#JAMES NEWTON HOWARD SONG HOW TO#

The members of the Uruguayan rugby team were devoutly religious, and agonized over whether eating their deceased teammates in order to survive was contrary to their faith. Instead, for the most part, he scores the hope. What I like about Howard’s approach to scoring Alive is the fact that he doesn’t really score the horror of the situation the crash, the death, and the cannibalism element is already nightmarish enough without Howard coming in and laying on another layer of grim dread with the music. The piece plays over the main part of the film’s end credits – Neville’s iconic shaky, warbly voice is unmistakable – and although it is an undeniably beautiful song, it does somewhat diminish Howard’s contribution at a pivotal moment, which is a shame because Howard’s music is outstanding. Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, the musical moment in the film that appears to have stayed with people the longest is the performance of Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ by R&B and soul singer Aaron Neville, which he arranged especially for the film with his then-girlfriend, singer Linda Ronstadt. By early 1993 Howard was also very much in-demand due to his increasing comfort with and excellence in working with big orchestras, and Alive is very much one of those scores. The score for Alive was by composer James Newton Howard, who was by this point in his career working regularly on box office hits he scored Pretty Woman and Flatliners in 1990, and picked up his first Oscar nomination for The Prince of Tides in 1991. This incredible story was turned into a book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, and then eventually into this film, which was directed by Frank Marshall and starred Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, and Vincent Spano. It took them almost in 10 days, but they finally stumbled into a remote village, where they could obtain help and call for the Chilean Army to rescue the other survivors. They climbed a 15,000 foot mountain without gear, and then hiked almost 50 miles. Eventually two of the rugby players – Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa – decided to strike out for help. During the following 72 days, the survivors suffered extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation, and an avalanche, which led to the deaths of thirteen more passengers famously, but reluctantly, they were forced to resort to cannibalism to stave off death due to lack of food.

#JAMES NEWTON HOWARD SONG HOW TO#

15 of the 45 passengers and crew died on impact but the others – some of whom were badly injured – quickly had to figure out how to survive.

In October 1972 a plane carrying a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, who were on their way to play a game in Santiago, Chile, crashed high in the Andes mountains.

James newton howard song