Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,791
Written 1/9/12
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Buy it... if the prior film music of Harald Kloser and Thomas
Wanker has somehow managed to appeal to you in its often respectfully
understated forms, because the composers do offer their conservative
techniques in a palatable package here.
Avoid it... if you expect the orchestral, choral, and solo cello
expressions of this score's several themes to ever congeal into a
convincing narrative, the composers' tendency to aimlessly meander once
again evident.
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| Wanker |
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| Kloser |
Anonymous: (Thomas Wanker/Harald Kloser) Few in the
mainstream know or care about the long-standing scholarly debate about
Shakespearean authorship, one that has for more than a century argued
about the possibility that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
never actually wrote any of the famous plays attributed to his name.
Among the most popular of these alternatives is the Oxfordian theory,
one that postulates that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was
actually the true author behind the plays. The vast majority of
historians remain loyal to the traditional authorial attribution of
these works, all of whom citing overwhelming evidence in favor of
Shakespeare's ownership of the plays, but the opposition to that notion
has finally built enough momentum for director and producer Roland
Emmerich to support its theory in the 2011 film Anonymous. Such a
serious topic was a major departure for Emmerich, known primarily for
ridiculous endeavors in the disaster genre, though his personal passion
about Oxfordian theory kept him in development of Anonymous for
most of a decade. His detractors have slammed the film for perpetuating
the same kind of nonsensical historical inaccuracies that plagued
10,000 B.C., and those unfriendly to Oxfordian theory have jumped
all over the movie's premise and smaller perceived mistakes in
execution. From its $30 million budget for the picture, Sony hoped to
use strong word of mouth out of the film festival circuit to expand
Anonymous to a wider release, but after critics eventually
overlooked its qualities due to a dismissal of the overall premise, the
movie failed to recoup even half of that budget worldwide. The context
of the postulation is one of political intrigue, showing Edward de
Vere's interest in the ongoing battle between the Tudors and the Cecils
in a unique way. He used his plays (through the name of Shakespeare, an
actor) as political tools to sway Elizabethan audiences to favor the
line of succession of his choice, with perilous results. Given that
Anonymous could easily have resided on stage instead of screen,
the role of the soundtrack is somewhat limited. Emmerich turned to his
usual collaborator, Harald Kloser, for the score, despite the fact that
the composer did not extend his duties on this project to writing and
producing (as he had done before). Kloser, in turn, brought on board his
writing partner, Thomas Wanker (still going by his more recent screen
credit of Thomas Wander, for obvious reasons), who in some cases is
shown as receiving primary compositional credit for
Anonymous.
The Kloser/Wanker pairing for Emmerich's films over the
previous decade never produced stellar results, though
10,000
B.C. could be considered a dynamic powerhouse if not for its
blindingly obvious plagiarism issues. Most of their scores are
conversely quite boring, respectfully pretty in parts but never
featuring clear narratives in their conservative original themes. In
essence, they write background music of a non-offensive kind for their
assignments, and that approach is once again the case for
Anonymous. There are hints of period flavor in this score, a
hurdy gurdy and light percussive rhythms in vintage waltz form offering
occasional connections to common conceptions of the era's music. Choral
interludes command some grace and stature, though in limited doses. A
solo cello at times expresses the lament of the relational complications
in the plot, and a solo voice is barely audible as mixed into one
instance. Otherwise,
Anonymous receives a fairly bland
soundscape, strings carrying most of the load. Kloser and Wanker have a
tendency to express meaningless motifs in their work, and much of this
score meanders through a similar haze. In its favor, however, are a
handful of themes that struggle to establish themselves as much as their
character representations do on screen. Edward de Vere receives a solemn
theme consisting of surprisingly tentative and cold two-note phrases,
reminiscent of Tan Dun's similarly elusive structures. Summarized in
"Edward's Theme," this idea permeates portions of "Edward's Breakdown"
and "The Other One," among others. More interesting is the composers'
idea for the Queen, heard romantically in "Soul of the Age" and "Bedding
the Queen" and hinted more ominously in "She Had Your Child" and "You
Stay in England." The plays and Shakespearean legend receive a prancing
theme that culminates in "Will's Triumph." Several other motifs fail to
develop to satisfactory levels, though, including those that inform the
choral magnificence of "The Succession" and "God Save the Queen." These
performances bleed over into "Arrest Them," the most impressive (and
vaguely Craig Armstrong-like) merging of choir and action rhythms in the
score. The tumultuous movement of the suspense technique extends into
"Bursting In" and "It's a Trap" (cue the Mon Calamari admiral), the
latter the only truly muscular passage in the score. Ultimately, the
choral and solo cello cues in
Anonymous are its only lasting
highlights, "The Succession" and "Soul of the Age" providing five
minutes of pleasantly engaging material. Outside of these fleeting
moments, however, Kloser and Wanker once again fail to yield
convincingly emotional appeal in their effectively functional but sadly
underachieving tone.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Harald Kloser reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.56
(in 9 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.54
(in 3,752 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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