In Country

By 1989, composer James Horner had firmly established himself in the upper echelons of film music. That year alone brought diverse projects such as the comedy-drama Dad, the wacky family film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the brutal Civil War drama Glory and a third Oscar nomination for the mystical Field of Dreams.

While Glory's battlements necessitated large orchestral forces and the Harlem Boys Choir to depict the awful effects of war, In Country required a more introspective musical take. The music consists primarily of solo instruments and small chamber ensembles, only opening up during the climactic battle flashback and the finale at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Whether voiced on the trumpet or another instrument, the powerful main theme weaves throughout the score as "distant memories" of what was loved and lost. The poignant highlight of the score is the finale at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in which Horner provides a 10-minute emotional tour de force that builds in intensity, combining the primary themes and motifs as the trio search for Dwayne's name and Emmett's fellow comrades-in-arms on the Memorial Wall.

When Intrada embarked on this project, Warner Bros. produced from their vaults two rolls of high speed tape already assembled and produced by James Horner for a potential 39-minute LP (sides A & B) and CD release back in the day (including the longer than standard pauses between tracks that he favors when presenting music of reflection and emotion). At the end of the B roll, we discovered 12 minutes of additional music consisting of the remaining cues in the film that Horner didn't include on the planned album, but that he nonetheless mixed and assembled for posterity. Intrada was happily able to gain his approval for the complete master, extras and all.

Based on Bobbie Ann Mason's celebrated 1985 novel, In Country stars Emily Lloyd as a teenager in a sleepy Kentucky town who yearns to discover how the father she never met died "in country," the term soldiers used to define their tours of duty in Vietnam. At the same time, she tries to understand the damage afflicting her uncle, a battle-scarred Vietnam vet (Bruce Willis).