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White Oleander: (Thomas Newman) When Janet Fitch's best-selling
novel became one of Oprah's Book Club selections, you had the feeling that the sharp,
introspective drama would eventually make its way onto the big screen. The tale of a
troubled teen whose single mother is jailed,
White Oleander depicts a foster
child's nightmare, being passed between hideous potential mothers before finally
finding a comfortable place, ironically, with a foster father. The film is an exhibit
of female behavior at its strongest and weakest, best and worst, and it was salvaged
from the enormous pile of average, tear-jerking arthouse dramas by the strength of
its own A-list cast. It was also the directorial debut for British stage and
television director Peter Kosminsky, who decided to immediately jump on the popular
arthouse scoring bandwagon by pursuing composer Thomas Newman for a role in the
production. As a project requiring a modern, personal touch,
White Oleander
was a perfect match for Newman, who was known for scoring heavy, female-driven dramas
in a dynamic range from
Little Women to
Erin Brockovich. Fans of the
orchestral half of Newman's career had seen the composer switch from his mid-1990's
sensibilities back to the more experimental, synthesized sounds of his roots. It was
American Beauty and all of that film's success that brought Newman's often
wacky choice of instrumentation into this in-demand style for low budget productions.
From television commercials to temp track rip-offs, Newman managed to start a
three-year trend with this style of worldly minimalism, and it was exactly that kind
of sound that Kosminsky seemed to demand for
White Oleander. Newman was happy
to oblige, though the score represented a further shift toward ambient sound design
that had dominated the insufferably sparse
In the Bedroom just prior. Instead
of returning to the route of the more extroverted, rhythmic styles of
American
Beauty or
Erin Brockovich for contemporary lifestyles, Newman stays closer
to the more subtle, atmospheric scores for
Pay It Forward and
In the
Bedroom. The result is predictably underwhelming, despite whatever basic
functionality Newman does achieve with his restrained soundscape.
To accompany a few dozen string members of an orchestra, Newman
employs a piano, electric guitar, repeater, glass guitar, pick jam, copper box, pedal
steel guitar, granulated cello, stick fiddle, cavaquinho, saz, high metal, shiver
tables, struck bowls, pang glocken, ewi, clarinet, and double bass for
White
Oleander's score... not at all unusual for the composer during this period. The
result of their performances is surprisingly dull, producing an ambience that very
well could have sufficed had it utilized synthetic, sampled versions of the same
collection of instruments. Despite all of Newman's attempts to shape these items into
a distinctly new sound, he has created a score for
White Oleander that is even
more minimalistic than anything he had yet produced, reducing his music even further
from the realm of normal musical structures. Instead, listeners hear an artistic form
of sound design, music that functions as one massive sound effect and containing no
coherent theme, no memorable style, no small motif, and no defining factor that
elevates this score to any level of musical comprehension. From listening to this
music, you would get the impression that every character is contemplating suicide on
the screen at every moment, with a drab, dramatic cloud of dreamy atmosphere floating
aimlessly from start to end. The word "dreamy" is key here, because with this score
Newman had finally hit a point in his career where his music could be sold as a
sleep-inducing sound effect tool, much like the kinds of albums with recordings of
ocean waves and seagulls that repeat all night long and help you drift off to sleep
quickly and quietly. Put
White Oleander right on the shelves next to such
nature products. It isn't offensive in any way; in fact, Newman's own piano solos
have a very soothing quality to their slow progressions. Unlike
In the
Bedroom, it has no aggravating cues. And if you require an album to replace your
stolen bottle of sleeping pills, then this short score (on repeat) will serve the
same purpose. But as a film score,
White Oleander offers nothing to the field
of existing material by Newman or anyone else. Without any semblance of an individual
personality, the level of interest that this music maintains is absolutely zero. Its
album presentation offers you 30+ minutes of nothingness, and mainstream viewers of
the movie should be aware that Sheryl Crow's song "Safe and Sound" (heard over the
end credits) is not on this product. You might wish that it were, if only to wake you
from your slumber.
**
| Bias Check: | For Thomas Newman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.2 (in 20 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
(in 50,023 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about the
score or film.
