布罗克斯顿评说莫里康内 MB-012-123

倒退30年

乔纳森·布罗克斯顿（Jonathan Broxton）的原始评论

纵观今天的拉斯维加斯市，很难看穿其华丽的酒店、美食餐厅、热门节目、美丽的天气和轻浮的过度行为，并记住这个世界娱乐中心起源于有组织犯罪。导演巴里·莱文森 （Barry Levinson） 的电影《Bugsy》探讨了这些起源，特别着眼于纽约黑帮本杰明·西格尔 （Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel） 的生死，他在 1940 年代初前往洛杉矶，与说话强硬的好莱坞女演员弗吉尼亚·希尔 （Virginia Hill） 交往，并在加利福尼亚的犯罪黑社会中结交了很多朋友和敌人，然后他有了改变世界的想法，即在阳光明媚的内华达州小镇拉斯维加斯建造一座豪华赌场——火烈鸟作为洗钱的一种方式。这部电影引人入胜地讲述了世界上最受欢迎的度假胜地之一的诞生;它由沃伦·比蒂饰演 Bugsy，安妮特·贝宁饰演希尔，配角阵容包括哈维·凯特尔、本·金斯利和埃利奥特·古尔德。这部电影也取得了巨大的成功，获得了包括最佳影片在内的十项奥斯卡金像奖提名，并最终赢得了艺术指导和服装设计奖。

其他奥斯卡金像奖提名之一是由意大利传奇作曲家埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）创作的配乐。在1990年代初期，莫里康内仍然每年写一两部好莱坞主流配乐，以及30-40部欧洲配乐（当然，这有点夸张，但他肯定是多产的！），而《Bugsy》是他那个时期最受赞誉的作品之一。乐谱围绕两个不同的爱情主题展开，展示了西格尔生活中的两个主要爱情。第一首是“为了她，为了他”，代表了西格尔和希尔之间的爱情，尽管他们的出身不那么健康，但他们分享了真诚而发自内心的浪漫。莫里康内为他们创作的主题是一首甜美、浪漫、迷人的弦乐旋律，它有前几首乐谱的味道——我得到了《美国往事》的明显回声——但与一些相当困难且通常听起来有些奇怪的木管乐器和声形成对位，这些和声提供了轻微的不安音调，仿佛音乐知道他们的命运会是什么。

第二个主题是“信仰的行为”，代表了 Bugsy 对拉斯维加斯和火烈鸟酒店本身的热爱——他对世界的纪念碑，以及他的痴迷。主题以独奏家弗朗切斯科·桑图奇 （Francesco Santucci） 的精湛、令人难以忘怀的长笛表演为基础，完美地概括了经典拉斯维加斯本身——它的起源是最美妙的懒散爵士乐（most wonderful type of lazy rat pack jazz），带有烟熏、慵懒、威士忌杯底部的声音，结合了莫里康内自己的个人氛围。它无疑是埃尼奥，但也非常符合黑帮类型的惯例。

这些主题中的另一个主题在随后的提示中突出地重复出现，例如梦幻般的“拉斯维加斯之夜”、“联合”、“飞走”、“信仰行为”和“付出巨大代价”。“Bugsy's Death”可能是配乐的情感高潮，为罪犯提供了一首庄严的挽歌，直到今天，他仍然是一个复杂且备受争议的人物，但即使是这个线索也大多控制了它的情绪，从未完全接受更大、更具示范性的范围。

乐谱的其余部分大部分同样柔和，包括一系列低调的悬念和戏剧性段落，用于起伏的弦乐，伴随着低端钢琴人物，以及莫里康内主打乐器的频繁客串，如竖笛、大键琴和柔和的铜管织体。我特别喜欢《Die Is Cast》和《On Sale》等线索中弥漫的威胁感，《In Cuba》中的吉他声音从略带不祥到郁郁葱葱的异国情调，以及表现主义的《沙漠海市蜃楼》中微妙的乐观和期待感。

一个提示——“Bugsy's Arrest”——更充实一些，是配乐最接近任何真实动作音乐的;钢琴、弦乐、柔和铜管、叽叽喳喳的木管乐器、口琴和罗萨里奥·朱利安尼的中音萨克斯管的断断续续的节奏思想和沉思写作是对另一部获得奥斯卡提名的黑帮配乐《义胆雄心》的回归，也与他一些更好的欧洲犯罪惊悚作品有一些呼应。

