Released by Orion Pictures in the summer of 1985, "Flesh and Blood" was the first English-language film directed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. The film is a grim medieval tale, set in early 16th century Italy, which follows a twisted love triangle between the daughter of an aristocrat, a lord's son, and a mercenary. This is far from a romanticized, knights-in-shining-armor tale, instead portraying an incredibly bleak and punishing world, ruled by greed, violence, and lust. In doing so, this dark and cynical take is probably far closer to actual history than most medieval films, even though not based on any real events. The film totally bombed in theaters, but has grown a small cult following over the years, especially among fans of Verhoeven's often-satirical take-down of modern society.
Collaborating for the first time with director Verhoeven was American composer Basil Poledouris. A few years into his blockbuster career, Poledouris had already defined his particular style, thematically old-fashioned, at turns sweepingly romantic and delicate, then thunderously masculine. This score concludes a sort of trilogy of medieval scores, following the two "Conan" scores from a few years earlier. While the film is grim and dirty, the music does go in a more romantic and melodic direction, which only makes the reality on screen all the more jarring. The score is anchored around a main theme, which is surprisingly jaunty, with hints of Poledouris' love of authentic-sounding medieval source cues. There are also two separate love themes, again playing in contrast to the very twisted relationships on screen. All around, though perhaps not as well knows as his bigger hits, this is one of my favorites from the composer, and a must-listen for fans of historical adventure scores, all performed with gusto by the London Symphony Orchestra.
The soundtrack has seen various releases over the years, with the original 1992 Varese Sarabande album featuring around forty minutes of score. In 2002, Prometheus released an expanded version, adding about half an hour of material. Intrada further expanded this with a few bonus cues in 2010, and La-La Land Records later re-issued a similar release in 2014. As a lover of all things medieval, this has always been a favorite score of mine, though I didn't get around to seeing the film till much later. I present here a total of eleven covers.
The first three covers (as well as #7) all feature artwork for the original theatrical campaign, by Italian artist Renato Casaro, one of the masters of hand-painted film posters, who sadly passed away last year. The posters for 2 and 3 has been used previously for the various albums, but I wanted versions with cleaner text, and also to feature the darker poster.
Covers 4 - 6 all feature artwork created later on for various home-video disc releases. All the covers above required upscaling and various bits of cleanup, text removal, etc.
Cover 8 features original artwork by Irish illustrator Pete Lloyd, created for the 2022 Carlotta Films Blu-Ray special edition.
Finally, Covers 9 - 11 feature original artwork for the Umbrella Entertainment 2024 Blu-Ray release. Sadly on their website I couldn't find a credit for the artist responsible for these pieces, but I thought they offered a nice stylistic contrast.
Hope you enjoy and let me know your favorites below!
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