Customer Reviews

Vanity Fair

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just recently saw the film "Vanity Fair", and I was pleasantly surprised. The film was beautifully photographed, with great performances throughout, and one of the things that stood out the most was the soundtrack. Written by Mychael Danna (who previously worked with "Vanity Fair" director Mira Nair on the film "Monsoon Wedding"), the soundtrack contains both regal orchestral pieces that convey the grandeur of Regency England (pieces such as 'Ride to London'), as well as more 'ethnic' pieces (such as 'El Salaam' and 'Gori Re') that evoke the colourful and vibrant India of the film. However, the true highlight of the soundtrack was the song "She Walks In Beauty", performed by Norwegian soprano Sissel. This song, featured during the film's opening credits, is actually a Lord Byron poem set to music, and it is sparse and eerie, yet strangely beautiful and melancholic at the same time. This song alone is worth the price of the soundtrack. However, this soundtrack only receives only 4 stars because I found some of it quite repetitive. This is a common problem among movie soundtracks, and the soundtrack to "Vanity Fair" has a wonderful main theme that seems to be repeated often in slightly different forms. However, on the whole this soundtrack is a great effort from Mychael Danna, and I certainly recommend it.

I very much enjoyed the soundtrack (much, much more than the movie) for what it was -- some beautifully done music. I don't know enough about composition to relate different styles to different periods (my knowledge goes about as far as "dissonant=modern"), but I -do- know literature, and just want to note that "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published in 1847 -- which would be WELL after Becky Sharpe sung it in the movie, even with all the bizarre time-jumping going on in it. This in no way diminishes the song's beauty, and I love the poem for itself -- but just wanted to add a few grains of salt to the historical accuracy of the soundtrack, which remains, to my ear, quite beautiful.

A further quirk to me was the "Salaam" song, which is sung in Arabic. Still enjoyable (though it made NO SENSE in the movie), but I feel it's worth noting that it's not any dialect of Indian.

After seeing Vanity Fair, I just had to run out and get this soundtrack. I love the grand sweeping style of the orchestra pieces and I was amazed that this was from a modern composer and not pieces pulled from the past. Certain 'songs' I just can't seem to get out of my head. Other reviews have mentioned "She Walks in Beauty" it's very noteworthy. I also love tracks 15 and 16. This is great background music for working or doing chores around the house. It's also perfect to just lay back and listen to the wonderful splendor that is this soundtrack-- if you close your eyes you can see the action.

Why bother about historical accuracy at all? The scene where Becky sings "Now sleeps the crimson petal" is probably the most memorable and moving scene of the whole film. I loved it.

I did like this movie... but I'm not going to pretend that it stuck to the book or was even remotely historically correct. I loved the song "Now sleeps the crimson petal," but I did want to clear up some things about it. I've been looking for the sheet music and it doesn't appear to exist. There are about 7 people who have written songs based on Tennyson's poem, but this version was written by Mychael Danna, does not even closely resemble Roger Quilter or Robert Young. Mychael Danna did nearly the entire soundtrack and he is wonderful. I just wish i could find the sheet music.

Our grand daughter who is over 13 years old, enjoyed this CD very much. The whole family was listening to it.

Vanity Fair..A feast for the eyes...and hardly a true period piece! SO the music is a bit out of sync...It is still fabulous and for the musical snobs..I too happen to a VERY learned "chantuese".. and in my opinion Custer Larues'. Crimson petal is anything But wimpy...It is meant to be whispery..and provocative..there is nothing uncertain at all about it...MUCH control there..!
Becky Sharp is a character that many women adore because she is STRONG and ruthless! Who cares if the movie was not dead on accurate..It was truly enjoyable...ANd I loved it!

The two songs I was impressed by were "She walks in beauty" and "Now sleeps the crimson petal". The performance was great and as a fan of Sissel's the only fault I can find is that the poem was only one stanza. The original poem is a classic and I just wish Sissel had sung the entire poem. The two songs are poignant and leave you almost unsatisfied with the briefness.

The other tracks are average, but nothing that really went and grabbed my attention. If you were impressed by the beginning of the movie, don't bother buying this cd.

As a retired professional classical musician, I have strong attitudes about music. I greatly enjoyed this film version of Vanity Fair, and think Reese Witherspoon was wonderful, as were most of the actors. The music, though, was odd to say the least. For me the "Crimson Petal" song (and the whole movie scene in which it was heard) was a low point, because the song was obviously from the late twentieth century or the early twenty-first, and did not belong in the movie at all. I suspect that the reason the moviemakers got away with this is that with the general decline in interest in classical music, nobody knows any more what kind of music came from which era. Well, I think I do know - though I am ready to stand corrected if someone can explain that there really was a song from the Napoleonic era that had all this chromaticism, etc. in it. I did appreciate the fact that when Becky Sharp/Reese Witherspoon was supposed to be singing, her voice was rather wimpy and uncertain; it would not have been believable to have her singing with fabulous line and breath support. I agree with the other reviewer that Sissel's "She Walks In Beauty" was a high point.

I suggest that people might look into real period song collections and skip the movie music in this instance.

The film is a ham-fisted tin-eared badly-dressed attempt to shoehorn Indian culture into a Victorian novel. The dialogue is both horribly anachronistic and lousily delivered including by, surprisingly, the usually wondeful Ms Witherspoon. Another shabby sari crash-landed in Regency London would have driven me out of the multiplex, but I was kept in my seat by one redeeming moment - when Becky Sharpe wins over the snobs with a song, Crimson Petal. OK, its structured more as an early 20th century song than anything from the Regency era, but it works wonderfully. And almost justified the soundtrack, if not the film. Which remains an insult to Victorian novels, Bollywood and self-respecting turkeys.