这张专辑由四首时代歌曲组成，包括 Harold Arlen 和 Johnny Mercer 的“Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”，由 Bing Crosby 成名，Jo Stafford 演奏的两首爵士标准，以及 1942 年佩吉·李 （Peggy Lee） 的原创表演“Why Don't You Do Right”——我仍然无法听这首歌而不想到 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 中的 Jessica， 但它仍然是一首了不起的“女人蓝调”歌曲，其中一个女人责备她的男人所有不道德和不负责任的行为。

尽管《一代情枭-毕斯》的很多作品都很好，但我仍然觉得这是另一部被拖到奥斯卡提名的配乐，它被一部广受好评的电影所掩盖，而牺牲了其他与不太负盛名的电影相关的更好的配乐。Bugsy 是一个更能吸引莫里康内爱好者和完成者而不是普通粉丝的乐谱;两个主要的锚定主题很可爱，但配乐的很多内容都是柔和的、有质感的，而且有些地方相当沉闷，这很适合这部电影，但脱离上下文并没有给人留下深刻的印象。

从Movie Music UK商店购买Bugsy原声带

曲目列表：

• Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive（由Harold Arlen和Johnny Mercer编写，由Johnny Mercer表演）（2：49）
• 为了她，为了他 （4：52）
• 信心的行为 （3：20）
• 模具铸造 （3：25）
• 拉斯维加斯之夜 （2：01）
• 羞辱 （1：35）
• 曼联 （3：32）
• Bugsy 被捕 （3：47）
• 在古巴 （1：44）
• 你为什么不做对？（由Joe McCoy编剧，Peggy Lee演唱）(2:26)
• Candy（由 Alex Kramer、Mack David 和 Joan Whitney 编写，由 Johnny Mercer 和 Jo Stafford 表演）（3：13）
• 飞走 （4：26）
• 促销 （1：38）
• 信心的行为 （3：15）
• 沙漠海市蜃楼 （1：30）
• 在街上，晚上（2：07）
• 更多钱 （1：57）
• 付出巨大代价 （2：40）
• Bugsy之死 （4：25）
• Virginia 等待 （2：17）
• 神经质的爱 （2：14）
• 很久以前（和遥远的地方）（由杰罗姆·克恩和艾拉·格什温编剧，乔·斯塔福德表演）（2：54）

片长：62分07秒

史诗唱片公司 EK-48804 （1991）

音乐由埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）作曲和指挥。由Orchestra Unione Musicisti di Roma演出。埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）改编。音乐独奏家罗萨里奥·朱利安尼、弗朗切斯科·桑图奇、保罗·赞皮尼和安杰洛·乔瓦尼奥利。由佛朗哥·帕特里尼亚尼（Franco Patrignani）录制和混音。由詹姆斯·弗兰伯格（James Flamberg）编辑。专辑由埃尼奥·莫里康内（Ennio Morricone）制作。

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Looking at the city of Las Vegas today, it’s difficult to see past its opulent hotels, gourmet restaurants, popular shows, beautiful weather, and frivolous excess, and remember that this world center of entertainment has its origins in organized crime. Director Barry Levinson’s film Bugsy explores these origins, specifically looking at the life and death of New York gangster Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, who travels to Los Angeles in the early 1940s, gets involved with tough-talking Hollywood actress Virginia Hill, and makes a lot of friends and a lot of enemies in California’s criminal underworld, before he has the world-changing idea of building a luxury casino – the Flamingo – in the sun-baked Nevada town of Las Vegas as a way to launder money. The film is a fascinating look at the birth of one of the world’s most popular vacation spots; it stars Warren Beatty as Bugsy, Annette Bening as Hill, and features a supporting cast including Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, and Elliott Gould. The film was also a critical success, picking up ten Academy Award nominations – including Best Picture – and eventually winning for Art Direction and Costume Design.

One of those other Academy Award nominations was for its score, written by the legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone. In the early 1990s Morricone was still writing one or two mainstream Hollywood scores per year, along with 30-40 European ones (that’s an exaggeration, of course, but he was certainly prolific!), and Bugsy was one of his most acclaimed works of the period. The score is built around two different love themes, which illustrate the two main loves of Siegel’s life. The first, “For Her, For Him,” is a representation of the love between Siegel and Hill, who despite their less-then-salubrious origins, shared a genuine and heartfelt romance. Morricone’s theme for them is a luscious, romantic, attractive melody for strings which has a flavor of several earlier scores – I got notable echoes of Once Upon a Time in America – but is played in counterpoint against some rather difficult and often somewhat odd-sounding woodwind harmonies which offer a slight tone of unease, as if the music knows what their fate will be.

