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Composed, Co-Orchestrated, Conducted, and Co-Produced by:
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Gabriel Yared
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Co-Orchestrated by:
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John Bell
Nick Ingram
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Co-Produced by:
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Jean-Pierre Arquié
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Release Date:
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November 18th, 2003
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Availability:
Regular U.S. release.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you enjoy Gabriel Yared's consistently pleasant,
harmonious underscores for moderate orchestral ensembles and solo piano.
Avoid it... if you don't want a dreary piece of music for a dreary
movie about a dreary character.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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Sylvia: (Gabriel Yared) One really has to wonder why
films like this get made, especially when every educated person entering the
theatre knows that they will be disturbed and saddened when leaving it. The
film is a true, biographical depiction of the marriage between American
poet/novelist Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and English poet Ted Hughes
(Daniel Craig). Anyone knowledgeable about this most famous literary pairing
of the 20th Century is familiar with the glorious beginning to their
partnership as well as their unceremonious end. In short, after a
passionate, but rocky marriage, Hughes leaves Plath (who was quite neurotic
to begin with) for another woman, and Plath successfully kills herself by
sticking her head in a gas oven, leaving her brilliant writings and two
children behind. Hughes would live another 35 years after the 1963 suicide
of Plath, and would largely be blamed for her death over the course of his
own successful writing career. The film stays true to the glum truths of
Plath and Hughes' co-existence between 1956 and 1963, painfully drawing out
the psychological ecstasy and devastation with lengthy sequences without
dialogue. Critics have hailed the film's attention to the topic (a film
about Plath and Hughes was likely inevitable), but the inherently dreary
nature of the story, with no redeeming grace, have caused mixed reactions to
the overall project. The intention of the film was likely to build upon the
dramatic success of The Hours the previous year, in which another
famous female author takes her life. And when considering a composer for
Sylvia, it would be safe to say that either Philip Glass or Gabriel
Yared could provide a sufficiently classical score for the emotionally
distraught illustrations. The difference between Glass and Yared, though, is
that Yared seems better equipped to convey the simple emotions of the
passionate side of the story without being inclined to experiment with
classically complex ideas.
Along similar lines, Gabriel Yared composed the Academy
Award-winning score for The English Patient several years prior to
Sylvia. Both scores exhibit a morbid sense of drama, skillfully
extending the inevitable personal destruction playing out on screen. The
music for Sylvia, however, doesn't feature the same broad scope of
orchestral depth, and stays close to the characters through the use of a
collection of personal, solo performances set over pleasant, though
underdeveloped orchestral backing. Among the soloists featured are
performers on cello, oboe, clarinet, cor anglais, and Yared himself on the
piano. Typically, these performers operate with simple themes and motifs
that contain meandering chord progressions of harmonious, but generally
uninteresting progression. The 1950's era does come to life in the same
stark, realistic way that Elmer Bernstein was able to generate in Far
from Heaven last year as well. This page taken from simpler days grows
ominous in the "Seeds of Doubt" cue and intensifies through "Fire" with
heavily quivering and screeching strings. Yared doesn't follow that
predictable of a path with Sylvia, though, because as Plath is
preparing and succeeding in killing herself, the score regresses back to
just a solo piano. The attitude throughout the score is perhaps a touch
noble, but the most surprising aspect of Sylvia is Yared's choice
(perhaps directed to him) to keep the highs and lows of the film's emotions
absent from the score. The overall affect of the score is one of a
consistently dapper mood, and while the more frightening emotional moments
do feature some intense string work, the more passionate side of the story
(in the first half of the score) seems somewhat lost. The "First Meeting" is
especially lacking in romantic spark. Thus, the score becomes a dreary piece
of music for a dreary movie about a dreary character. As a 45-minute
listening experience, it ranks about average in Yared's collection of works,
but if you're at all familiar with the horrific display of human failures in
the story, then the album for Sylvia could be just as depressing as
the film itself. ***
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Opening (2:26)
• 2. First Meeting (1:23)
• 3. Making Love (2:17)
• 4. The Cows (3:04)
• 5. The Scar (2:42)
• 6. The Marriage (1:16)
• 7. The Beach (3:33)
• 8. Seeds of Doubt (1:54)
• 9. Don't Ever Leave Me (2:04)
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• 10. Devon (3:48)
• 11. Fire (4:45)
• 12. Empty Streets (3:06)
• 13. Lonely Christmas (1:05)
• 14. Last Love (1:36)
• 15. Romance (2:36)
• 16. Beethoven (1:28)
• 17. A Beautiful Dream (3:45)
• 18. Dying (3:10)
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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