Philip Glass - Film Scores: Jenipapo Archive Volume III (2023)

Philip Glass’s original score to Monique Gardenberg’s 1995 political thriller Jenipapo, starring Canadian actor Henry Czerny (who recently played Norfolk in BBC Television’s The Tudors), brought the composer another opportunity to write a score against the backdrop of the Brazilian landscape and the tumult of political upheaval.

Jenipapo is a highly-charged thriller in which Henry Czerney plays American journalist Michael Coleman, a strung-out expatriate writing for a Brazilian newspaper. His professional obsession is Father Stephen Louis (played by Patrick Bauchau), a wildly popular and charismatic priest who has been the political opponent of the ruthless landowners of the remote Bahia region. Coleman sets out alone to capture an interview with the highly elusive priest who seems to have gone silent in his battle with the landowners over Brazil’s forests.

Glass’ score reflects the political implications of the film as well as the vast canvas against which it is set. A highlight is the song ‘Ignorant Sky’, in which Glass sets lyrics by Antonio Cicero, sung by Suzanne Vega.

Jenipapo is the third release in Orange Mountain Music’s “From the Philip Glass Recording Archive” series which continues its efforts to document and expand the recording legacy of the great American composer. Previous Glass film scores on Orange Mountain include Candyman, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, Undertow, piano versions of The Hours and Dracula, and most recently Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream (OMM0038).