Search - John Williams :: Angela's Ashes

A soulful triumph

Stefan Halldorsson | Reykjavik Iceland | 01/16/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Alan Parker's unbelievably dour film, Angela's Ashes is aided immeasureably by John Williams' poignant score, intertwining a moody main theme, composed for piano which occasionally breaks out in a Schindleresque elegy with some more reflective moments of strings and woodwinds. The film's account of Frank McCourt's first 15 years, first as a toddler in New York and later as a teenager in Dublin, is unremittingly harrowing in places, emphasizing poverty, infant death and alchoolism and squalor above everything else. McCourt's youth was not a happy one but, as he is first to point out, he survived it and that survival enabled him to share his memories with the rest of the world, both in his book Angela's Ashes and in it's sequel, Tis. Williams' music perfectly accompanies the ups and downs (mostly downs) of the McCourt family while never straying into too many weepie violins when an infant dies or Da' gets drunk again. Another little gem from the man who redifined film music and brought the golden age back onto the silver screen and our ears"