"These historic, engrossing and artistically rich films, directed by Pare Lorentz with original scores by Virgil Thomson, can be seen in a new DVD release from Naxos. Together they tell a grim saga of unchecked development in the Great Plains and the Mississippi River network. New Deal programs are presented as noble ventures aimed at aiding refugee families devastated by floods, droughts and dust storms, and offering the only means to reclaim America’s natural resources and right the environmental damage...

Thomson’s scores were crucial elements of both films. Sound technology was still relatively new. Lugging recording equipment into the field to capture human voices and the sounds of natural disasters would have been almost impossible. So the documentaries were conceived as silent films, with grandly poetic voice-over narrations and near-continuous musical scores.

...the sound quality on the original prints is thin and crackly. So for this DVD, produced by the critic and concert impresario Joseph Horowitz, Naxos recruited the conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez to record the scores freshly with the Post-Classical Ensemble. The performances are lively and stylish. Floyd King makes an aptly oratorical narrator. Extra features include interviews that shed light on the improbable geneses of these films".

-- Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

----------------------

The original Pare Lorentz films with newly recorded soundtracks of the original scores by Virgil Thomson.

Pare Lorentz's films "The Plow that Broke the Plains" (1936) and "The River" (1937) are landmark American documentary films. Aesthetically, they break new ground in seamlessly marrying pictorial imagery, symphonic music, and free poetic verse, all realized with supreme artistry. Ideologically, they indelibly encapsulate the strivings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal." Virgil Thomson's scores for both films are among the most famous ever composed for the movies. Aaron Copland praised the music of "The Plow" for its "frankness and openness of feeling," calling it "fresher, more simple, and more personal" than the Hollywood norm. He the music for "The River" "a lesson in how to treat Americana."

Special Features include:
1. George Stoney on "The Plow that Broke the Plains"
2. Stoney on The New Deal, "The River," and Race
3. Charles Fussell on Virgil Thomson
4. Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson (audio only)
5. Original beginning and ending of "The Plow"
6. Option to view both movies with original soundtrack and narration

R E V I E W S


Many of us have heard suites of the music that Virgil Thomson wrote for Pare Lorentz’s documentary/propaganda films, The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), but few alive today have had the opportunity to hear the music in its original context and to see the films themselves. With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, and the MARPAT Foundation, Naxos has released both films on this DVD, with new recordings of the soundtrack music by Angel Gil-Ordónez and the Post-Classical Ensemble, and new readings of the original narrations by Floyd King. Each film is about 30 minutes long, and Naxos has added value to this release by including almost an additional hour of interviews and other bonus features.


In spite of the headnote, this will be a review more about the Naxos release and the films as a whole, and less about the music. Readers with good memory will know that I seldom muster much enthusiasm for Thomson’s music, and there’s nothing in these scores that changes my mind. This is functional music that supports the images on the screen, and creates an agreeable (but not more) listening experience when heard on its own. Much of the material used by Thomson comes from folk and popular songs, and hymns. For example, the Doxology repeatedly appears in The Plow , sometimes going with the grain of the action, and sometimes ironically going against it. Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight also makes ironic appearances. To its credit, Thomson’s music doesn’t tell us how to feel about the images that we are seeing; it simply supports their presentation, letting us draw our own conclusions.


The conductor on the original soundtrack was Alexander Smallens, and the narrator was Thomas Chalmers. For this release, the soundtracks have been “re-created” in modern sound by the aforementioned narrator and performers. (Somewhat hidden among the special features is the opportunity to watch both films with their original soundtracks.) It is possible that some will complain that these new soundtracks are heresy, tantamount to reissuing Walt Disney’s Fantasia with a new soundtrack conducted by somebody other than Leopold Stokowski. Again, not knowing the original films, and not being a passionate fan of Thomson, this bothered me not a bit. Of course, because the films have not been updated, this scheme doesn’t leave much room for creativity on the part of King, Ordóñez, and the Post-Classical Ensemble, but they all do a solid job of fitting their performances to the preexisting films. King’s visionary, even hortatory narration probably is tantamount to “authentic performance practice.” It sounds corny today, but these films were trying to educate people about man-made environmental crises (unwise farming practices in The Plow , the dangers of excessive and unregulated logging and land development in The River ), and having a narrator with the oratorical style of a preacher probably made a world of difference to audiences in the late 1930s.


The other special features include 21 minutes of interviews with documentary filmmaker George Stoney, who presented these films to their first audiences in small-town America. His insights are interesting, but the presentation is a little amateurish; in several instances, the out-of-focus hand of the gesturing interviewer comes into the frame between the camera and Mr. Stoney. Composer Charles Fussell participates in a nearly 18-minute interview about Thomson’s music. Also, there’s an 8-minute audio-only interview from 1979 (“Virgil Thomson on Virgil Thomson”), and the original beginning and ending of The Plow . Also, it should be noted that three passages of music ultimately not included in the original films for various reasons have been restored here.


The films themselves make interesting viewing. Of course they are dated, but not as much as one might think, because we continue to do harm to our environment (and ultimately, our livelihoods and our lives) through thoughtless or selfish actions. Visually, sometimes the films are striking—Paul Strand was among the cinematographers—but Stoney burst my bubble a little bit by revealing that even some of the “modern” footage was staged, Also, some of the more effective scenes (for example, logs coursing down logging chutes toward the river) were taken from unreleased or obscure Hollywood films of that era. There appears to have been little restoration of the film elements for this release.


The historical importance of this release is undeniable. It probably is essential for fans of the composer, as well as for those who are interested in the history of the documentary film, the Great Depression, and FDR’s New Deal. For everyone else, it’s worth at least a single watch and a listen.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle