Score Sample: The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

These days if you mention director Michael Mann, most people will  immediately think of Heat or Collateral. A few people will mention Miami Vice, both the series and the movie. But not many people mention Last of the Mohicans, because it like of sticks out of filmography as a "wait a sec, he directed that?" kind of movie. But sure enough Mann tackled this historical epic before diving in the modern epic of Heat.

Mann is notorious for cobbling his film's music from different sources, sometimes even going so far as hiring a composer to score the full movie and then replacing half the original score with other pieces of unrelated electronic and techno music (just ask James Newton Howard about his experience on Collateral). For Last of the Mohicans, we have a similar oddity, two composers working on one film. Neither composer collaborating together, but each gentleman scoring different scenes. Jones was hired initially, but production delays and constant re-editing ended up running into another project he was working. Jones completed as much as he could and Randy Edelman was brought in to finish the project. Edelman provided some of the textural music, material that was lighter and used in the quieter scenes, with a few exceptions. Trevor Jones was brought in for his powerful themes and bombast. Mann managed to make it all work in the film, and as a listen on album it can be a bit uneven (especially with Edelman's uses of electronics). But still, that main theme by Jones is one of the most memorable of the 1990s.

So here is a sample of both men's work

First we have Edelman's music for a quiet scene early in the film, Cora.

And here is the dramatic Main Theme by Jones.