Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #485
Written 2/4/03, Revised 3/2/09
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Buy it... if you are confused, if you like being confused by the nature of
life, and especially if you like music that is incongruous and confused.
Avoid it... if experimental scores dealing with existential issues
frustrate you with their awkward and disturbed contemplations of the inner
workings of the mind.
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| Burwell |
Adaptation: (Carter Burwell) The team of director,
screenwriter, and composer that brought you Being John Malkovich returned
in 2002 for a creative encore, one that even included parts of that prior film.
The story of Adaptation is one of evolution, life, frustration, and the
great unknown, and its primary character (played by Nicolas Cage) is a sexually
inadequate and mentally troubled screenwriter who is living a nightmare adapting
a novel into a screenplay for a movie. The cyclical nature of Charlie Kaufman's
idea for Adaptation, telling the tale of this exact film's formation in
such a way that it becomes a story within a story within a story, causes an
understandable potential for mind-boggling confusion. But that's the nature of
the film's exploration of psyche, eventually evolving into a larger existential
question and answer session that only those ready for heavy thought at the
cinema will appreciate. The audience is treated to Kaufman's problems with a
blunt slap across the head, and Carter Burwell's score emulates that feeling
perfectly. As Burwell states, it is difficult to write a score about nothing in
particular, and more specifically, a film about not knowing if there is anything
to know. He went ahead and had to score the film as though he personally knew
what both the film and the meaning of life are all about, and the resulting
collection of inharmonic clangs and suffering mutilations of overlapping motifs
makes for a ear-wrenching musical experience both in the film and alone on
album. Burwell's sense of humor about the project is perhaps the most intriguing
element of the work, for the music itself could easily drive a person (or
animal, for that matter) insane. There is inherent in Burwell's career a habit
of writing melodies that are not crisply harmonic, moving through progressions
with a slightly dissonant and rhythmically staggering personality. This style is
sometimes difficult to admire in more straightforward dramatic scores, and when
he intentionally adapts that sound into a realm of infinite experimentation of
thought, as is the case with Adaptation, the results are really quite
frightening. Trophies should be awarded to people who can fornicate to music as
disruptive as this.
Burwell's job of capturing the concept of mental instability is
admirable, but the ideas associated with that construct are almost intolerable
when presented alone on album. What he accomplishes for the film is exactly what
that story requires: a dissonant, seemingly unorganized, occasionally messy, and
always disjointed score for small orchestra and electronics. Of the three
"themes" that run throughout the film and thus the score, the one for the
primary character is written in an intentionally bizarre series of meandering,
rising notes, disregarding harmonious keys at every turn. Interestingly, you can
hear shades of Burwell's usual melodic sensibility peeking through in this idea
(which is heard immediately in "The Evolution of the Screenwriter" and is used
consistently throughout the score), and if it had been elaborated upon in a
jazzy context, you might actually hear something similar to the composer's
Conspiracy Theory. It's intentionally difficult to tolerate as standalone
entertainment, and to even appreciate it as a form of artistic expression is
almost as trying. In addition to the intent of the bizarre atmosphere, the life
of the screenwriter is also pathetic, so Burwell's more melodic passages (or
those less inhibited by random bangs, rumbling notes of no order, and synthetic
effects) are those that mimic the clumsiness of a nerdy child. Only in the final
cue, "The Unexpressed Expressed," does Burwell soothe the listener with a
remotely coherent progression of theme, but by that point, you've been bombarded
by so much confusing noise that your head will be spinning in a daze. Some of
the samples that the composer uses are so obnoxious that they make the sounds of
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 an appealing proposition. The score is
book-ended by even more ridiculously demented Fatboy Slim remixes of Burwell's
music, including "The Screenwriter's Nightmare (Zeno Remix)," which, with its
backwards edits and squishing of several recordings from the score into one
minute of overlapping mayhem, is the single worst piece of film music to have
been produced in years. The album oddly finishes with the far too happy tone of
The Turtles' famous song "Happy Together." It's a complete 180-degree turn from
the score and perhaps the only redeeming track on album. Overall, this score
embodies confusion at both its best and worst. Save yourself the trauma.
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Bias Check:
For Carter Burwell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.82
(in 11,704 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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