The Faking of Pelham One Two Three
by Doug Adams
Hey, remember the good old Taking of Pelham One Two Three which
didn't feature any former members of New Kids on the Block? I'm not sure
why ABC television bothered to remake this film, since director Felix Enriquez
Alcala often restaged Joseph Sargent's great 1974 film shot for shot. (And
almost anything that was new like the annoying, grainy NYPD Blue photography
and klunker "what about the children?" sub-plot, among other
things, was terrible.) David Shire's classic twelve tone funk score, however,
most certainly did not receive the clone treatment. Former Police-man Stewart
Copeland took the reins for this Pelham, and turned in a very 1990's
sounding assortment of synth loops and drones--exactly the kind of score
fans love to hate. But, what's interesting is that for all the musical
difference in Copeland's and Shire's scores, they were both supposed to
be doing the same thing: enhance the tension and action of the film without
commenting on it.
In the original Pelham, David Shire chose to bypass the characters
and specific plot of the by framing the story with its setting. Certainly
the particulars of the plot and its characters were in his music, but it
was mostly because they were so representative of their time and place
to begin with. The characters in this film were more stereotypes than archetypes,
but that was for a reason. This way they could represent all the angst
and hostility of a big city without having some sort of universally telling
problem. They were as representative of the city as it was of them--and
nothing more than a bunch of schmoes in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the terrorism portrayed wasn't a stand-in for world tension, it was
just four mercenaries who want some cash. These people could have been
anyone, but because of their situation, we were watching them. Brilliantly,
Shire's score was ostensibly about New York in the 1970's, which encompasses
this story and a lot of other things. The music was as much about them
as individuals as it is about them as a sample group. That was dramatically
perfect for this telling because it completely erased the tendency to immortalize
or mythologize these characters. Musically, Shire's approach also allowed
him to really broaden his horizons. When freed from the limiting world
of these characters' immediate situations, he was able to make expansive
musical statements without altering the story. If his score had been solely
about the situations at hand, he would have been relegated to the tiniest
of musical devices. Can you imagine some sort of wild action cue for the
shoot-out in the tunnel? How about a Garber (Walter Matthau) hero theme?
That would possibly have been the quickest way to reduce the story to parody.
But by playing up the sass and funk of New York City, Shire could make
big statements without coloring the story. I think we can all appreciate
the incredible musicality in Shire's decision to blend popular and atonal
music, the amazing skill with which he assembled it all, and the technicalities
of making his music heard in the film at all. But, how often do we consider
his remarkable insight on what this great music should be about?
Perhaps the makers of the new Pelham should have considered this,
since they fall prey to the exact problem Shire avoided. I don't know how
much of the blame can fall on Stewart Copeland in this case. It's obvious
that the makers of this movie wanted to turn in another non-mythologized
film a la the original, but they made themistake of requiring the music
to be about everything explicit in the movie--exactly the opposite of Shire's/Sargent's
approach. And in 1990 musical terms that means ticky little synth licks.
Why? Well, it's not too hard to see. Writing like this does very little
other than propel. As someone once told me, directors love using rhythm
and percussion in films because it can create momentum without saying anything
in specific. It doesn't casually make any sort of "happy" or
"sad" statements, it just shoves forward. Copeland's Pelham
score does exactly this. Its drones create a kind of discord without
saying anything about that discord. Its loops tell us that measured time
has somehow become more noticeable or more important to the characters.
What it doesn't do however, is tell us anything that the film isn't already
saying. I know I'm always complaining about scores that are strictly redundant
of other filmic elements, but this takes it to the extreme to the point
where I'm not sure we should even classify it as a musical device. In truth,
sound effects could accomplish the exact same thing. It's been done in
films like Alien (the heartbeat near the end) and The Birds (Herrmann's
bird noises). The makers of the new Pelham could have accomplished almost
everything the music did by using well placed and paced train sounds, or
traffic noises, or CB chatter. It's really hard to fault Copeland for turning
in an unremarkable score when he was apparently asked to write music for
a non-musical purpose.
Pelham's problems are very much across the board in television music.
I think TV, in order to content itself as the antithesis of feature movies,
has really embraced this non-mythologized approach to drama. Popular shows
like ER, The X-Files, and NYPD Blue all seek to tell individual,
non-representational stories by using textural, non-expressive music. Obviously,
this can be done, but I think there needs to be a lot more thought put
in to what the music can be about. Does the music in ER really need
to be about this handful of doctors performing the specific procedures
they perform each week? If that's all the music is supposed to be doing,
does that show really need music at all? Are these story elements lacking
without some sort of musical enhancement, or is music just included since
it's some sort of production norm? (Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if
music is used in the operation scene specifically to remind us we're watching
a constructed medium and take the edge off of things. I'll bet the general
public wouldn't stomach un- scored surgery all that well.)
The only recent show which has broken out of the "be about nothing"
mold is Mark Snow's work on The X-Files. That show started out with
some really dull "chromatic strings in octaves over samples"
scoring, but has since graduated to some more interesting ideas. Snow often
finds a tangential plot-idea for his music, or at least provides a bit
of freak-of-the-week motivic usage. His scores have definitely moved past
a lot or ER-style scoring, inasmuch as they always have some point
of view. (Now if he would just stop quoting French composer Edgard Varese
without crediting him!)
Whether I like the results or not, I'm glad that TV music people are
trying to find other styles of music for their programs. I just wish they
would allow the pre-composition process to be similarly rethought.
Doug@filmscoremonthly.com
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