Flags of Our Fathers (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score to the 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers directed, produced and scored by Clint Eastwood. The album was released under the Milan Records label on October 17, 2006, which featured Eastwood's score and source music from 18th and 19th century.
Contents
Background and release
Clint Eastwood composed the film score to Flags of Our Fathers, in his third film as a composer after Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). The score was recorded at the Eastwood Scoring Stage in Warner Bros. Studios Burbank. Lennie Niehaus, who previously worked as composer on Eastwood's films, conducted and orchestrated the score.
The soundtrack was released under the Milan Records label on October 17, 2006. In May 2007, a double-disc album was released which contained music from another Eastwood-directorial Letters from Iwo Jima, serving as the companion piece to the first film, and scored by Clint's son Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens.
Reception
James Leonard of AllMusic called that "Eastwood's score is spare, severe, and almost unbearably intense" describing it "first-rate movie music from start to finish. Jim Santella of All About Jazz wrote "An extraordinary story requires thought-provoking music to match, and here it is." In contrast, Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks wrote "Fans could only hope that if Eastwood continued to tackle large-scale cinematic dramas, he would eventually understand that every individual has his limits, and he is potentially (if not probably) damaging his own films by insisting upon scoring them himself."
Mike Brennan of Soundtrack.Net wrote "It is a shame that a film depicting such a heroic event in World War II has such an uninspiring score". Todd McCarthy of Variety called it a "spare, effective musical score." Kaya Savas of MovieWeb wrote "Clint Eastwood provides another simple score for the film, and while it works for some of his movies it usually doesn't. I was not fond of the score for Mystic River, but I loved Million Dollar Baby's score. This film needed a different sound, and Eastwood's simple keys on the piano only works well near the end of the film. While the action sequences have no music I do think that a more experienced composer could have done wonders for the film."
Personnel
Credits adapted from liner notes: