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Review of 1408 (Gabriel Yared)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if you're prepared to be blown away by how
strikingly different the suspense portions of 1408 sound compared
to everything you've heard before from Gabriel Yared.
Avoid it... if you think you can sit through the heavily manipulated, synthetically ambient half of the score and be in the mood for ten to fifteen minutes of Yared's more typically lush, orchestral tragedy mode.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
1408: (Gabriel Yared) Despite his incredible
success as a novelist, few of Stephen King's stories have translated
into superior films. By both critical and popular accounts, the surprise
2007 hit 1408 is an exception, widely praised for its
psychological manipulation of the audience with intelligent means
instead of plain gore and shock. The film owed much of its box office
success to the casting of actor John Cusack in the lead role as a writer
who debunks paranormal activity. He's a likeable character easy to
identify with as his practical mind handles the environment of ghostly
activities. He decides to write about a famed hotel room in New York
where 56 guests have all died within an hour of checking into the room,
a circumstance that the writer decides is ludicrous. As he spends time
in the room, he experiences progressively troubling hallucinations and
more realistic challenges, eventually forcing him to relive traumatic
scenes from his past while also attempting to escape this warped
reality. Like any good King story, 1408 offers a taste of
positive resolution while also leaving the door open on the supernatural
aspect. The Mikael Hafstrom film distinguishes itself by making it
impossible for the audience to predict what's going to happen next,
leaving even cynical skeptics guessing through the very end. Among the
most strikingly unpredictable aspects of 1408 was the assignment
of Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared to the production. If you drew up a
list of 50+ composers contemporary to 2007 most likely to score a
mainstream psychological horror film such as 1408, Yared wouldn't
have been on that list. The master of European-styled romance had never
tackled such a large-scale horror assignment, though in the aftermath of
his stunning rejection from Troy three years earlier, it was
clear that at least he was attempting to branch out in new directions.
Interestingly, once you're familiar with the plot of 1408, there
is actually a good set of reasons why Yared was hired for this project.
Underneath the suspense and horror is a very touching story of family
relations, loss of life, and personal tragedy that is obviously more in
tune with Yared's usual methodology. The question regarding 1408
wasn't whether or not he could supply a morbidly compelling orchestral
landscape to the interpersonal side of the story, but rather his
effectiveness in generating the subtle, alienating suspense necessary
for the first half of the film. His triumph in that regard yields some
of the most intriguing material of his career. A Yared enthusiast could
make a decent compilation of the romantic parts and a David Julyan or
Clint Mansell collector could pull the outlandish parts for their drug
trips.
Clearly a score of two distinct halves, 1408 is a challenging listening experience. The expected melodramatic, orchestral majesty beginning in "Ship in a Painting" and ending in "Fire!" will sound familiar to enthusiasts of Yared's often somber, yearning style of lamentation. The delicate lullabies, while troubled around the edges, are beautiful and the lush string-based moments of resolution reach back to Message in a Bottle. Two outstanding action sequences in "Ship in a Painting" and "Sinking Ship" present muscular brass explosions of force to rival Troy in intensity. The thematic structures take some time to develop in these cues, from the very subtle expressions in "Katie's Theme" to the final death of the room's grasp in "Fire!" The room is also afforded a low, groaning, rising progression beginning with three notes seemingly conveyed on bass bassoon, an identity that Yared is sure to leave you with in the final seconds of the score. The role of the choir in the massive portions of the work is not revolutionary, nor is it really new in Yared's career, but it does assist in the fantasy element. The ten to fifteen minutes of grand, harmonic music representing the Cusack character's personal struggle is easily digestible as well, a strong accompaniment to Yared's prior achievements. The suspense half of 1408 is where Yared both impresses you with his unexpected prowess in the realm of fright and sacrifices a coherent listening experience as a result. Yared and his assistant, Kirsty Whalley, programmed a fair amount of effective electronic samples for application in 1408, often representations of physical sounds you'd hear in a creepy old room. Among the best of these is the creaking door effect, transformed into a musical tool through different pitches and rhythmic uses. The first half of the score is largely defined by extended performances of basic synthetic keyboarding and these eerie sounds. Early on, they culminate in "The Doppelganger," which uses every manipulation effect you could imagine to scare the wits out of a person. Later, in "Back to 1408," Yared takes a massive orchestral stinger and extends it out so that he can deconstruct it in Don Davis' The Matrix style and artificially slow its tempo down through distorted manipulation into a void of nothingness. There is absolutely nothing about any of these techniques that is meant as a satisfying standalone listening experience; in fact, much of this score's atmospheric portions would better be described as sound effects. As such, 1408 is most definitely the kind of music that presents fatal difficulties when heard for casual enjoyment in chronological order on album. Together, 1408 is, aside from a refreshing and certainly impressive change for Yared, an effective but unlistenable score. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 56:22
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a short note from the director about the score.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from 1408 are Copyright © 2007, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/6/10 (and not updated significantly since). |
