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The Green Mile: (Thomas Newman) You can't blame
director Frank Darabont for trying to pull magical water from the same
well in consecutive films, but many aspects of his 1999 film
The
Green Mile suffer because of their relative similarities to
The
Shawshank Redemption. Darabont's only two films at the time, both
entries are adaptations of Stephen King stories that take place in
prisons. Both rely on individual acting performances and dark shades of
gray. And both also pull the strings in Thomas Newman's ensemble to
provide the emotional core of the film. The Newman score for
The
Shawshank Redemption is a work that ranges from strong to
outstanding, a nearly perfect fit for its picture in most places. When
you watch and listen to
The Green Mile, however, you get the
feeling of deja vu, and you also get a sense that Newman couldn't quite
translate his hopeful, regenerative score for the previous film into a
sacrificial religious setting this time around. In
The Green
Mile, a massive black man falsely convicted and sentenced to die for
killing two girls transforms his fellow prison inmates and warden
through a supernatural power of healing. An allegory for the life of
Jesus Christ, the story leads an exploration of character and faith to
the inevitable, sorrowful conclusion. Newman was often presented with
scoring assignments that allow him some kind of redemptive or triumphant
statement of theme in his better known works of the 1990's, including
The Shawshank Redemption,
Meet Joe Black, and
Little
Women. But Newman was never known for his memorable development of
themes, and this tendency becomes a significant flaw in
The Green
Mile. This is a score that has all the makings of a great Newman
effort, but it never really completes its own journey. The side of his
talent that is engaged at full steam in
The Green Mile is his
ability to recreate the sounds of a local setting --especially in the
American South-- with remarkable ease. His touch for capturing the
essence of a setting is perhaps his strongest talent, and the employment
of that ability will save the score for some listeners.
The most spirited parts of
The Green Mile will
remind you of the enjoyable flavor heard in
Fried Green Tomatoes,
with Newman pulling out all of his usual specialty instruments to
provide a convincing texture. And yet, for a film that has been
criticized for trying too hard, Newman's score for
The Green
Mile, in relation to his work for
The Shawshank Redemption,
might make you deduce the Newman was not trying hard enough this time.
With the mass of percussion and use of genre songs, Newman does his
expected superb job of capturing the area of the film's setting once
again. But beyond these elements, the score for
The Green Mile
lacks that which elevated
Fried Green Tomatoes: spirit. There
simply is no identifiable musical soul for either of the film's main
characters, which is awkward considering the highly personal nature of
the story. Perhaps Newman's non-thematic writing style contributes to
the absence of personality in this music. Or perhaps the missing link
exists because of an album that plays far too long without any coherent
center to hold the music in place. Like the score in its entirety, the
final title track simply slows to a halt, without memorable theme or
announcement, fading into nothingness. In the end, the lack of genuine
spirit leaves the score as merely an average listening experience.
Individual parts of the score are worth mentioning, including the
typical plucked string rhythms from Newman for the mouse. Two action
cues are highlighted by the ambitiously brutal snare and brass rhythm in
"The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix." As with other Newman albums, period
songs break up the continuity of his work, and the insertion of
"Charmaine" near the emotional climax of the score, what little of it
there is, is extremely unfortunate. Other songs, such as those performed
by Fred Astaire and Billie Holliday, are vital to the film and are
better placed earlier in the album. Overall, there is nothing
awe-inspiring about
The Green Mile, and little in its meandering
and unsure pacing for 75 minutes will compete with Newman's more famous
efforts.
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| Bias Check: | For Thomas Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.14 (in 28 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.13
(in 53,317 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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