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Review of Burn After Reading (Carter Burwell)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you've always maintained the ability to embrace and
appreciate Carter Burwell's darkly elusive musical structures and
brooding tones, trademarks embroiled in a battle of wills with sparse
percussive brutality and slight noir elegance in this score.
Avoid it... if the application of stark Taiko drum rhythms with metallic grinding effects to much of this score makes it even less of a promising prospect for your existing cynicism about Burwell's ability to write accessible music.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Burn After Reading: (Carter Burwell) Movies about
idiots are the specialty of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, each of their
projects existing in an alternate universe where absolutely everyone on
screen seems to be dumber or less pragmatic than, believe it or not, the
population actually is. Once again, Burn After Reading gives
viewers an accomplished cast (of Coen regulars, for the most part)
forced to play fools in convoluted romantic and espionage dealings that
are beyond all common sense, maintaining the black comedy environment of
awkward interactions and gruesome deaths typical to the Coens' world.
Their plot for the 2008 movie essentially takes high stakes government
espionage and reduces it to a farce, telling of a CIA agent who quits
rather be demoted and then suffers through a divorce and the theft of
his unfinished memoirs by fitness center morons who in turn mistaken it
for the kind of material worth selling to Russian agents. The messy love
triangles and totally senseless actions of practically every character
are doused in the stink of the Coen Brothers' usual lack of logic,
meaning that the film will appeal to their dedicated fanbases but have
limited success with viewers seeking a story that holds any sensible
value. Greeted with a limited number of awards nominations and mixed to
positive reviews, Burn After Reading did surprisingly well in the
worldwide box office, grossing more than four times its budget. Among
the usual Coen crew members contributing to the appeal of the movie is
composer Carter Burwell, whose involvement with Burn After
Reading represented the 12th collaboration with the filmmakers. His
distinctive style of darkly elusive music, defined by his somber
melodies and trademark use of disjointed chords and unnatural meters,
has come to musically shape the sound of many of the Coen Brothers'
films, though while those techniques are heard as expected in Burn
After Reading, the intent with this particular score was to take the
tone of Burwell's sound even more primal and challenging than
before.
Since the ridiculously shallow characters in Burn After Reading clearly think they're part of a conspiracy much bigger than they really are, the decision was to make the music sound artificially inflated. Joel Coen stated at the time that they requested a score that was "something big and bombastic, something important sounding but absolutely meaningless." To that end, Burwell succeeds in writing music with a detached personality that develops much more gravity than really necessary in this circumstance (a plus from a parody standpoint), but he also surprisingly infuses some tender lyricism into the mix for the romantic aspect. Together, you get a mutated noir score that is as paranoid as any in its era. There was an idea shared by Burwell and the Coen Brothers early in the production of Burn After Reading to employ an extremely aggressive and sparse array of percussion to represent the governmental aspect of the story. This choice is flesh out in the form of insistent Taiko drum performances that rip almost unimpeded and alone in the mix for several major cues. Behind them at times is a snarling collection of synthetic and low orchestral sounds, the former including grinding metallic samples and electric guitars. The brutality of "Plan B" combines the drums with both these synthetic annoyances, adding cymbals and rattling gongs with dramatic effect. The brooding orchestral tones are normal for Burwell, using cellos, deep piano phrases, and groaning bass woodwind performances to set a suspenseful ambience for nearly every cue. Low brass in "Homeless" and other cues expands the scope even further. The score is quite rich thematically, though with the environment dominating the soundscape, don't expect any particular melody to define the film. Several recurring themes are developed substantially, most of them adhering to Burwell's rhythmic sense of gloom. A rolling string rhythm of domineering stature follows the government's shady intentions, using Philip Glass-like phrases of repetition in "A Higher Patriotism," "Night Running," "Plan B," "Seating," "Who Do You Work For?" This theme is translated into a Thomas Newman marimba setting later in the score, as a secondary motif spins off from this identity in "Building the Chair," "Breaking and Entering," and "I Killed a Spook." The most clearly memorable and important theme in Burn After Reading is the one for domestic affairs (and humanity, if such a concept can exist in this context). A meandering piano melody with the score's only sense of higher style, this theme evolves through "Linda Looks For Love (Part 1)," "Rendezvous," "Opportunity," "Honey Nut Cheerios," "How is This Possible?," "Negativity," and "The Struggle for Ebullience." Its crescendo in "How is This Possible?" is immense and has a slight Latin influence (perhaps a nod to the Venezuela aspect of the story), its punctuation with the Taiko drums and chimes at the end producing the score's moment engaging moment. That theme's secondary phrases are among Burwell's prettier ideas in a while, heard first on woodwinds almost exclusively at the end of "Linda Looks For Love (Part 1)" and figuring heavily in the aforementioned Latin hints of "How is This Possible?" A few smaller motifs tie the rest of Burn After Reading together, led by a rising dissonant tone for ensemble and electronics that denotes moments of death and fright. Heard at the ends of "Earth Zoom (In)," "Breaking and Entering," and "Carrots/Shot," this idea (which unfortunately doesn't descend as one would expect in "Earth Zoom (Out)") is obnoxiously inelegant. A singular cue of note in Burn After Reading is "Night Running," opening with the distinctive Glass emulation, transitioning to the Taiko suspense motif with uneasy electric guitar and sample backing, and then closing with a creepy, distant, source-like choral performance of the "Old Nassau" anthem for Princeton University. Overall, Burn After Reading functions as the unsettling, self-absorbed, and deadly serious treatment of the topic sought by the filmmakers. If you find Burwell's often off-kilter trademarks appealing to your senses, you'll probably embrace it as an engrossing experience. But for the rest of the population, it translates into an extremely arduous 36-minute score album with little redemptive personality. There are moments of impressive harmonic resonance in both of the two main themes (and especially in "A Higher Patriotism," with some attractive brass counterpoint in its latter half), but none of these presentations really lasts long enough to make the score a candidate from which to take a truly accessible compilation of ideas. Approach with caution. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 35:58
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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