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Review of Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you don't mind ultra-expressive scores that
aggressively jerk the tears right out of you, for Edward
Scissorhands is perhaps the most impressively tragic fairy tale
score of the digital era.
Avoid it... if subtlety or minimalism is your preferred method of introspection, because restraint is the last word a person could use to describe the overwhelming emotional appeal of this music.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Edward Scissorhands: (Danny Elfman) The times for
Tim Burton would never be better than in the early 1990's, with the
immense success of Batman proving his financial viability and a
sequel on the way to continue building upon that reputation. It would be
the highly personal, satirical tragedies of Edward Scissorhands
and The Nightmare Before Christmas that would earn the director
his most ardent fans, however. The social commentary of Edward
Scissorhands speaks to the heart of any outcast, offering a stark
glimpse of Vincent Price's final, suffering creation of horror thrust
upon a "perfect" vision of 1950's suburbia. What Burton initially
considered a limited reflection of his own difficulties "fitting in"
during his teenage years became a reference point for ostracized youth
everywhere, bringing audiences to tears in the process of pushing all
the right sociological buttons. The fairy tale genre served both Burton
and collaborating composer Danny Elfman well, the storytelling structure
of both Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before
Christmas allowing for extremely tight parameters that helped the
scores for both films tell the stories by themselves. For Elfman
specifically, Edward Scissorhands further heightened expectations
for the young, classically untrained composer despite the fact that the
project was seen as completely insignificant during its creation. Taking
listeners by surprise as much as the film did the box office, the score
remains a powerful juggernaut in album sales charts decades later, a
common source for use as temp music and heavily influential in
everything from live shows to television commercials. Its success
remains slightly bittersweet in that the era would eventually reveal
that the successive triumphs of Batman and Edward
Scissorhands would not be equaled by the composer in any of the
following years. Incidentally, both featured the orchestration work of
Steve Bartek and the conducting of Shirley Walker, though the latter
score was recorded in Los Angeles rather than London. While
Batman appeals appropriately to classically oriented mainstream
action collectors, Edward Scissorhands has special meaning for
fans of Elfman's very specific early style of unconventional rhythms and
unashamed harmony. The score is somewhat of an enigma, combining those
two key elements of Elfman's early mannerisms and packaging them into
one very serviceable score and album.
Nostalgically, Edward Scissorhands is one of Elfman's few scores (if not the only completely effective one) that balances the best of both the zany quirkiness of his earliest writing and the thematic enchantment of those that would follow. The most remarkable aspect of the score is its ability to tell Burton's story without the visuals. The album takes you on the journey of this fable with masterful precision, embodying the heart-wrenching emotions of Edward's discovery and downfall with thematic and choral elements never restrained. In terms of the orchestral ensemble, not much is different from Elfman's previous scores, though a significant role is given to the celesta and other high-ranging struck percussion. The celesta specifically offers dual representation of both the innocence of the main character and the wintry setting, lending a music-box style to the score that accentuates the bedtime storytelling ambience. The piano, while an integral part of other Elfman scores at the time, is largely displaced by the celesta, though a few notable piano solos are registered (the opening of "The Final Confrontation" is an obvious reminder of Beetlejuice due to its piano thuds). The harp returns from Batman, leaving behind its grand flourishes for deliberate plucking that, along with the strings, helps the celesta set the score's delicate rhythms. Rowdy rhythms for brass and bass woodwinds explode in the relentlessly rhythmic "The Cookie Factory," serving as the score's only true direct reminder of the sharp wackiness of Pee Wee and Beetlejuice. Few brass solos have an impact on the score, though the longing trumpet performance at the end of the title theme performance in "The End" (among other instrumental techniques heard in that cue) would largely foreshadow the upcoming spirit of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The true heart of Edward Scissorhands, though, is provided by the boy's and women's choral ensembles that brilliantly carry