The General's Daughter: Music From The Motion Picture [SOUNDTRACK]

Carter Burwell

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 15, 1999)
• Original Release Date: June 15, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Milan Records
• ASIN: B00000JCEY
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,941 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This John Travolta-starring military-themed thriller hardly distinguished itself with critics, who almost universally lambasted its overwrought ambience and painfully obvious plot points; a whodunit that begged the question "why'd ya make it"? But even the most turgid Hollywood fare can have its delightful musical surprises, and that's where The General's Daughter redeems itself. Veteran Carter Burwell turns in a brooding orchestral score that finely underplays the histrionics with subtlety and emotional weight. But it's Greg Hale Jones's ingenious digital reworking of half-century-old Library of Congress remote recordings (made in cotton fields and prisons) of African American folk music and spirituals that's the real revelation here. The opening "Sea Lion Woman" is both haunting and unforgettable, a gratifying reminder that studio alchemy can enhance the humanity of music as well as sublimate it. Minus points for trotting out the cinematically tired Carmina Burana once again; it's enough to make one want to Orff themselves. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing, August 10, 1999

By	Combination (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews

Like almost everyone else I too knew I wanted to buy the soundtrack about one minute into the movie. The strange thing is a few weeks ago I was looking for "folk" music and had heard some of the Alan Lomax recordings so I was the only one in my group who came close to identifying the first song. Most of my friends thought it was in a language other than English. It made the movie for me.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ghosts of the Deep South..., May 7, 2005

By	C.T. Chase "cchase8860" (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

If anyone needed to be reminded of the importance music can have on the emotional and contextual impact of a movie, they would only need listen to this soundtrack after seeing the film that inspired it.

An ocean of ink has been used to vilify the sloppy obviousness of the script, the ham-handed direction, and the disservice done in the adaptation of Nelson deMille's military-based thriller. Nearly most of its shortcomings, however, are truly redeemed by a brooding, chilling score by Carter Burwell that is so damn good, it seems like it belongs in another film.

But the watershed moments come courtesy the stylings of Greg Hale Jones, who sampled Library of Congress recordings of Black spirituals, field songs, children's patty-cake style cadences ("She Began To Lie") and mixed them with synthesizer and electronic drum lines that effectively underscore and highlight the film's themes of murder, betrayal, dishonor and retribution so much better than the script; like ghosts from the past of the Deep South that constantly permeate and haunt the lives of its native sons and daughters, and most especially throughout the events that take place in the film.

The result is so memorably effective, you're almost better off listening to it while reading the source material in lieu of watching the movie. Absolutely one of the most underrated scores of the last decade (equalled only by the remarkable RAVENOUS score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn.)

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The opening was a haunting suggestion of what was to come., June 30, 1999

By A Customer

I saw "The General's Daughter" at a midnight showing and my companion and I said after two minutes we had to have the music - regardless of whether the movie was good or not. Luckily it was good. I ordered the music (from Amazon of course) when I got home at 5 am. The opening song "She Began To Lie" with its primitive sound and childlike quality was somehow errotic at the same time, and the military-sounding percussion in the background suggested what was to come in the story. The play on words of sea lion/she lying was musically and psychologically ingenious. The rest of the soundtrack is wonderful, too, militaristic, suspenseful, and powerful, but the opening music is what made me want the CD. Not only have I listened to it many times but have talked about it with my friends who have heard it. Great soundtrack.