Few movie soundtracks can move me to tears on their own. It's hard enough for movies to do that all by themselves, mostly because my tastes run towards material that is highly dramatic and violently charged. But this one does, which is strange to me. My love of history draws me to war films in particular, and when it comes to the American Civil War, which is the subject matter for the TV film "Gettysburg" and the accompanying score by Randy Edelman, you have something that forms the basis for everything that we are as Americans. The Civil War is recognized for being the bloodiest single war Americans have ever fought, and for being the single conflict that spawned nearly every single culture conflict and characteristic we share today in this nation: it was the birth of the modern United States in endless ways. So while we recognize the sheer gravity of its death toll and the horrific tales of war machinery unmatched to then-prevailing war tactics that led to the most graphic of bloodshed, there is and probably always will be a romance about it, just as there is about any war, because coexisting with the horror was nobility, the men sacrificing themselves without question in the fights for country, independence, comrades, and the end to oppression both from the government and from one man to another.
The film "Gettysburg" deals with what is commonly considered to be the turning point battle in the Eastern theater of this worst of American wars, when General George Meade's Union Army of the Potomac triumphed over Robert E. Lee's battle-hardened Army of Northern Virginia in one of history's great "upsets," which claimed 52,000 men, the casualty list of the whole Vietnam War, in just three days, and which cost Lee men that he and the war-torn Confederacy could never hope to replace. It is all at once the most romantic and the most deadly of all the battles that made up this war, and the sentiment is reflected in the film itself and especially in the soundtrack.
Randy Edelman, who has scored such lesser films as "Kindergarten Cop" and "Surviving Christmas," and who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work with "Last of the Mohicans," turned out what is in this reviewer's opinion one of the finest movie soundtracks put to tape. It moves with every ounce of martial power that the film's images convey to the viewer. The film was made with epic, sweeping battle scenes filmed on location in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and utilized over 3,000 "reenactors" in period costume and formation to replicate its battle scenes. The sight of so many men arranged for such a deadly purpose, and the great bodies of humanity clashing with one another in charge after charge, is captured on screen with deft and highly charged sentiment and attention to detail, and the score goes beyond the simple emotional cueing of many other films and becomes a part of the spectacle, moving with the men, pushing them onward to their deaths and dreams with every plaintive, emotional note. If that sounds melodramatic then the score will probably sound that way too, a little, but I would strongly advise viewing this exhaustively accurate film to see for yourself. Unlike the terrible, terrible sequel "Gods and Generals," which unfortunately was released theatrically instead of on TNT like "Gettysburg" was, this film is chock full of excellent actors including Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger and Jeff Daniels and contains well-executed battle scenes and equally heartfelt character developers, although the nature of its attention to accuracy makes it a little overlong at 4 hours.
The soundtrack stands well on its own, however, probably because imagination can suffice just as much in the case of picturing this horrible conflict, and it is here that a little "play-by-play" is neccesary. The soundtrack contains too many tracks that highlight specific scenes in the film for a track-by-track review be of much use to someone not familiar with it, but the standout tracks that correspond to the film's hinging scenes are worth some attention. For expediency I am listing these tracks 1., 2. and so on, but they do not neccesarily reflect the order they appear in either the movie or the soundtrack album. Look at the tracklist for that.
1.) Main Titles
The establishment of all the film's major themes, the opener is highly emotional all on its own. Containing martial snare drums marching to the rhythm of the highly uplifting, heavenly orchestra, with perfectly-placed timpani and cymbal crashes that highlight its scope, the themes break down for quieter passages that are highly reminiscient of the country folk styles of the period. It's important to note that men of many various nationalities did battle in the American armies during the war, with Ireland, England, France, Germany and even Sweden providing soldiers, some who had moved to America to escape the persecution and war ripping through Europe on a nigh-constant basis in that part of the century, and others who wished to pad their own military credentials as a sort of mercenary type of trade. As a result, the combined ethnicities and nationalities enlisting under the various banners of the Confederacy and the Union led to rich cultural overlap in the folk musics one would hear in camp. The styles are reflected distantly in the shifts in tone and timbre of the score and especially the themes expouding in the opening credits, as the most famous photographs of the battle are overlaid with fade-ins from the real-world figures of the battle with their made-up actor counterparts. Crescendoing and falling with highly charged power, guitars, harps, horns, drums, and strings all have important places here, and the ending, with solo drums marching (in the film, we get the historical background in voiceover), leaves us with a highly tense feel as we wait, like the soldiers did, for the drumbeat to end, and for the battles and their themes to begin.
