(Original post can be found here)
For these next 3 posts, I thought of exploring the intertextuality of books and the movies, soundtracks, and other books they inspired! As we feed on bookstagram to nurture our love for reading, so too do books inspire other artists.
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There are works of art that make even the most jaded person believe in all-consuming love. THE ENGLISH PATIENT, a novel by Michael Ondaatje, is one such jewel, as well as the immortal soundtrack of Gabriel Yared for the movie by the same name.
"I fell burning into the desert," says the mysterious patient, bandaged from head to foot, a living mummy recovering in the ruins of World War II Italy. How he got there, and who he really is, is one of the most spell-bindingly beautiful and heart-breaking stories you'll ever encounter.
So many have written about the movie, so I thought I'd reflect on the OST and how I love it so much, I daresay I love it even more than the book and film (all of which I absolutely adore!).
Ondaatje wrote that there are ancient cultures where they "celebrated their loved ones by locating and holding them in whatever world made them eternal." Like a painting. Or a song. This soundtrack is the product of love, whose beauty deserves to be immortalized.
The soundtrack starts with what seems at first hearing like an Islamic call to prayer, but sung by a woman.
It is only later that we realize that the clue to the mysterious patient's country of origin was in the music, all along!
I think it's a sign of Yared's genius that he was able to compose unique themes, most of which are under one minute, but feel like they encapsulate entire lifetimes in those shining seconds of emotional tension, and sweet harmonic resolution. This gorgeous music rightly won both the Academy Award and the Grammy for the intermingling of three major themes, which I think were also present in the novel. These three themes were masterfully performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
First, the mysterious Oriental music. How similar are the sounds of what is foreign or different to ears used to Western music. How universal the beauty of the human voice, despite the strangeness of the cadences and modes. Yared made audible the clash of cultures in a time of war.
The title track, The English Patient, begins with soloist Márta Sebestyén singing a folk song, then sweeps into a haunting musical vista
evoking windswept dunes and a conflagration of of heat and hearts. This same theme emerges in Herodotus and other tracks, giving a firm sense of place to
this love story which depended so much on geography for its outcome.
Next we have Yared's tribute to civilization and to J.S. Bach, the supreme architect who blended reason and passion so divinely. Convento Di Sant'anna, to an unsuspecting listener, could almost pass one of the master's two-part inventions, reworked with different instrumentation in Kip's Lights and I'll Always Go Back to That Church. This is the supremacy of art, of human craftsmanship merged with divine inspiration, which war tries its best to destroy but cannot. For this art is the best of what is human, and will stand for as long as there are cathedrals and books and pianos left on earth.
And last, we have possibly the most romantic theme ever scored. It is passion's madness made musical. Try listening to Rupert Bear with an untouched heart and you are bound to fail. It makes one believe in fate, in meeting one's soulmate. It makes one almost forgive the trespass made on broken marriage vows, in the face of such power.
As Far As Florence is when Yared combines all three themes daringly, in a combination I didn't think possible until I heard it. I confess, at that point in the movie, I was too overwhelmed with my memories of the book's words and the incredible acting of the god-like Ralph Fiennes and the delicate beauty of Kristin Scott Thomas, I was bawling like a baby. But on second listening, I am left amazed. See how intimately these disparate threads entwine, Yared says to us, echoing a theme in Ondaatje's book. See how destinies come together, and are torn apart, in the oases of love amid the deserts of hatred.
Gun to my head, if I were asked to choose: soundtrack, book, or movie? I would scream SOUNDTRACK!!! Undoubtedly!!! Because there are other beautiful epic romances I can read, other gorgeous movies to throw all the awards at. But Yared's music is a rare thing, a soundtrack so inspired, he must have been touched by God during its creation. And if you read the book while listening to the music (as I did, to "review" for this entry), even an agnostic would be moved to offer thanks for the intermingling of inspiration that allows such a trifecta of perfection to come into being.
Then again, in this modern age, why only choose one to enjoy, when you can immerse yourself in all three?
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