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Composed and Produced by:
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Clint Eastwood
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Orchestrated and Arranged by:
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Patrick Hollenbeck
Gennady Loktionov
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Conducted by:
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Lennie Niehaus
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Release Date:
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October 21st, 2003
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... only if you enjoyed the piano work and occasional orchestral
swells heard in the film.
Avoid it... if you prefer Clint Eastwood's acting and directing
abilities over his underdeveloped and uninteresting composing techniques.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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Mystic River: (Clint Eastwood) The 24th film for
Eastwood as a director, Mystic River marks the fourth time he has
served as a composer as well. He doesn't often direct movies in which
he does not also star, but Mystic River (along with 1997's underrated
Midnight in the Garden of Evil) is a notable exception. Dennis
Lehane's best-selling 2001 novel ''Mystic River'' has been best described as
a contemporary Shakespearean tragedy set on the mean streets of South
Boston. The friendship and gruesome bond that connects three boys and their
adulthood counterparts lands them in the middle of a tense murder mystery
when one of their daughters is murdered, another one of them is a suspect,
and a third is the cop investigating the crime. The film has been hailed as
one of the best dramas of 2003, and is likely to serve Eastwood his best
chance in the awards season since Unforgiven ten years earlier. While
leaving the bulk of the film's workload for the six or seven primary actors
to carry, Eastwood takes on much of the rest of the production duties
himself, including the composition of the score. For people who grew up
watching Eastwood kill without remorse on screen for all of those 1960's and
1970's Westerns and cop thrillers, the idea of him composing a serious,
dramatic score for a major motion picture is perhaps frightening. His music
for Space Cowboys, Absolute Power, and The Bridges of
Madison County wasn't widely recognized for its quality (or even its
effectiveness), and Eastwood has often relied upon Lennie Niehaus and others
to flesh out ideas that he had for the scores to his own films. While he
technically takes solo credit for the composing duties for Mystic
River, he once again employs the assistance of his friends to assist in
adapting, orchestrating, arranging, and conducting the score. Interestingly,
while the film only took 39 days to shoot in 2002, the score itself was four
months in the making for Eastwood.
Eastwood's choice for the recording ensemble was the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, of course, since he seemed preoccupied with keeping the
entire project rooted in the Boston area. The score that he composed on
piano back in Carmel, California, is not the rock or pop variety that you
would expect from an unseasoned composer. Eastwood did seem to have a
distinct orchestral sound in mind when shooting the picture, and that sound
includes a chorus to back the weighty orchestral performances.
Unfortunately, when you attempt to analyze the music apart from the picture,
the simplicity of the music detracts from its listenability. The mood is
right, and in the film, the music probably suffices for any viewer. But the
substance just isn't there, and the amateurish construction of score can be
no better summed up than in the lengthy sequences of one extended whole by
the orchestra. Moments of terror and fright in the score are badly
underplayed. The passages for the entire ensemble are pleasant and
harmonious, but they lack counterpoint, decent orchestration, and true
direction. Eastwood's themes seem to work considerably better when performed
by a solo piano, as is the case for several cues in Mystic River. A
decent piano player himself, Eastwood's piano compositions have appeared
effectively in films before, and they set an adequate style of anguish and
loss for the characters in this film as well. But when the full ensemble is
engaged, the score suffers from its own drawn-out melodrama. The strings
carry very slow themes and are accompanied by the piano and the occasional
woodwind. It's difficult to say the following remark, because it is an
insult to any artist, but the score for Mystic River sounds like the
work of a college student... a composer in need of five to ten more years of
experience before being able to write a dramatically effective score. At
times, the simplicity of Mystic River is forgotten, but this only
happens when the chorus adds a spiritual element of grandeur to the
equation. Otherwise, on album, the score is uninteresting and
underdeveloped, alternating between frustratingly simple orchestral cues and
the more sustainable piano solos. Two source cues by Eastwood's son Kyle (a
well known musician in the New York jazz community) are out of place, but
complete the musical representation of the film. Overall, it's a piece to
enjoy in the context of the film. **
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Mystic River Main Title (1:55)
• 2. Abduction (2:39)
• 3. Communion/Katie's Absence (2:05)
• 4. Jimmy's Anguish (3:11)
• 5. Meditation #1 Piano (2:16)
• 6. Orchestral Variation #1 of the Music from Mystic River (7:36)
• 7. Escape from the Wolves (1:33)
• 8. The Morgue (2:04)
• 9. Brendan's Love of Katie (1:32)
• 10. Meditation #2 Piano (2:20)
• 11. Dave's Past (2:01)
• 12. The Confrontation (7:12)
• 13. The Resolution (3:16)
• 14. A Full Heart (2:55)
• 15. Meditation #3 Piano (3:38)
• 16. Orchestral Variation #2 of the Music from Mystic River (3:28)
• 17. Theme from Mystic River (5:04)
• 18. Cosmo - composed by Kyle Eastwood (5:30)
• 19. Black Emerald Blues - composed by Kyle Eastwood (2:01)
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The insert includes a note from the film's music supervisor about the score and film.
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