by Paul Tonks
score -- n. / Pron. “skôr”
1. The notation of a musical work.
2. The written form of a composition for orchestral or vocal parts.
3. The music written for a film, play, or other viewed entertainment.
4. The resounding cheer that accompanies the ‘high-fives’ of Producers when they get what they want sounding close enough to the Temp Track, without fear of being sued.
COLLABORATIONS
Just as I change my introductory dictionary definition, I find cause to bring up my pain and frustration with a world that confuses a collection of songs for a movie soundtrack. You may relax, however. This is no sermon on the hows and whys of the practice getting more problematic and damaging to the industry all the time. BUT IT IS! Instead, I bring it up to differentiate from the practice of the film composers themselves digging into the songwriting art. Or better yet, collaborating with a songwriting artist as an integral part of their own score writing process.
The classic example would be the lost art of the James Bond song. John Barry worked with numerous lyricists and vocal performers to create something that functioned as a part of the musical whole. Melodies occurred in the underscore. Everyone went home whistling. Perfect.
Since then, the nature and extent of collaborations has ranged far and wide. I’ve picked a handful from the last decade that I wanted to offer some commentary on. So maybe now I won’t be seen as totally against the pop music world.
COMPOSER: Patrick Doyle
ARTIST: Tori Amos
SCORE: GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1997)
Everyone went all-out for talent on this one. It must have been a never-ending stream of successes for the record label as confirmations came in from Kiri Te Kanawa, Miriam Stockley and guitarist John Williams. For the song album (a ¼ of which didn’t appear in the film), names like Pulp, Iggy Pop and The Grateful Dead were signed up. But for me the unusual and interesting inclusion was having Tori Amos provide “Instrumental Vocalizations” on a couple of Doyle’s cues. Her contributions were one of few things making a memorable mark on the movie. Knowing there was a fan base to benefit from, her pieces are spread across both the song and score albums – in other words, you have to buy both.
COMPOSER: Danny Elfman
ARTIST: Siouxsie & The Banshees
SCORE: BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
I think many have forgotten about this. It’s the Summer of ’92, with the first BATMAN having bolstered the studios’ ideas of using big name artists with their blockbuster releases. Yet after being buried in popular awareness for Prince and later Madonna with DICK TRACY, Elfman somehow got Burton and Warner Bros. to let him co-write a song. The doozy is that of all artists, he should pick Siouxsie Sioux. The Banshees had released an album the year before (SUPERSTITION), but had hardly set the pop world alight for some time.
Personally, I find the masked ball scene where Bruce and Selena meet is beautifully enhanced by the opening of the song. Purposefully, the song has an extended intro that allows enough set up time for them to engage one another, before the lyrics begin and are dipped below their dialogue. And it gets much better treatment in the film than the orchestral version of “Super Freak”!
COMPOSER: Angelo Badalamenti
ARTIST: Orbital
SCORE: THE BEACH (2000)
The movie was sold on the trailer with Moby’s “Porcelain,” of course. And the album was sold in the same way, alongside Leftfield, All Saints, Blur, et al. Personally I was sold on seeing it purely because Badalamenti was scoring. I think the guy’s a genius, and while I often find fault with the movies he scores, I rarely find fault with how he’s scored them. When I heard there’d be a teaming up remix session with Orbital, I was intrigued (see EVENT HORIZON below). Sure enough, the title track “Beached” made the opening of the movie extremely cool to my eyes and ears.
Badalamenti’s no stranger to collaboration of course. With David Lynch there’s been plenty of innovative teaming. If anyone’s yet to discover it, I heartily recommend his BOOTH AND THE BAD ANGEL album made with Tim Booth of the band James.
COMPOSER: David Arnold
ARTIST: Björk
SCORE: THE YOUNG AMERICANS (1993)
Like many, I discovered this after the fact. STARGATE broke Arnold’s name internationally and in a swathe of alike interviews in its wake, he related the tale of luck that came through YOUNG AMERICANS. The song had done the rounds in ’93 of course, and in the UK featured in a long-running car commercial. Björk’s DEBUT was that same year too, but it was some time before I made the connective tissue between composer and artist. The song was a terrific piece though, and truly elevated a pretty bleak and uninspiring movie. With a decade’s retrospect, it deserved to have been the spark that ignited his career.
COMPOSER: Howard Shore
ARTIST: The Master Musicians of Jajouka
SCORE: THE CELL (2000)
The opening five minutes of this movie absolutely floored me. J-Lo walks across sand dunes in a white dress and encounters a few surreal objects. Building slowly across these images (not underneath), is a staggering cross-pollination of East and West musical forms. The Jajouka dudes were given a flexible remit by Shore as they played alongside the orchestra, but the resultant effect of swimming musical lines and clashing tempos is a dizzying, unforgettable and original bit of film music recording.
