What do the films Casablanca, Blazing Saddles and West Side Story have in common? Besides being popular, they have also been deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and listed on The National Film Registry. These Amazing Shadows, an 88-minute documentary, tells the history and importance of the Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself. The current list of 550 films includes selections from every genre - documentaries, home movies, Hollywood classics, avant-garde, newsreels and silent films...

These Amazing Shadows is a documentary film which looks at the importance of American cinema over the years. With such a broad canvas of genres to reflect, choosing a composer to capture the feel of this movie would, I'm sure, have been no easy task.

Thankfully they discovered Peter Golub (Countdown to Zero, The Great Debaters), a composer whose work I have to admit I'd never encountered before, who does an incredible job of capturing the spirit of the movie's subject matter.

The movie's main theme is an incredibly uplifting track, which pops its head up for several of this score's tracks ('Main Titles', 'Preserving Our Cultural Heritage', 'Vision of Women Directors', 'Harlan County Montage', 'Race Issues' and most impressively in 'Final Montage: The Power of Movies'). Thankfully, other than 'Back to The Future Montage', at no point does Golub try to offer his own interpretation of a genre or movie. What he does do, without relying on cliches, is give us a feel for a genre. The 'Back to the Future Montage' is interesting (even if it's a poor copy of a Back to the Future-esque track) in that Golub tries (and almost succeeds) in capturing the essence of the Back to the Future movies in just under a minute).

This album last for just over 31 minutes and is spread over 23 tracks. There's not a second of atmospheric filler material - this is packed with quality themes.

What we have here is a truly beautiful work that encapsulates so much of American cinema's legacy.

9

Darren Rea