Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek Danny Elfman's most accomplished and violent horror score, complete with truly haunting choral layers and a superbly recorded and mixed series of mostly harmonic orchestral romps. Avoid it... if you expect this return to the realm of gothic darkness to exude the same personality and spirit in the fantasy genre as Elfman's early classics. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Sleepy Hollow: (Danny Elfman) There were several uneasy aspects of Tim Burton's 1999 adaptation of Washington Irving's story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and not all of them involved the headless horseman. The production will always be remembered for its remarkable design, both visual and auditory, a trademark of a truly fine Burton film. But Sleepy Hollow suffered from stale acting performances (despite several notable cameos) that attempted to infuse life into a truly underachieving expansion of the short story for the purposes of filling a feature length picture. The lack of a strong narrative may have been one of the reasons why the film failed to debut for Paramount in time for Halloween in 1999, instead languishing against the winter blockbusters of late November. For the film music community, the hype and anticipation involving Sleepy Hollow over the previous year was tangible enough to knock a person's head off by itself. Not only had there been the issue of a strained professional relationship between Elfman and Burton a few years prior, but the composer had also abandoned his massively gothic fantasy scores from early in his career in favor of a stretch of more minimalistic or comedic entries in the middle and late 1990's. Many of the delicious details of Elfman's early writing had been deemed lost, and nostalgic fans yearning for another taste of Elfman's grand, thematically overflowing style from the start of the 1990's were watering at the mouth at the opportunities that Sleepy Hollow presented the composer. There were arguments about whether Elfman's growing maturity in the art, as heard in A Simple Plan and A Civil Action, made it highly unlikely that Elfman would ever be inclined to produce another tragic score in the mold of Edward Scissorhands or Sommersby. He had, simply put, moved on. What Sleepy Hollow proved, however, was that the composer was able to reach back into that rich well when necessary. The most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about Sleepy Hollow (and this remains true many years later) is that anyone expecting a return to the straight fantasy genre could be disappointed by the fact that it is, primarily, a horror score. There are still fantasy elements within the plot, but while the concept of tragedy carries over from Elfman's famed period of early production, Sleepy Hollow is far more excessively violent and brutal. Rather than looking at this score as an extension of Elfman's more melodically accessible scores, it should be viewed as a maturation of the ideas heard in Nightbreed and, to a lesser extent, The Frighteners. One notable difference between those scores and this one, however, is the incredible depth of the recording. The performances and mix of the orchestra and two choirs in England are more dynamic for Sleepy Hollow than in perhaps any other Elfman score. Some of the raw and undeveloped ideas that Elfman flirted with in Nightbreed are applied to a much more substantial group of players and singers, giving the style a level of intensity that never existed before (and arguably not since) in Elfman's career. The sound of the ensemble is remarkably similar to that of John Debney's concurrent End of Days (aided by a coincidental overlap of the opening four notes of the primary themes), largely due to the employment of raw orchestral might as well as a merging of boy soprano tones and a menacingly deep male chorus. Thematically, Elfman follows his standard structure of introducing his title theme in an overture format and building it to a massive crescendo. This theme, like Debney's, has slightly religious undertones, but here they relate more closely to the mystery of witchcraft rather than the traditional establishment. Elfman is extremely loyal to this theme throughout the work, adapting it well for scenes of Ichabod Crane's youth and character development. The versatility of the title theme extends from the explosions of horror foreshadowed in the two opening cues and realized in the climactic confrontations to the romantic tones that attempt to inject some warmth into otherwise ice cold interactions between Ichabod and Katrina Van Tassel. The use of layered boy soprano voices in "Young Ichabod," "Sweet Dreams," and "More Dreams" are intriguingly connected to the romance in "The Gift," "Tender Moment," and "Love Lost" and offer the score a much-needed sense of rounded, three-dimensional development that the action and horror cues alone cannot sustain. One of the more curious sub-themes in Sleepy Hollow is a romantic string interlude directly in the middle of the "Main Titles" (after the primary horror motif is explored); despite some general harmonic hints in places, this theme is not really adapted for either of the situations involving Crane's youth or his love interest in Katrina, and only in the suite of the themes during the end credits does an abbreviated form of this idea arise once again. Still, the impressive extent to which Elfman restates and manipulates the title theme is the glue with which Sleepy Hollow is held together. This is an important point, for despite the score's immense technical strengths, it lacks a distinctive direction and, outside of its brute force, a transcendent personality. From Batman to A Simple Plan previously, from the most grandiose to the most sparse, Elfman scores had conveyed a clear spirit. One of the obvious exceptions was The Frighteners, and the most significant weakness of Sleepy Hollow is the score's tendency, like the earlier work, to stir up a mess of noise that never goes anywhere. There difference here, however, is that the Sleepy Hollow is so well orchestrated and mixed that some of that lack of personality, especially in the latter half, can be forgiven. Related to this one weakness of the score is the occasional inadequacy of its fantasy appeal. Though thematically functional and energetically verbose, Sleepy Hollow loses some of the "wonder" factor in its brutal second half. Much of the bewildering enchantment that sprouted in the first half of the score was due to Elfman's elegant mixing of the various shades of the voices together, culminating in such truly haunting moments as in "Into the Woods," which uses an especially wet mix of the sopranos to set a perfect atmosphere. For Elfman veterans, some of this lack of identity in the latter half of Sleepy Hollow will be compensated for by a style of instrumentation that reminds of Black Beauty in its flowing viola solos and Batman Returns in its creepy, low woodwinds. The romping action material is complete with harsh, pulsating brass, floating and whiny strings, ripping snare, and the always-gothic pipe organ. Some of the exciting rhythms will exhaust you with their length. By "The Chase" and "The Final Confrontation," however, Elfman resorts to flashy orchestral strikes without the thoughtful spirit of the score's opening introductions. The light finale and, to an extent, the pounding end credits, try to recapture that sense of magic. Overall, even though Sleepy Hollow was not the monumental return to raw, early fantasy form for Elfman, it offers a violent contrast to the minimalistic scores penned by the composer through the late 1990's and well beyond. Its rich texture and resounding sound quality make it the best, quality horror score in Elfman's career. A generous 68-minute album from Hollywood Records is all an avid Elfman collector will require from the work. Its less than spectacular personality and overbearing darkness, however, keep it from being the kind of album worth cutting off someone's head in order to obtain. **** Track Listings:
Total Time: 68:02
All artwork and sound clips from Sleepy Hollow are Copyright © 1999, Hollywood Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/29/99, updated 5/28/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1999-2005, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
