District 9: (Clinton Shorter) A stinging commentary
about South Africa's era of apartheid in the form of a science-fiction
thriller,
District 9 was 2009's official sleeper hit. The
independent production, backed by Peter Jackson and eventually picked up
for distribution by TriStar Pictures, cost only $30 million to make and
raking in over $200 million after an astounding word of mouth campaign
and consistently positive reviews from critics. After landing their
massive but crippled mothership over Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982,
a mostly harmless alien race of about a million insect/biped hybrids is
forced by that country into a segregated slum modeled after the
real-life "District 6" of the past. Run by a corrupt corporation with
its sights on stealing alien technology, this district eventually
becomes a hotbed of criminal activity and hatred, and only through the
collaboration of one of the company's employees and one of the aliens
can the mothership be repaired and begin to alleviate the distrust
between the species. The topics of racism and xenophobia are so well
masked by the science-fiction and action elements in the plot that
District 9 gets its message about segregation across (sometimes
in a documentary-like fashion) without boring audiences not interested
in that part of the world or its history. Among the production elements
that was tasked with bridging the gap between documentary and thriller
was the score, provided by director Neill Blomkamp's usual collaborator,
Clinton Shorter. For the Canadian composer in his 30's, struggling
through lesser assignments for television and straight-to-video films,
District 9 is undoubtedly a remarkably sudden (and possibly
overwhelming) career turn, and after the buzz about his work for this
assignment, perhaps studios will be more forgiving of the
Blompkamp/Shorter partnership should a long-rumored
Halo video
game adaptation to the screen be assigned to the director. The two had
actually worked on a short film about roughly the same topic as
District 9, though the director and composer decided to toss
aside the tone of that score and start fresh with the feature-length
successor. This task proved to be a difficult one for Shorter, who,
within the first three weeks of coordinating the sound of his score, was
faced with the difficulty of the generally upbeat tone of native African
music not matching the sinister and tragic atmosphere of this story. The
director clearly indicated to Shorter that he desired a score of
menacingly deep tones for
District 9, encouraging the composer to
explore increasingly lower registers with his instrumentation.
Fortunately, Shorter had another two months to develop his material into
the ultimately bass heavy, sometimes melodramatically tragic music that
has earned him so much notice.
To create an appropriate hybrid score, one that merges
some sense of authenticity from the location with standard synthetic
representations of technology, Shorter ultimately had to manipulate some
of his native instrumentation to mesh with the symphonic and electronic
ensembles. This mainly limited the African elements to mournful solo
male voice and a portion of the smaller percussion instruments. Applied
atop these items were taiko drums and a variety of synthetic percussive
effects of a highly metallic nature. In addition to a plethora of those
slapping and clanging sounds, Shorter also utilized keyboarded ambience
to aide the depth of a string ensemble, sometimes blurring the line
between those performances and their organic counterparts. The string
tones begin to emerge more traditionally in a series of bass ostinatos
that serve as one of the score's themes. Brass of an extremely
aggressive and harsh emphasis also bolsters these sequences.
Thematically, Shorter doesn't overwhelm the viewer of the film with
distinctly memorable ideas, instead opting for a more textural approach
to perhaps lend credence to the documentary half of the production
style. An African heritage theme of sorts is conveyed by the score's
obvious highlight, a male Kwaito singer whose lamentation yields its
most remarkable moments of harmony. The rising ostinato figures,
eventually accompanying the mothership's ascension, is the score's other
primary identity. Not surprisingly, the music is at its best when these
elements are blended together, unfortunately a rare event by necessity.
Casual listeners will find significant similarities between Shorter's
District 9 and Hans Zimmer's handling of similar topics. From the
foundation of its bottom-dwelling ostinatos to the African vocals and
percussion, it wouldn't be surprising if listeners define this work as a
combination of
Tears of the Sun and
Batman Begins. The
scrappy percussion sequences representing the evil corporation and
weaponry of the film easily translate into the most obnoxious portions
of the album. The bulk of the harmonious material for the tragedy of the
story exists in the suite "District 9." This material, which is reprised
in several shorter increments throughout the score (the most lengthy of
which in the unreleased "Dropship" cue), isn't overwhelming in a
technical sense, but the native vocals definitely place it in the
"guilty pleasure" category. At only 30 minutes on its "CDr on demand"
and download release,
District 9 is succinct enough on album to
function without the slapping action material becoming too troublesome,
though an additional 18 minutes of unreleased music from the score does
satisfyingly expand upon the vocals in tracks that should have been
considered for the commercial product. Overall, it's an effective score,
but not necessarily one that breaks any new ground. The opening suite,
however, and especially its first three minutes, are a highlight of the
year.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
