MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Every person who develops a liking for film music has a score, or group of scores, which are special to them on a personal level. They are the ones which first piqued their interest, first caught their attention, maybe inspired them to go out and buy a physical album for the first time, and eventually led them down the path to full-blown film music fandom. I have a few of them myself: Star Wars, of course, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. by John Williams. Dances With Wolves, and the James Bond scores of John Barry. Several James Horner scores, including the significant mid-1990s trio comprising Legends of the Fall, Braveheart, and Apollo 13. However, perhaps my most unexpected ‘keystone score’ is this one: Murder in the First by Christopher Young. The film opened in cinemas in England in December 1995, almost a year after it premiered in the United States, and I went to see it at the old Warner Village Cinema in Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield. I have a vivid memory of coming out of the cinema, meeting up with my mum in the foyer, and barely being able to speak because I had been so emotionally overwhelmed by the film, and especially its music.

The film is a highly dramatized, mostly inaccurate, but nevertheless powerful and entertaining film which looks at the circumstances of the case that ultimately led to the closure of Alcatraz, the high security prison on an island in San Francisco bay. Kevin Bacon gives an astonishing performance as Henri Young, a naïve young man who is sent to Alcatraz in the mid-1930s on federal charges after he steals $5 from a post office to feed his sister. Young becomes a target of Alcatraz’s vicious associate warden, Milton Glenn (Gary Oldman), after he is caught trying to escape, and he spends the next five years in Alcatraz’s squalid solitary confinement cells, only being removed to receive semi-regular beatings. Eventually Young is released back into the general population, but he inevitably suffers a psychotic break, and stabs a fellow inmate in the neck with a spoon in the mess hall, killing him. Now accused of murder in the first degree, Young is assigned an inexperienced public defender, James Stamphill (Christian Slater), for what is expected to be an open-and-shut case leading to the electric chair. Stamphill, however, eventually comes to realize that Young’s torture in the dungeons of Alcatraz is as much to blame for the events, and sets about putting the prison itself on trial.

The film was written by Dan Gordon and was directed by Marc Rocco, the son of Godfather actor Alex Rocco; sadly, Marc died in 2009 aged just 46 in somewhat mysterious circumstances, having never directed another film after this one. As I mentioned the film is mostly inaccurate – there was a Henri Young, but he was a hardened criminal, and his life story is nothing like the character Bacon plays. There was a trial regarding Young’s murder of inmate Rufus McCain, but a lot of the other characters involved – attorney James Stamphill, associate warden Glenn, various other lawyers and judges and prison officials – are composites of real people, or are completely fictional characters invented for dramatic purposes. Nevertheless, despite all this, Murder in the First remains a harrowing, deeply moving exploration of power, abuse, systemic corruption, and neglect in the prison system, and how one man’s brave actions standing up for genuine justice results in a little bit of redemption.

The score for Murder in the First was written by Christopher Young, who by early 1995 was still mostly known for his outstanding horror and thriller scores, especially Hellraiser from 1987, Hellbound: Hellraiser II from 1988, The Fly II from 1989, and Jennifer 8 from 1992. What all these scores had in common was an unexpected elegance and orchestral beauty, playing in juxtaposition to the often grisly images on screen, and it was that aspect that clearly appealed to the filmmakers of Murder in the First. While not a horror movie in any traditional way, what happens to Henri Young in Alcatraz is undeniably horrific; this, when combined with Rocco’s tendency to film Henri’s torture sequences with obvious religious iconography, makes Henri’s suffering akin to that of a martyr, sacrificing himself so that others will not have to endure similar fates. Christopher Young’s response to this was to write what is, essentially, a string-and-choral elegy for Henri, a reverential lament for what he went through, but which in time celebrates the fact that he helped change the system of abuse that existed at Alcatraz at that time.

There are four main themes running through the score, but they aren’t specific enough to one idea or character that you can pinpoint their precise meaning with any real accuracy; instead, Young uses them all liberally throughout the score, often playing them sequentially within the same cue. Two of the four main themes appear in the opening cue, “Murder in the First,” with the first theme appearing right at the beginning of the cue, before switching to the second theme for the first time at the 2:04 mark. Emotionally, the first theme has a more sorrowful sound and tends to appear in scenes dealing with Henri’s mistreatment, while the second theme has a slightly more hopeful sound and tends to appear in scenes dealing with Henri’s redemption. As such, I am going to call the first theme the Sorrow theme, and the second theme the Redemption theme, although these are in no way their official designations.

The third main theme, a quivering cello texture backed by a bank of darker, colder strings, is present in several cues, notably “Track 13,” at the beginning of “Solitary Confinement,” in the final moments of “The Truth Be Known,” and all throughout “All Things Visible,” among others. These tend to occur in scenes where Henri’s life is at its bleakest, and he is literally begging for salvation from someone, anyone. It plays almost like a more harrowing variation on the Sorrow theme, if that is even possible, and when Young sprinkles the strings with almost subliminal harp textures, the effect is outstanding.