the imaginative elements of story and are rarely absent for longer than a minute or two in the score. It was not unusual for Elfman to employ such choral shades in his scores of the time, but the performances by the Paulist Choristers of California for Edward Scissorhands are incorporated with skill not heard elsewhere in any score of the 1990's, by Elfman or otherwise. After learning about choral techniques on the job, Elfman layers the singers brilliantly, allowing portions to serve as counterpoint within the group in an effort to maximize the harmonic resonance of the combined voices. The adult choir is emphasized alone in the score at times, though the more ethereal performances clearly define the work. Elfman uses the combination of the chorus, celesta, and strings to explore two primary themes in Edward Scissorhands. While the original intent was to utilize only one of these ideas, both of them were demonstrated so well that Burton and Elfman agreed, after much deliberation and no easy choice given their quality, to keep both. The first is the obvious title theme provided in the credits. An overarching idea for Edward's journey, this light waltz swings with elegance over celesta and plucked strings as the chorus provides the primary wordless statements of fantasy (bracketing a woodwind interlude that serves as a sub-theme later in the score). This cue is fully reprised with the same instrumentation in "Etiquette Lesson" and "The End," with continuing, fragmented references in between. Despite the easy appeal of this theme, however, it takes a back seat to the score's heartwarming love theme (more officially the "storytelling theme"), which yields the undeniable tragedy in the score. It is this melody, enhanced by simple but crushingly gorgeous harmonic counterpoint, which graces the score's two famous tracks, "Ice Dance" and "The Grand Finale" and presents the chorus in its most beautiful, yearning performances. Elfman teases you with this theme in "Storytime" and "Home Sweet Home," and he never allows the theme to come to a natural melodic conclusion outside of the slowly fading departure in "The Grand Finale." In the aforementioned early cues, as well as "Ice Dance" and "The End," Elfman always finishes the theme (and cue) on a longing note, never returning to its grounding key and thus drawing out the score's tragic intent even further. The climactic choral majesty of "The Grand Finale" is a dazzling, magical experience and stands among the most powerful single cues of the digital era of film music. The score's darker side, dominating its second half, strikes the culture clash at the heart of the film's dark edge. Elfman utilizes medium drums and lighter "la-la" vocals to underline the pleasantly sickening nature of the somewhat timeless 1950's suburbia setting. Extending out of this material is distinctly gypsy, Spanish flavor to address the rather uncomfortable sexual tones of the suburban housewives and the shallow pleasures that Edwards offers them. The world of the "Castle on the Hill," in opposition to the silliness of suburbia, is the menacing and ultimately tragically frustrating core of Edward's upbringing and seclusion. Several of the more horrifying moments of the tale, heard in "Death!" and "The Tide Turns," recall troublesome ideas established by Elfman in the just previous Nightbreed. These cues are hardly weak, but in contrast to the surrounding beauty, they understandably merit far less attention. Like many of Elfman's earlier works, Edward Scissorhands has a few standout tracks of sheer wizardry or bizarre deviation that deserve specific mention. You can always tell when the composer gets in a mood for ambitious fun when he pulls out the tubas for a wild rhythm; that rhythm, along with the harshly muted brass of "The Cookie Factory," lead to a few playful performances by woodwinds in that cue that also foreshadow The Nightmare Before Christmas. The piano-led rhythm in "Ballet de Suburbia" allows the sax to lead a motif that, once the percussion lets rip later in the cue, mirrors much of the spirit of Elfman's famous theme for "The Simpsons." A solo accordion in "Esmeralda" is a bizarre but short deviation. The most colorful cue is "Edwardo the Barber," and for those who grow tired of the score's overbearing choral performances of the two primary themes, this cue is a constant pleasure. A mockingly Spanish tango rhythm with castenets underscores Edward's hairstyling talents, mutating the suburbia motif for perhaps the score's most relaxed moment. In the middle of this cue, however, is a hoedown-like fiddle explosion for about a minute that actively underscores Edward's most frenetic styling sequence. During this minute, plucked strings and accordion establish an increasingly frantic pacing over which a solo violin works wonders with its precise, vaguely gypsy-style slurring. If the comically melodramatic conclusion to this sudden burst of energy can't invigorate