 |
|
| Shearmur |
|
|
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: (Edward
Shearmur) Originally titled
The World of Tomorrow and scheduled for
an early summer, 2004 release, this comic book-style action flick dashes
into theatres several months and several thousand CGI-effects later. Named
appropriately after the motto of the 1939 World Fair in New York City, the
film takes the style of an old serial and uses every modern technological
method of movie-making to glorify it for a new generation.
Sky Captain
and the World of Tomorrow makes no attempt to step out of the
shiny-silver and imaginative assumptions that visionaries of the 1930's
thought the future of the world would be like, although the characters are
symbolic of the black and white notions of good and evil that ensure that
appeal of the film is rooted in spectacle rather than novel concepts. The
handsome Sky Captain and the beautiful city newspaper reporter team up with
iconic secondary characters on their journey around the world in search of
the evil Dr. Totenkopf, who wants to use his technological genius to cause
planetary death and destruction. From the swarms of flying robots to the
digitization of Laurence Olivier as the villain,
Sky Captain and the
World of Tomorrow is the purest and most innocent form of comic book eye
candy. From a filmmaking standpoint, this project stands out because it is
the first film to be shot entirely in a studio against a blue screen, with
all backgrounds and other larger cinematic shots rendered by computers. When
newcomer director and screenwriter Kerry Conran hired composer Edward
Shearmur to provide the music for the film, it's easy to hear in the finale
product that Conran was not interested in rooting any aspect of the
production in reality. Instead, Shearmur was sent on an expedition to the
heights of unabashed 1930's adventure as well, dispatched with a license to
shake walls through an adaptation of scores like
The Rocketeer and
soar to even more patriotic and heroic extremes.
The stylistic similarities to previous music of the modern era by John Williams, James Horner, and Michael Giacchino is obvious, with these inspirations causing both the strengths and weaknesses of the final Shearmur work. With the pace, instrumentation, and themes of
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow remaining so consistent in their swagger and enthusiasm, these inspirations become blindingly obvious by the latter half of the score. Shearmur engages listeners with unrestricted heroism, fanfares and nobility without a single note of caution, and optimistic parades of harmonic sound with little deviation from the consistently passionate tempos. Technically, the structure of the music is very similar to early Williams heroics, and more recently follows the familiar lines of Horner's
The Rocketeer and Michael Giacchino's first
Medal of Honor video game music. The percussion section earns its pay, with snares maintaining the constant tempo, crashing cymbals gracing every measure, and the clanging of metal highlighting the faux-futuristic atmosphere. Layers of brass follow textbook Williams methodology, with parts of the
Jurassic Park scores even heard in secondary passages of the title theme. The pulsating build-up of steam for that title theme is a blatant adaptation of the anticipation that precedes the
Superman themes. The swaying, romantic strings, while restricted often to a more auxiliary role, serve up the same longing love-theme passages in the latter half of the score that we've heard in Horner's interpretation of 1930's innocence. While occasionally performing a few bars of thematic material in between full ensemble blasts, the woodwinds would be easy to completely miss due to the sheer magnitude of sound in
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That last fact is both a strength and weakness of Shearmur's score; the music never takes a breath. Even in its reflective passages, the listener never has more than one minute of "downtime" from the relentless presentation of bombast before the next action motif begins. The output is both impressive and admirable in its clear direction.
But listeners who may have been weary of Giacchino's extremely loyal adaptation of John Willaims' styles in
Medal of Honor may have similar difficulties with
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In short, such listeners could very well claim to have "heard all of this before" and have a legitimate argument. Shearmur's employment of chorus and electronics are sparse in
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and perhaps had he chosen to employ them --or perhaps more varied instrumentation-- the less uniform score would be able to better entertain even the more cynical film music collector. Unlike similarly optimistic scores that change tempo often enough to create a diverse listening experience (
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was such an example from last year),
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow does not make much attempt to paint itself in a more three-dimensional fashion through those non-orchestral elements. And when Shearmur does employ the electronics, such as the background pace-setter in "Flying Lizard," they sound misplaced. Even with that said, Shearmur surely accomplished more than what the film probably needed, accentuating the fairy-tale with a more than sufficient blend of comic heroism and fantasy romanticism. There's even a touch of "When You Wish Upon a Star" manipulated into "h-770-d" (whether intentionally or not). The adaptation of "Over the Rainbow" for the end credits is an interesting and effective extension of the era, and while its performance may not be as spectacular as the score, its purpose is well served. Whether or not you can enjoy Shearmur's work for
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow depends completely on how able you are to suspend your memories of past high-flying adventure scores and immerse yourself in this particular fantasy world. If all you hear are the scores that inspired Shearmur for this writing --or if the constantly elevated volume from start to end induces a headache-- then this score could make for one extremely tedious hour. But no matter that opinion, you have to appreciate Shearmur's pinpoint accuracy for the sub-genre, and the fun with which he has produced this outpouring of theme.
****
* composed by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film. The album is dedicated to the late composer
Michael Kamen, under whom Shearmur worked and studied.
