Buy it... if you love Danny Elfman's distinct, established instrumental and rhythmic styles, because Milk is largely an extension of that sound into a slightly more dramatic realm.

Avoid it... if the likeable personality that Elfman maintains throughout that style cannot alone yield the kind of melodramatic weight you're expecting to hear for a topic involving so much controversy and sacrifice.

Elfman

Milk: (Danny Elfman) Though few who lived outside of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970's will recognize the name Harvey Milk, his legacy continued to shape California politics for decades. It's truly a shame to imagine that the people of California, after slowly becoming comfortable with the application of complete civil rights to homosexuals through the years, could vote in 2008 to ban gay marriage (with some high profile assistance from the Mormons, of course), for that action diminishes some of the achievements of Milk and those he inspired. Director Gus Van Sant's bio-picture about the openly homosexual Milk and his pursuit of elected office in San Francisco will likely turn away viewers with bigoted roots, but that hasn't stopped Milk from receiving considerable critical praise and understandable Oscar buzz. To his great credit, Van Sant achieves a docudrama that humanizes the title character without glorifying his persona or making him into a martyr because of his assassination. As usual, Van Sant's handling of music in the picture is unconventional. Like the visuals, which often switch between archival footage and fictional material without attempting to hide the transitions, the music shifts radically at several points in the film as well. The director inserted a variety of vintage 1970's rock pieces and juxtaposed them with several well known works from the classical genre, often in sudden changes between the two. Composer Danny Elfman was Van Sant's regular collaborator in the late 1990's before the director worked on a series of extremely personal films that did not (or could not) utilize Elfman's services, though the pairing continues with success in Milk. The composer experienced a very busy year of writing in 2008, completing five feature film scores as well as material for a ballet (among other small projects). Elfman, though his non-profit political action group work against American vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008, exposed his liberal ideologies to an even wider group of his film music collectors, some of whom might roll their eyes at his involvement in a picture like Milk.

Far more important than that coincidental background, however, is the fact that the movie gave Elfman the opportunity to stretch his wings in the category of wholesome drama, a genre that has largely eluded him over the years. He considered the assignment a great challenge, though he triumphs in providing the title character with a purely positive musical identity. While Elfman battled with the right tone for the picture's message, at least he didn't have to compete with Van Sant's chosen source material. Elfman knew the boundaries of the score from the start of his involvement and was not asked to form any sort of bridge between the source pieces and his own material. After much consideration, Elfman decided to center the score around one idea he termed the "purposeful theme" and applied that dramatic string writing to Milk's ascension and, primarily, to the climactic scene in "Give 'Em Hope." He tackled this cue first when writing his score, spinning off the remainder of the material after hitting the right motivational, though still slightly bittersweet vibe for that scene. Variations on this idea are heard in the "Harvey's Theme" cues, and this music is, undoubtedly, the most wholesome string and woodwind material to come from Elfman in a long time, raising memories of even Alan Silvestri's more optimistic, personal themes. The actual progressions of this theme (or any of the other repeating phrases in the score, which are, by Elfman's admission, relatively few) aren't blatantly obvious or even particularly memorable. But it's the tone of the performance that matters, and this is where Elfman succeeds. The trio of cues from "Harvey's Last Day" to "Postscript" offer some of Elfman's most pastoral, peaceful, and yet inspiring material to date, all without bursting with a fully orchestral explosion of melodrama that could have turned Milk into a caricature. The most interesting aspect of Milk is Elfman's ability to explore new genres while still maintaining staples of his own distinct styles. This was evident to an extent in Standard Operating Procedure but is quite obvious in Milk.

	Only $9.99

This score is, from start to finish, saturated with Elfman's usual instrumental and rhythmic tendencies. From the small chopping sets of strings to the slight electric bass tones and the innocent boy's choir, Milk is, in each of its cues, always reminiscent of Elfman's larger body of works. This comment is both the score's greatest strength and potentially its fatal weakness for some listeners. The snappy "Anita's Theme," which Elfman thankfully only employed once in the score, is a bizarre combination of material so blatantly pulled from the pages of Edward Scissorhands and (more so) To Die For that it really leaves you scratching your head. Comedic interludes like "Dog Poo" are likewise awkward shifts back to Elfman's more creatively funny side, and this material somewhat diminishes the scope of importance otherwise existing in cues like the immediately subsequent "Vote Passes," which translates the main theme into solemn solo trumpet. On the whole, there is much to admire about Elfman's work for Milk; it is a satisfying conclusion to a very strong year for the composer. But while he hits all the right notes in terms of balancing personality with history, there is an intangible sense of weight missing from this score. Elfman sacrifices gravity for intimacy, partly in the composition and partly in his close recording mix of the performance. In its album presentation, the score is typically heard through soloists in close proximity, sometimes restrained to a single piano. This technique assists noir elements like that piano and a saxophone, among others, to shine, but it also eliminates the score's opportunity to transcend to a level of greatness to which some still consider for Milk. The album thankfully consolidates over 35 minutes of Elfman's material to a section following six songs heard in the film. Don't be surprised if you see this score receive ample consideration during the awards season, especially considering the studio's push in the major awards categories, but while it offers a refreshingly dramatic twist on Elfman's usual style, it also fails to really make a statement that lasts beyond the confines of its running time. ***   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.18 (in 61 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.17 (in 115,373 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.