For many an armchair history buff, the Allied invasion of Europe on D day in 1944 is seen as the decisive European battle of World War II. In reality, the war's turning point may well have been the German army's defeat at Stalingrad in the bitterly cold early months of 1943 after one of history's bloodiest sieges. Director Sergio Leone had planned an epic film version of those events, but he died before he could proceed. A decade later, French director Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy at the Gates has brought the saga to the screen in what's said to be the most expensive European production ever mounted. Annaud frames his epic with human dimensions by telling the true tale of dueling German and Soviet snipers, and James Horner's truly epic orchestral and choral soundtrack gives the story its sense of place, both geographically and historically. With nods toward some 20th-century Russian composers, Horner's music is by turns romantic, ominous, and modern, imbuing the drama of Shostakovich and Prokofiev with his own masterful sense of color and tension. He is still best known to general audiences for his hugely successful work on Titanic, but the sheer sweep and power of this score makes that work seem almost like a student's exercise by comparison. Enemy at the Gates is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime assignment, and Horner admirably rises to the challenge. --Jerry McCulley
