CD Reviews: Hulk, L'Idole and Good News
Hulk *** 1/2
DANNY ELFMAN
Decca 80000633-02
19 tracks - 63:50
So, which nefarious specter of the past are we forcing Danny Elfman
to face off against this time? Is he composing music for classic, iconic
characters with a luggage rack full of preexisting baggage? Is he working
in a genre in which he's already staked a sizeable claim, competing with
his own prior success? I think Elfman deserves some sort of award for tolerating
his own frequently malcontented fan-base. At the very least he should be
recognized for time and time again stepping into a landmine field of project
choices and emerging fingers, toes and career intact. Hulk is Elfman's
fifth superhero film (sixth if you count TV's The Flash), and while
each effort has been an unmistakable Danny Elfman score in voice and attitude,
they've each existed as separate creative entities courtesy of Elfman's
cumulatively expanding technique. Batman established his rhythmically
driving symphonic palette strewn with arpeggiated figures and dark, introspective
orchestrations. Darkman complicated that sound, thickening the counterpoint
and further emphasizing orchestral details within the greater ensemble.
Spider-man's web of percussive and synth effects gave birth to a
more contemporary sound, merging world music and techno tones with the
sound of the symphony hall.
Hulk comes across as a feisty amalgam of action tropes, Bollywood
musical, dance hall and concert hall. Elfman's tactile sense of instrumentation
remains, but the added touches such as harmonic singing, Middle-Eastern
vocalizing (a hold-over element from Mychael Danna's work on the film),
the Armenian duduk (a double reed instrument that sounds roughly like an
alto clarinet crossed with an ocarina), stroked piano wires, bowed vibraphones
and a dusting of pop-styled syncopations, and the score begins to feel
like an elaborate international ballet. In fact the most obviously Hulk-esque
ideas -- pounding plus-sized drums, raging low brass clusters and Hulk-Smash-stings
of dissonance -- are all but absent. The writing never lacks size, scale
or impact, but the outbursts are absorbed into a more graceful narrative
flow. There's less onomatopoeic Mickey Mousing in Hulk than in any
of Elfman's prior superhero work.
As Elfman has depended more and more on ensemble color and style as
his score's unifying components, melody has receded into the background.
This lends the writing an air of sophistication and maturity and effectively
ups the ante on dramatic complexity. Forward looking listeners should find
Elfman's adjusted priorities to be an extension of his creative development,
but those expecting a prominent Hulk tune may find themselves let down.
Elfman works with two primary blocks of thematic material. The first, a
sequence of six descending close-voiced chords, acts as the primary motive
and is bounced throughout the orchestra, sometimes as spindly, chilly woodwinds,
sometimes in a broader, more penetrating brass voice. The second is a mournfully
tender rising line often heard in the duduk and soprano -- a second cousin
of the legend theme from Burton's Planet of the Apes -- with subtler,
but no less effective, variations.
Like the film, the score slides between extended stretches of introspective
stillness and protracted action sequences, so the album lacks the clearly
linear dramatic build of a Batman or more recently a Sleepy Hollow.
Elfman's emphasis on exotic colors plays well to the unique architectural
form. It's a total immersion of sonic colors rather than a pointed journey
to a single cluster of events, but by necessity a few moments are a bit
ungainly. There are just enough dramatic bumps to make the CD manageable
in a single listen, but you'll leave the table pretty stuffed. --
Doug Adams
L'Idole ****
GABRIEL YARED
East West France 5050466-2332-2-6
16 tracks - 43:04
I challenge anyone not to be transported away to a state of aural nirvana
within the first few seconds of Gabriel Yared's contagious ethereal score
to L'Idole. Whether it's the gentle music box tinkling, the oriental
instrumentation or Coralie Clèment's lullaby vocals, it's an abundance
of riches.
Favorable comparisons will inevitably be made with Yared's L'Amant
(The Lover) due to the use of ethnic instruments, but this time
the Eastern instruments are not used to place the movie in China, but rather
to define the character of the lead male. "Zao At His Window" is a particularly
effective track, composed for erhu and Zheng (Chinese zither). Although
the movie is set in France, it centers around the friendship between Australian
actress Leelee Sobieski and her elderly Chinese neighbor Zao (James Hong).
Caught at his window, Zao still recalls his heritage and a lost past, evoking
the sounds of his father land.