you, then you're not a true Elfman fan. A short foreshadowing of this idea is given a short carnival burst in "Paper Dolls." The Tom Jones song is an unfortunately downside to the commercial 1990 album; his voice and the style of the song may have been an attempt to mimic the 1950's atmosphere of the film, but its comparatively tinny recording quality is quite irritating. Artistically, Burton would have been better served by having a sensitive vocalist provide a song version of Elfman's love theme. The balance of the mix between chorus and orchestra in Edward Scissorhands emphasizes the chorus far more than Batman did, without losing any of the orchestral elements in the process. This masterful mixing was completely lost in Batman Returns yielding a terribly flat result. While much of the mainstream discontent with the Batman sequel's score relates to its total loss of ambition in favor of morbid darkness, you have to credit the lovely and involving mix of Edward Scissorhands for not only setting astronomical emotional expectations for Batman Returns, but daunting technical ones as well. Be aware that this presentation seemingly becomes drier on each successive album release of Edward Scissorhands, though. The 1990 album for Edward Scissorhands has always presented the score's most important 49 minutes in outstanding sound quality. One asset of the bloated, disastrous $500 set titled "The Danny Elfman and Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box" and released by Warner Brothers in 2011, however, is the addition of seven bonus cues, four demo recordings, a new music box composition dedicated to Edward Scissorhands, and a variety of demo material written by Elfman for the late-2000's ballet based upon the movie. One of Elfman's greatest career disappointments has been his inability to collaborate with the production of the ballet, his film scoring assignments interfering with the ballet's schedule. Eventually, the ballet was scored with adapted material from the original film score anyway, but given the number of new directions he takes in the wealth of demos written for the ballet and included on the 2011 set, one can easily hear his passion for this music. Of the material on the dedicated CD #4 in the 2011 set, the demos are the least interesting, though it should be noted that the "Ice Dance" synthesizer rendering is better than the majority of finished orchestral scores these days. In the seven bonus cues, "Housewives" extends the quirky accordion material while "Paperdoll" revisits the wild "Edwardo the Barber" violin solos. Both "The Tide Changes" and "Confrontation" are suspenseful filler cues, while "Paranoia" reprises the score's quietly sensitive side. All of these exist without choir, though the singers do return in the pretty but super-short "The Talk Show Shocker." The bonus cues close out with the pretty but also short love theme rendition in "Kim at the Mall." All in all, the additional material amounts to five minutes in length and would not detract from the score if placed chronologically in the presentation (as it should have been), but it adds nothing substantial either. Thus, the set is definitely not worth paying $500 for simply to access Edward Scissorhands music unless you are desperately interested in the ballet demos. In 2015, Intrada Records finally re-interpolated most of the originally unreleased material into the score's proper order, and although this album does not contain the demo recordings, its loyal presentation, including original trailer music, is outstanding (albeit dryly mixed), the fuller versions of "Introduction" and "Beautiful New World" especially attractive. Overall, there are few positive adjectives that could not be applied to this score. Its likely intentional snub for an Oscar nomination in 1990 remains one of the most recognized in the history of the award. Many collectors believe that Elfman, despite an incredibly productive career after this score, has never really captured Edward Scissorhands's magical essence ever again. Whether he does or not, this score will forever be noted as a grand highlight of both his career and film music of the 1990's. *****
TRACK LISTINGS:
1990 MCA Album:
Total Time: 49:20
2011 Warner Set: Total Time: 85:55
* previously unreleased 2015 Intrada Album: Total Time: 71:12
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1990 MCA album includes extensive credits, but no extra
information about the score itself. The 2011 Warner set features some notes from
Elfman about his choices of music for inclusion on the product. The insert of the
2015 Intrada product contains a list of performers and notes about the film and
score, but it features no information about the production of the CD.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Edward Scissorhands are Copyright © 1990, 2011, 2015, MCA Records, Warner Brothers Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/24/96 and last updated 1/10/16. |
