Across the Sea of Time

1995
CD: Epic Soundtrax EK 67355

  1. The Wonder of America (1:36)
  2. Into New York (3:14)
  3. Ellis Island (2:21)
  4. Never Have I Felt So Free (2:12)
  5. The Lower East Side (1:17)
  6. The Automobile, the Telephone, the Skyscraper (3:15)
  7. The Subway (1:00)
  8. The Subway Ride (0:59)
  9. Coney Island (2:47)
  10. Up to the Sky (1:26)
  11. Flight Over New York (5:40)
  12. Central Park (1:49)
  13. Times Square and Broadway (1:56)
  14. Scary Night in the Park (1:07)
  15. A New Day Will Come (1:57)
  16. Searching (1:36)
  17. Welcome to America (3:31)
  18. Across the Sea of Time (5:20)
 r Across the Sea of Time

The Movie

It's an IMAX film shot in 3-D. Since I'm a fan of stereophotography and Barry's music—I'm sorry I missed it in the theaters. I finally saw it 27 years later in 2-D on YouTube. The story is about a young boy from Russia who travels to America to find an old relative. The relative had sent back stereograph photos of New York, and the boy compares the images from the old photos with their modern incarnation. Largely it's an exploration of New York City then and now in glorious 3-D, then and now. The photography is beautiful but it must have been amazing in 3-D. Hopefully it will some day be released in a stereo format that I can watch at home. It's a short movie,

The Music

According to the booklet notes (they're not really "liner notes" anymore—CDs don't come with liners the way LPs did), Barry felt a personal connection with this project. He had recently recovered from a life threatening illness, his son Jonpatrick was very young, and Barry himself was an immigrant—so the idea of scoring a film about a young boy's experiences in New York hooked him.

This score is interesting for another reason—"Flight Over New York." Barry was originally going to score Barbra Streisand's film The Prince of Tides, but their work habits proved incompatible and Barry left the project. Not one to abandon perfectly good music, Barry used the main theme as the title song "Moviola" to his compilation CD of the same name, and then used it again as "Flight Over New York" in this film. Now that's efficiency.

Great music if you're a fan of Barry's late style, which is very slow tempo and heavy on the strings. It's effective in the film, but I wish it varied a bit more.

Release Notes

Nothing special here, except that as noted above, "Flight Over New York" also appears as the title track on Barry's compilation CD Moviola.

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