The score is structured primarily around three themes: the main title/
Zao melody, a piano-driven idea for Sarah, and one for the drama related
to letters and correspondence. While these themes are repeated across the
album, they are reprised in different variations, from Chinese instruments
to piano to orchestra. This doesn't show a lack of range, but rather the
degree of invention that comes out of working within the constraints of
simple, constant themes.
Apart from two period cues by Django Reinhardt, the disc is solely comprised
of Yared compositions, though he's joined on three tracks by the already
mentioned Clèment. Her style is reminiscent of Jane Birkin or Francoise
Hardy -- imagine Euro-lounge Morricone/Edda Dell'Orso circa 1970. "Le Rive
de Sarah" and "Dorenevant" are sung in French, but thanks to a translation
in "Lullaby" we get to hear the artiste in English.
That simple main theme will haunt you for days, but you'll be grateful
for it. For classical European melodies, Yared continues to lead the field.
-- Nick Joy
Good News ****
DESYLBA, BROWN AND HENDERSON; COMDEN AND GREEN
Turner Classic Movies Music/Rhino Handmade
20 tracks - 62:23
"There are three greatest pictures of all time," screenwriter Betty
Comden once quipped, "The Birth Of A Nation, Potemkin and Good
News!" What's more, M-G-M's buoyant 1947 musical has the most cheerful
soundtrack of them all. By the time June Allyson and Peter Lawford starred
in director Charles Walters' spry directorial debut, Good News had
already slogged through several innings as a 1927 Broadway triumph and
a 1930 film version featuring Bessie Love. It would be Metro's more contemporary
outing (scripted by Comden and collaborator Adolph Green) that would truly
stand the test of time, however.
The barely-there plot of Good News concerns itself with whether
comely coed Connie Lane (Allyson) can tutor Tait College's Tommy Marlowe
(Lawford) so that he can pass his French exam and lead his alma mater on
to victorious gridiron glory. Slight situations aside, it's the enduring
score by B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson that has assured Good
News a place in the musical-comedy hall of fame.
The thorough-going folks at Turner Classic Movies Music and Rhino Handmade
are trumpeting this Internet exclusive release as the first complete presentation
of the score. Both M-G-M Records and MCA Records issued earlier incarnations
of the soundtrack that dispensed with most of the songs and carelessly
edited those selections that remained (in fact, the 1986 MCA edition offered
only eight tracks on one side of an album that also included ditties from
In The Good Old Summertime.)
Intact at last, the freewheeling score can now be completely appreciated
as a sincere valentine to a bygone era when sorority sisters played Mah
Jong, danced the Charleston and used phrases like "banana oil." The rousing
Main Title music is followed by "Be A Ladie's Man," which is hampered somewhat
by Lawford's faltering, raspy delivery. The deleted "An Easier Way" showcases
Allyson's "million dollar laryngitis" but the tune is unmemorable and was
wisely excised from the release print. After listening to these specific
selections, one is tempted to wonder what Good News might have been
had Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra been cast as the leads rather than two
non-singers. It's possible that a pleasant, pastel-colored diversion could
have been elevated into the realm of bona fide musical classic if some
legitimate vocal chords had been involved.
All off-key transgressions are forgiven with "The French Lesson," a
now legendary sequence which is quintessential Comden and Green ("You call
this work? It's more like play! In no time flat, you'll parlez Francais!")
Lawford's tuneful tutorial is sophisticated and inventive in a way that
the vintage DeSylva-Brown-Henderson hits are not. That immortal anthem
of optimism, "The Best Things In Life Are Free," is June Allyson's shining
moment in the film and on this recording. Whatever Allyson may lack as
a technically proficient vocalist is more than compensated for with a genuinely
heartfelt and poignant performance. Broadway's Joan McCracken landed a
plum production number in the form of "Pass That Peace Pipe," a tongue
twisterish extravaganza that was originally intended for a segment in Ziegfeld
Follies (1946). The score is capped with the film's most famous number,
"The Varsity Drag," ("gets as much applause as wavin' the flag!") which
is still as infectiously exuberant and giddy as it was when Calvin Coolidge
was still in office. If you're in need of some sunny distraction from today's
ominous headlines, it may benefit you immeasurably to listen to some Good
News for a change. -- Mark Griffin
MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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