2.) The Battle of Little Round Top
The "turning point within the turning point," Little Round Top was the hill that made up the flank of the Union line on the second day of the battle, when it came under very heavy attack by Confederate forces attempting to turn the Union line. It created a Civil War hero in Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, portrayed in the movie by Jeff Daniels, who with his 300-man 20th Maine regiment defended the flank against the assaults of three different Confederate regiments and who emerged victorious against the exhausted Southerners with an improbable bayonet charge just as their ammunition ran dry, a bluff that sent the Confederates running, saving the battle for the Union. The scene is hands-down the most exciting part of the movie, and the score selection here is assembled mostly from the bayonet charge scene, although spots near the end of the piece come from the tense moments when the Union soldiers are hanging on by a thread. Jumping violins and tense, dissonant voicings add color to this piece. Unfortunately, there is little of the tension in the musical selection here that there is in the scene (although some of it appears later in "Charging up the Hill": a flaw in the soundtrack is the fact that too many selections are given over to the reprises of opening credit themes, at the cost of the most emotional theme in the film (IMO) that comes at the height of Pickett's Charge.
3.) Fife and Gun
The theme from the scene depicting the arrival of the first infantry elements of the Army of the Potomac as the battle begins on the first day, the galloping guitar and tinwhistles add the same interesting combinations of martial air and folkiness that make the score such an effective piece. Faint hints of synthesizer pads can be heard throughout here, and there's always a pronounced sense of depth and power that fits with the images of the hundreds of men in the film. The emotional, subdued pieces at the end signify the death of the division commander, General Reynolds.
4.) The First Battle
This is one of the highly dramatic pieces in the score, charged with a foreboding sense of doom and fate, with anxious strings repeating a drone while guitars and horns arpeggiate and mesh with a fantastic sense of urgency. Edelman really shines here: by creating easily modifiable themes and new situations that demand new themes, the score takes more of a song-based form, which means that the scenes containing these themes take on a similar continuity that's only enhanced greatly by the form of the music.
5.) Over the Fence
A score highlight, this song captures perfectly the sense of doom and futile heroism that inflected Pickett's Charge as Confederate hopes, staked on the success of that one charge and based on a gamble that the Union center would be weakly defended, were dashed against the rocks of an ineffective artillery barrage and the tenacity of the Union division holding the line. Swaying in and out with saddening strings, always with the steady and powerful punch of the martial drums, you get a real sense of the sheer sinking of the hopes of the Southerners and of the Confederate charge's commander, General Pickett.
6.) Charging up the Hill
Again, heavenly and very well-orchestrated strings, synths, horns and drums amp up the tension of the Union hold on Little Round Top: in the movie this appears as the fight for control of the hill's summit reaches fever pitch. What more can I say? It is yet another perfect musical cue for the action appearing on the screen, and yet which can stand alone as its own piece, which is the true mark of a good film soundtrack. The highlight is the tremeloed violin arpeggios.
7.) Reunion and Finale
Largely a reprise of the earlier themes, there's a lot of notable instrumental embellishment that makes this an epic end to one of the most epic of war films. Uplifting and heavily imbued with the sense of the drama and fate that the film's end brings.
Now, this is my first chance to review a film soundtrack, and I hope you won't be too harsh with me over the references to the film and consequently to history. Randy Edelman's achievement with the score of "Gettysburg" is to capture the drama and the power of one hundred thousand men clashing together as one great unit and body, united only in battle, and to capture the sheer spectacle of men arranged for that one purpose of fighting for an ideal. Both sides undoubtedly were fighting for an idealized nature of what America meant to them, and through the Union's victory the America we know today was forged and an America that might have been was laid to rest. The importance and inherent drama of this situation was captured very well in the film "Gettysburg," and Edelman utilizes his orchestra to help the viewer, and the listener, to feel how heavy all the life lost truly was. Excellently arranged and composed, and just bleeding drama and sadness and a sense of fate, this score is one of the best film soundtracks I've ever heard. It transcends its role of support for the movie and becomes, like the movie, about the battle itself.
4/5
