Civil War: (Ben Salisbury/Geoff Barrow) California
and Texas joining forces in a civil war against the American federal
government? Fans of the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys taking up
arms together!? Really? The premise of the 2024 thriller drama
Civil
War is so insanely ridiculous that all hope for any believable logic
in the picture is dashed up front. In some near-term dystopian future,
the United States breaks apart into numerous oddball factions in
reaction to a tyrannical president of the northeastern states, and the
"Western Forces" allied with California and Texas go on an ass-kicking expedition
that results in that president's glorious execution. But that's not
actually the point of
Civil War. It's meant to be a drama about
photographers and journalists seeking a good story and a great shot,
several of them conveniently killed along the way. Their journey is
filled with hateful encounters and senseless death at every turn, making
the film a commentary about how awful all Americans must seem to the
rest of the planet. Its cold and depressing message might be poignant if
not for the endless logical fallacies of the plot, the kind the schlock
that a teenager might write for a school project. Amazingly, though,
critics were fairly receptive to the movie, and it performed pretty well
for a purely independent, R-rated venture. English writer and director
(there might be part of the problem right there) Alex Garland has a
tendency to infuse ambient soundscapes into the mix of his projects, and
for
Civil War, he strangely sprinkles in six or seven songs ranging widely
in genre from the 1970's to 2010's for various scenes of despair in the
narrative. In between those awkward entries is an original score by British
composing tandem Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, band musicians who
write film and television music as one aspect of their careers. Their
collaboration with Garland runs back to
Ex Machina in 2014, and
their subsequent scoring duties have yielded a handful of rather
uninspiring albums since. Those familiar with their work will recognize
the atmospheric approach for
Civil War, groaning synthetic haze
that has nothing in common with the songs selected for the movie and,
for better or worse, only runs for 23 minutes on album. For most casual
listeners, those 23 minutes will be far more than enough.
Film music like Salisbury and Barrow's for
Civil
War exists because some directors want a generic wallpaper of sound
in the background of their movies. It's that simple. Think of it like
the science fiction shows where you hear the constant hum of background
engines or life support systems. This score may as well be such a sound
effect track, because it barely enunciates itself as actual music for
most of its running time. The synthetic droning alternates between
sustained notes without a purposeful direction. There is nary a variance
in emotional appeal to be heard, only in "Body Pit" the composers opting
for outright horror dissonance. The remainder of the score is so
non-descript that it doesn't really offend; instead it puts you straight
to sleep. The slight guitar additions to the aimless keyboarding and
processed trombone, saxophone, and clarinet are mind-numbingly
simplistic. Sometimes, the recording bounces left and right in the
soundscape like a bad dream, but creativity is otherwise totally absent.
Even the sampled tones offer no particularly interesting comment about
the story. There's nothing to denote the location, the time period, the
gravity of the situation, or the warmth of the interpersonal
relationships that struggle in the plot. There's just nothing. That is,
except for a main theme that accomplishes so little that it may as well
not exist. Slowly plucked away on acoustic, lap steel, or electric
guitar, this identity contains four or five notes over and over again,
though it's sometimes reduced to just two notes. The idea is likely an
accompaniment for the lead duo of photojournalists in "Flashback,"
"Aftermath," and "Moving Out," but the attribution doesn't really
matter. A related secondary synth theme of meandering nothingness exists
in "Headshot" and "Twilight Zone" and may inform "Refugees" as well.
Again, though, these concepts are so diluted and bludgeoned in their
performances that no importance can possible arise from them. The score
is therefore ineffective at all but basic sound design duties, failing
to form any narrative whatsoever. On album, that story was made even
more completely impossible by a random ordering of the tracks. In the
end,
Civil War is as useless a film score as any in recent
times, failing to provide any emotional base. It doesn't even annoy or
scare, which is unforgivable. For a film with such a grim storyline, the
music should at least rub you raw in some way. Expect no reaction at all
from this result, except, perhaps, to ask yourself why composers
actually get paid for producing such drivel.
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