The second theme is “Act of Faith,” and is a representation of Bugsy’s love of Las Vegas and the Flamingo Hotel itself – his monument to the world, and his obsession. The theme is anchored by a superb, haunting flugelhorn performance by soloist Francesco Santucci, and is a perfect encapsulation of classic Las Vegas itself – its origins are in that most wonderful type of lazy rat pack jazz, with a smoky, languid, bottom-of-a-whisky-glass sound, combined with Morricone’s own personal vibe. It’s unmistakably Ennio, but also fits snugly within the conventions of the mobster genre.

One of the other of these themes are repeated prominently in subsequent cues such as the dreamy “That Night In Las Vegas,” “United,” “Fly Away,” “Act of Faith,” and “At Great Expense.” “Bugsy’s Death” is probably the emotional high point of the score, offering a solemn elegy for the criminal who, to this day, remains a complicated and much-debated figure, but even this cue mostly keeps its emotions in check, never fully embracing a larger and more demonstrative scope.

Most of the rest of the score is equally subdued, comprising a series of low-key suspense and drama passages for undulating strings, accompanied by low-end piano figures, and frequent guest appearances from Morricone staples like recorders, harpsichords, and muted brass textures. I especially like the sense of menace that permeates cues like “Die Is Cast” and “On Sale,” the guitar sounds in “In Cuba” that veer from slightly ominous to lushly exotic, and the subtle sense of optimism and anticipation in the expressionistic “Desert Mirage”.

One cue – “Bugsy’s Arrest” – is a little more fulsome and is the closest the score comes to having any real action music; the staccato rhythmic ideas and pensive writing for piano, strings, muted brass, twittering woodwinds, harmonica, and Rosario Giuliani’s alto saxophone is a throwback to another Oscar-nominated gangster score, The Untouchables, and also has some echoes of some of his better European crime thriller works.

The album is rounded out by a quartet of period songs, including Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” made famous by Bing Crosby, two jazz standards performed by Jo Stafford, and the original 1942 Peggy Lee performance of “Why Don’t You Do Right” – I still can’t listen to this song without thinking of Jessica from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it is still a terrific ‘woman’s blues’ song, in which a woman chastises her man for all his immoral and irresponsible ways.

As good as a great deal of Bugsy is, I still feel as though this was another score that was dragged along to an Oscar nomination on the coattails of an acclaimed film, at the expense of other better scores attached to less prestigious movies. Bugsy is a score that will appeal more to Morricone aficionados and completists than casual fans; the two main anchoring themes are lovely, but quite a lot of the meat of the score is subdued, textural, and rather dour in places, which suits the film but doesn’t really make a major impression out of context.

Buy the Bugsy soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive (written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, performed by Johnny Mercer) (2:49)
• For Her, For Him (4:52)
• Act of Faith (3:20)
• Die Is Cast (3:25)
• That Night In Las Vegas (2:01)
• Humiliated (1:35)
• United (3:32)
• Bugsy’s Arrest (3:47)
• In Cuba (1:44)
• Why Don’t You Do Right? (written by Joe McCoy, performed by Peggy Lee) (2:26)
• Candy (written by Alex Kramer, Mack David, and Joan Whitney, performed by Johnny Mercer and Jo Stafford) (3:13)
• Fly Away (4:26)
• On Sale (1:38)
• Act of Faith (3:15)
• Desert Mirage (1:30)
• On a Street, At Night (2:07)
• More Money (1:57)
• At Great Expense (2:40)
• Bugsy’s Death (4:25)
• Virginia Waits (2:17)
• Neurotic Love (2:14)
• Long Ago (And Far Away) (written by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, performed by Jo Stafford) (2:54)

Running Time: 62 minutes 07 seconds

Epic Records EK-48804 (1991)

Music composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Performed by Orchestra Unione Musicisti di Roma. Orchestrations by Ennio Morricone. Featured musical soloists Rosario Giuliani, Francesco Santucci, Paolo Zampini and Angelo Giovagnoli. Recorded and mixed by Franco Patrignani . Edited by James Flamberg. Album produced by Ennio Morricone.