Ladyhawke
I think one of the guiding lights of Richard Donner’s career as a director was the idea of verisimilitude. When you listen to him on the bonus features of “Superman: The Movie,” he talks about it as he figured out how to bring one of the iconic, all-American superheroes to life. In terms of fiction, “verisimilitude” refers to the believability of a work of fiction, and naturally, it was important for Donner that he make sure people believed that a man could fly, or that a father could bring himself to kill his son in “The Omen,” or that Riggs and Murtaugh could become lifelong friends in the “Lethal Weapon” franchise. In 1985’s “Ladyhawke,” verisimilitude is important to making us buy into the fantasy of the story. The question is, does a particular choice Donner made behind the scenes kill the reality of the film as we watch it?
“Ladyhawke” is probably one of the most infamous fantasy films of the 1980s simply by nature of the film score. Legend has it that Richard Donner was listening to The Alan Parsons Project while scouting locations for the film, and he was so intrigued that he brought Parsons and Andrew Powell on to create the score for “Ladyhawke.” I’m going to say something controversial in discussing Powell’s score, and say that, if it was not for the prog rock elements grafted into his orchestral work, I think this could have been a damn good score; in particular, his love theme is beautiful to listen to, and a lot of his orchestrations are good, and keeping with how we think of fantasy score writing. There are even some synth elements in this score I really like, but when it goes full tilt into the rock stuff, it takes us out of the film, which is not what a great film score should do.
What keeps us from rebelling completely against the movie is the story, as originally conceived by Edward Khmara, and written for the screen by Khmara, Michael Thomas and Tom Mankiewicz. We begin by watching Phillipe (Matthew Broderick), a thief known as a “mouse” for his abilities to get out of a hairy situations, escaping from a prison no one has escaped from. As he gets away, he comes across a knight, Navarre (Rutger Hauer), who has a hawk with him. Phillipe takes up with Navarre in his travels, and finds that- at night- Navarre disappears, and Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) is around, as is a black wolf. It turns out, Navarre and Isabeau were once lovers, but the local Bishop (John Wood) also loved Isabeau, and so, he had a curse placed on them. They would be together, but neither would be human at the same time, with Navarre human during the day, and Isabeau at night. Now, Navarre is back looking to get the curse lifted, and Phillipe will help him.
The heart of the film is Navarre and Isabeau, with Phillipe being the audience surrogate who gets to interact with both sides of the pair. Even though Broderick is a bit too modern in his performance- and a better lead-in character exists in Leo McKern’s Imperius, a monk who has a key part to play in the story- the work done by Hauer and Pfeiffer is so genuine and lovely that we go with it, and we do feel a genuine connection between both of them and Phillipe emerge. As the Bishop, Wood is a good, sneering villain, and matching him is Alfred Molina as Cezar, one of the captains. From a visual standpoint, Donner and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro do a wonderful job breathing life into the landscapes of this film. Not all of the color choices hold up now, but the film is more interesting for those choices having been made. Sadly, as has been mentioned, that philosophy does not extend to the music.
Overall, I enjoyed “Ladyhawke” quite a bit. The misguided music choices aside, Donner and his cast made me care about this story, and I found myself grateful for discovering this film at last. One more blind spot in the career of one of my favorite filmmakers marked off.
