Fed/Up

It hit me just the other day—we are now over half way though 1997 and I don't think I could name even five genuinely good film scores from this year. And while we've had listless summers before, this year's crop has been particularly poor. I think the problem is that most of this year's scores have been so flawed in conception that discussing the execution has been, to a degree, futile. Case in point, Face/Off. Composer John Powell does manage to come up with some interesting musical effects here and there. The reliance on chimes, synth bells, and liturgical texts work nicely to unify some sections of the score. They also add a strange religiosity to the story which, to be honest, doesn't really have much to do with anything. That's not a complaint; it's more interesting than some bluntly obvious hook. There also is a memorable, if not catchy, main theme which sounds a little like a '90s power riff on James Bond scoring with its high, slurry trumpets. I hear John Woo is a jazz aficionado, so this could possibly be where the idea originated, thought it actually owes more to drum corps-style brass writing than to any big band or Barry works.

But, we are talking about a John Woo film here, so the majority of the time there is action on the screen and hence, action music in the score. Here's the question of the day, what should music do in a John Woo action sequence? I think those people that enjoy action music do so because of its dichotomy of smooth musical cohesion and herky- jerky, transitionless angularity. In other words, it glamorizes these sequences and makes them safe and digestible as entertainment while still providing some of the visceral thrills of the supposedly "real" events. In Woo's directorial style, this effect is built in. He's really filming these sequences with a musical architecture. Therefore, I can't understand the decision to score these scenes with the standard Zimmer-style action music. Personally, I don't find this stuff musically interesting in the least. The only thing it attempts and the only thing it could possibly achieve is some sort of kinetic mobility—there's certainly no cerebral interest to be found. But, that's fine, I'll approach it on the terms it was conceived in. Yet even on that footing, it falls flat. Look at the early scene where Travolta is chasing Cage and his airplane. The whole scene plays like—cut/drums, cut/brass, zoom/guitar, cut/drums, repeat ad nauseam. The music is totally superfluous here; it's only doing what he camera is doing—and, frankly, not as well. Why does everyone walk out of the theater remembering the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" action scene? Because it's the only scene in the movie that dares to use the music as a counterpoint to the visual aspects. It's the only action scene where music isn't redundant. Face/Off's score does the same thing Harry Dean Stanton does in that scene in Alien—saying "right" after everything someone says. In retrospect, it annoyed me as much as it annoyed the characters in that scene.

Mulholland Falls

It's really hard to sit and discuss what the score was like in Face/Off because the very basic conept of how to use music in that film was flawed. The other movie I've seen recently, however, makes some very smart decisions on how to use its music. Mulholland Falls appeared very briefly in the theaters last year, but Dave Grusin's score got a couple of very nice reviews from people like Royal S. Brown. The film is about a squad of four police men in post-WWII Los Angeles investigating the brutal death of a young woman (Jennifer Connelly). One of the men (Nick Nolte) has previously had an affair with the girl and the search for justice carries us through crime drama standbys as the cop who takes it personally, the gay friend, the mysterious roll of film, the corrupt government officials, and military cover-ups. Heavy stuff, no? Well, somebody must have thought so because they've also loaded this revamped film noir with a jokey kind of hipness. It makes for a very uneven film, but the lighter side also ends up providing us with the most interesting aspect of the score—the main theme. Grusin's theme is one of those punchy little orchestral jazz numbers that says an awful lot about a picture without any of it being very specific. It's comprised of a vamping pattern in the strings, piano, and hi-hat cymbals (packed with crunchy, closed jazz harmonies like the minor added two chord—C D Eb G) and the kind of darkly lush solos for English Horn or muted trumpet that can only be associated with noir-style aesthetics. It's usage in the film is actually very much like the recent Men in Black score. Whenever Nolte's four-man squad is on the move this music pops up to lend some tempo to things. The theme goes a long way to make us root for these characters in a pretty morally ambiguous script. It also does a nice job of shedding some light on the attitude of the film without adding too much levity. The musical perkiness comes from the rhythmic aspects while the harmonies stay dark and a little more aloof.

When this score turns to even more mysterious territories, it keeps just enough of a tonal basis that we can actually hear it being warped by the added dissonance. When something is atonal and difficult from its inception it creates some very vast, foreboding atmospheres. Grusin's score, however, is close enough to being tonal that we can hear it being torn apart harmonically, and the effect is somewhat different. It's impression is much more along the lines of corruption, or internal decomposition—an important theme in the story.

I mention this score not because it's some sort of master work. The pert traveling music is a little too divorced from the rest of the score and as effective as a motif as it is, it's really the only memorable thematic material. But, it accomplishes exactly what Face/Off does not in that it is organic to the picture without being repetitive. It's not executed flawlessly, but conceptually, it's light years beyond Face/Off. The funny thing is that Face/Off is quite possibly a better film that Mulholland Falls. Why are mass market summer films usually scored towards the lowest common denominator of audience members? (Answer—$$$.)

Briefly: Last time we were seeking alternative to Alan Silvestri's piano music from Contact. The suggestions I received were pretty interesting. One writer proposed that a theme written in the low range of the piano would keep it from becoming a cliche. Another writer suggested minimalism in the vein of John Adams, while another thought that perhaps the signal scene could have been effectively scored with a cue based on a single pitch and orchestrated for different moods. Very interesting ideas, all around.

Next time, Air Force One.

Comments? DAdams1127@aol.com