able to have both on one album which means for any Jarre fan it's an almost essential purchase. The sound quality is a tiny bit variable - nothing major, just the odd thing here and there. Otherwise, the production is first rate with a short note about each score and film.