Unfortunately the movie goes on to suck in all kinds of ways and ends up with the score inevitably selling out to a Hollywood ending. But oh – the build up!
COMPOSER: Michael Kamen
ARTIST: Orbital
SCORE: EVENT HORIZON (1997)
Ever since seeing this movie, I’ve applied its name as a term to describe movies or shows that run out of steam and suddenly end. Before this film’s abrupt anti-conclusion, I rather enjoyed the haunted house in space idea. Some of the production design made it very interesting on the eye too. What really distinguished it for me at the time was the collaboration between Kamen and brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. To some listeners the fusion of London Metropolitan Orchestra with techno rhythms and effects proved utterly unpalatable. I liked the idea from the first, even if it took me some time to be able to appreciate the music on its own. With the film it helped create a uniquely malevolent environment.
A personal anecdote that amuses me is that in the album booklet there’s an acknowledgement to Bernard Herrmann. I’ve asked Kamen and then orchestrator Edward (CHARLIE’S ANGELS) Shearmur if they included the credit, but neither did. It therefore impresses me that Orbital went directly to the source for their movie score debut.
COMPOSER: Michael Nyman
ARTIST: Damon Albarn
SCORE: RAVENOUS (1999)
There were several cues in this movie’s score that just electrified me while I was watching it. Some times music works a job on the viewer that transcends being overtly intrusive. It’s rare, but on these rare occasions it gets into your head or under your skin to such a brain-pulsing degree you’re forced to concentrate on the visuals far harder than you might. Two other examples of this that come to mind are REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. The unfortunate side of this is that if the movie pans out to be a let down (as this did for me), then you’re left with these isolated moments as your only positive talking point.
Where Nyman ends and Albarn begins is interesting to speculate. The ferocity in repetition would seem likely to be Nyman’s established minimalist trademark. Is the amateur banjo and country ensemble Albarn? Frankly it’s a Blur (see what I did there?), but an admirable one. Shame Albarn’s not gone on to anything better – ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL and DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? are pretty poor successors.
REVIEWS:
HULK – Danny Elfman, Decca
I didn’t bother to report on the replacement of Mychael Danna on this score earlier in the year. I was too annoyed at having to be annoyed with seeing Elfman’s name attached. And now I’m even more annoyed. Both movie and score come off as a last-minute throw-together of ideas to me. In Elfman’s case, many of the ideas are ones he’s explored recently. Or they’re ones that hung over from Danna’s prior work with Ang Lee on the project. What a sorry tale this has been for all concerned.
WHALE RIDER - Lisa Gerrard, 4AD CAD 2304CD
When I saw this movie in Los Angeles last month, it pretty much destroyed me. Within the hour, I’d purchased this album knowing that although some of Gerrard’s easy listening synths would remind me of the Vangelis and Brian Eno of a few decades ago, that at least it would also remind me of this exceptional film.
In fact, the more I’ve listened to it, the more I’ve distanced my opinion from these comparisons. Anyone who makes the mistake of obtaining it without seeing the film might find themselves quick to judge as I was. But once the film’s got under your skin as it has mine, this is a score of lasting power and beauty.
PINOCCHIO - Nicola Piovani, Virgin 7243 5 80358 2 7
After Roberto Benigni’s success with LA VITA E BELLA, it’s surprising the film failed to get proper distribution. Having chanced upon a copy of the beautiful score, I wish for the opportunity to see the flick even more. Lyrical and heartbreaking in all the best ways, it’s been a perfect tonic to the familiarity of most of everything I’ve experienced so far this year.
TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES - Marco Beltrami, Varèse Sarabande VSD-6481
I was fortunate enough to receive an advance promo of about half an hour of this score in May. This was for the purposes of an interview I did later with Beltrami. As with a few other folks, I immediately detected what had to be a wildly coincidental thematic similarity to Howard Shore’s THE FLY. But I got past that very quickly. And now we have the full album and have seen the film to be quite different from the expected train wreck, I rather admire where Beltrami went with this score.
Brad Fiedel’s original scores irked the pants off me in their day. I’m happy to note how that’s another opinion that’s mellowed with time. Actually, hearing this score prompted me to go back and revisit the previous two movies and scores. Taking the trilogy as a whole is given interesting context in how Beltrami’s extended the mechanical palate with full orchestra. Definitely a welcome surprise.
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