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Review of Eight Millimeter (Mychael Danna)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you're clamoring for some outrageously obnoxious Moroccan rhythms, vocals, and instrumentation to go along with your curiosity about snuff films.

Avoid it... if the above statement makes no sense to you, either.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

8mm: Eight Millimeter: (Mychael Danna) Not much praise can be given director Joel Schumacher's Eight Millimeter, a truly wretched and unnecessary film about Los Angeles' illegal underground snuff industry. Nicolas Cage weaves his way through a fragmented and nearly unintelligible screenplay as he investigates an 8mm movie found by a wealthy widow. In the film from her husband's collection, a young girl is sexually assaulted and killed on screen, and the widow wants to know if the death was real. As Cage would delve into the seedy underworld of sadistic perversion, the film managed to alienate or offend every reviewer around the world, not to mention horrified audiences. Composer Mychael Danna, whose career has since proven him quite accomplished, used Eight Millimeter to break away from the Atom Egoyan and Ang Lee collaborations to debut in mainstream Hollywood. It would be fascinating to know what truly went through his mind when he first saw a cut of the film, however, for the score he produced is so incongruous with the subject matter. Schumacher explains the unusual score as one that "transcends" normal movie music, something you'd hear him say about Elliot Goldenthal with better credibility. But that simply doesn't explain how bizarre the Eight Millimeter score truly is. Functioning primarily as an atmospheric element, Danna's music for the thriller is actually quite effective. He succeeds in creating a sound that is naturally unsettling, utilizing unfamiliar instrumentation and vocals to accentuate a mysterious and terrifying journey to the darkest realm of society. In these regards, this score isn't remarkably different from Danna's surrealistic music for Exotica a few years earlier. But in the context of Eight Millimeter, this approach begs several questions. This is one of the few scores that has ever, for instance, raised questions about whether the composer's approach was distinctly racist.

Anyone familiar with Danna's career knows that he has travelled the world learning about the music and instruments of many cultures. As a result, he is quite adept at the interpolation of African and East Indian instruments into the setting of a Western Orchestra. In Eight Millimeter, the world of the underground snuff producers is scored with boisterous and occasionally overwhelming sequences of a native Arabic and North African instrumentation. Not only will the strange atmosphere be tough on the ears of many conservative score collectors, but it doesn't make sense in the context of the film. By associating the white criminals in the film (and their industry) with an extremely heavy Moroccan influence, Danna risks drawing the conclusion that Moroccans are savage barbarians who would kill a person in sex film. So awkward is the Moroccan music in the film that it just begs such questions. Beginning in "Missing Persons" and reaching erotic, super cool bass rhythms in "Loft" (an almost Hans Zimmer style of overbearing simplicity), these sequences can't be explained away as easily as the East Indian music for a Toronto night club in Exotica, which could at least have some indirect connections to the Kuma Sutra. The "Hollywood" cue alone stands out in the film as completely inappropriate. The music itself is actually a fascinating study, albeit unlistenable in parts, and it's easy to get the impression that most film score collectors would simply use this score to irritate co-workers, roommates, or elderly neighbors. To his credit, Danna continuously strains the Moroccan rhythms as Cage, who plays a family man, travels deeper into the land of these sexual atrocities. The shrieking dissonance of "Rainstorm" is the culmination of these efforts, merging the orchestra with the native vocals and percussion in a completely intolerable crescendo of noise. As the film states, there are things that one cannot "unsee." Unfortunately there music that can't be unheard, either.

If you can, for some reason, throw aside the questionable and highly draining Moroccan sequences of Eight Millimeter, there are portions of Danna's score that offer a sliver of hope. The score opens and closes with style, providing a conservatively appealing theme performed, as usual for Danna, on piano. The opening five and final two cues feature subdued, but attractive underscore along the same morbid lines as Ice Storm, but with a more varied orchestral approach. Danna uses various electronic acoustics to ominously foreshadow the coming investigation, including an interesting effect at the very start that simulates the turning of a film reel that is whipping around after reaching its end. The level of restraint in these cues very effectively mirrors the level to which Cage's character is in control of himself in the story. The sympathetic portions of the score, including the quick theme for "Cindy" (during the fifth track on album) and the partial relief of the final two tracks, are the true gems of this score. Danna's piano solos, sometimes accompanied by flutes, are more readily accessible than many of his other themes. Therein lies yet another incongruous element of this score; these appealing cues occupy only a fraction of the score. Overall, you still cannot doubt Danna's talent for creating an alternate and foreign sound for a disturbingly creepy environment. The harsh and loud Moroccan music that dominates Eight Millimeter, though, is almost so overblown that it comes across as "tongue in cheek," something that Danna likely did not have in mind. He manages to effectively convey the dark and sinister side of the film, however, making the album a possible item for search; be aware that while Silva Screen released the album in Europe, the Compass III label distributed it in America, and with the demise of that label not long after, Eight Millimeter will be difficult to find. It's more of a novelty item than a listenable product.  **

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 50:08

• 1. The Projector (1:20) • 2. The House (2:05) • 3. The Call (1:44) • 4. The Film (1:10) • 5. Cindy (0:56) • 6. Missing Persons (4:47) • 7. What Would You Choose (3:12) • 8. Hollywood (2:52) • 9. Unsee (1:21) • 10. Dance With the Devil (5:36)

• 11. The Third Man (1:15) • 12. Loft (1:57) • 13. No Answer (1:48) • 14. I Know All About... (1:41) • 15. 366 Hoyt Ave. (1:46) • 16. Scene of the Crime (5:53) • 17. Machine (3:31) • 18. Rainstorm (3:50) • 19. Home (1:32) • 20. Dear Mr. Wells (1:53)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes the following note from director Joel Schumacher: "Mychael Danna's score, haunting, voluptuous, darkly seductive, transcends music for film. Mychael is truly unique and a major talent."

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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 Eight Millimeter are Copyright © 1999, Compass III Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/16/99 and last updated 8/25/07.