The fourth main theme appears for the first time at the beginning of “The Truth Be Known” and is the only theme that doesn’t really revolve around Henri; instead it appears to represent public defender James Stamphill’s desire for justice and reform, and as such it has a noble, purposeful, almost defiant sound, and is focused more on the lower end of the string section. It receives one major notable performance later in “Henry Young,” where it is again imbued with a sense of inherent dignity that is very effective.

One thing that all these themes have in common is that they are spectacularly beautiful; the themes are mostly arranged for banks of strings, with the lead melodies alternating between viola and cello. The layering of the string section is gorgeous – there numerous are echoes of Alfred Newman’s vibrato-rich biblical scores, probably intentionally so – and the harmonies are just spellbinding, a cascade of exquisite warmth that simply envelops the listener. Young often uses his solo instruments to provide a piercing point of focus, a cry in the dark, almost as if the cello represents Henri’s voice.

The rest of the score unfolds with these four themes at its core, and Young uses them all liberally, but to his credit he regularly finds ways to change their emotional intent through subtle changes to the phrasing or, most importantly, through the use of a choir. Young brings out his voices at certain key moments, and when he does the emotional impact is devastating. The performances of the Redemption theme at 1:10 in “The Truth Be Known,” and at 2:00 in “A Constant Spirit,” are staggeringly beautiful. Even today Christopher Young is, in my opinion, not praised enough for his ability to elicit these kinds of powerful emotional responses from his listeners; for me, Murder in the First remains his most outstanding effort in that regard.

Other cues of note include the delicate writing for harp in “She Don’t Play Cards,” which underscores the scene where Stamphill covertly brings a prostitute named Blanche (amusingly played by Bacon’s real life wife Kyra Sedgwick) to visit Henri, and which adds a level of pathos to what could have been an unintentionally humorous scene; Henri has literally never felt the loving touch of a woman before, and instead of him having a sexual response, Blanche’s gentleness makes him cry like a baby. Elsewhere, “Adoramus Dei” is the one track that perhaps most closely resembles Young’s horror/thriller efforts, and features a dark choir intoning a sense of abject misery while slowly chanting in Latin. Rounding out the album are “Movietone News” and “Suitcase Sally,” a pair of authentic pieces of period jazz that capture both the 1930s setting and the media sensationalism surrounding Henry Young’s trial.

The finale of the score begins with a haunting reprise of the Sorrow theme for a searing solo cello in “Back To The Rock” as Henri – who has won his trial for murder, but been convicted of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter – is sent back to Alcatraz, and the clutches of Warden Glenn. This is followed by the stunning “Redemption” piece which sees Young arranging his Redemption theme in conjunction with a chorus singing in both Latin and Greek – most notably the phrase ‘kyrie eleison,’ which translates as ‘lord have mercy’ – as Henri faces Glenn with defiance and dignity before being sent back to the ‘hole’ for one last time, and Stamphill muses that Henri’s suffering is not in vain. The emotional impact of Young’s writing here is astounding, and ends the score on a reflective, thoughtful, contemplative note.

Kevin Bacon won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actor in 1995, and was nominated for a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role the same year, but shockingly he and the film were entirely overlooked by the major awards bodies, likely as a result of the film being shifted from a December 1994 opening slot to one in early January 1995. It’s a shame, because this meant that Young’s score also got lost in the shuffle, and he missed out on one of the few chances in his career to receive some recognition from the Oscars – he was in the mix with The Hurricane in 1999, and with The Shipping News in 2001, but missed out then too.

I realize that this is a wholly personal opinion, but I think that Murder in the First is one of the best scores of Christopher Young’s career, and it would have probably been the best score of its year had 1995 not been one of the greatest years in the history of film music, and had it not been for a couple of other masterpieces that year, namely Braveheart and Cutthroat Island. While things like Hellraiser offer massive celebrations of Gothic horror, and while things like The Monkey King revel in bombastic fantasy action and adventure, Murder in the First is Young’s most deeply emotional, most hauntingly tragic, most poignantly beautiful score, and that’s what draws me to it the most. When you ask him about this score, Young jokes that it was the first score he wrote that he could play for his mother; while that might be true for him, I believe that its appeal is universal, and in terms of my own film music journey, Murder in the First is one of the most important and consequential scores of my lifetime.

Buy the Murder in the First soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Murder In The First (3:17)
• Track 13 (2:19)
• Solitary Confinement (2:43)
• The Truth Be Known (3:10)
• Movietone News (2:01)
• She Don’t Play Cards (3:08)
• Ashes (1:15)
• Adoramus Dei (4:06)
• A Constant Spirit (3:36)
• Suitcase Sally (2:39)
• D Block (3:10)
• Henry Young (1:17)
• All Things Visible (3:04)
• J.Q. 586 (2:56)
• Back To The Rock (1:53)
• Redemption (4:08)

La Bande Son LBS 10 950101 (1995)

Running Time: 44 minutes 42 seconds

Music composed by Christopher Young. Conducted by Chris Boardman. Orchestrations by Christopher Young and Pete Anthony. Recorded and mixed by Robert Fernandez. Edited by David Cates and Dave Reynolds. Album produced by Christopher Young and Olivier Bloch-Lainé.