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Flight
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Composed, Orchestrated, Conducted, and Co-Produced by:
Co-Produced by:
David Bifano
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LABEL & RELEASE DATE
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Promotional (Paramount Pictures)
(November 1st, 2012)
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ALBUM AVAILABILITY
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Promotional online release by Paramount Pictures.
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AWARDS
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None.
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ALSO SEE
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Buy it... only if you seek to complete your collection of Alan
Silvestri scores after 2000, the scope and tone of this work extremely
introspective and lacking dramatic appeal until its very end.
Avoid it... if you are interested in hearing an engaging thematic
narrative, as the score is just over twenty minutes in length and conveyed with
a depressing demeanor.
BUY IT
Filmtracks has no record of commercial ordering options for this title. However, you can search for this title at online soundtrack specialty outlets.
 | | Silvestri |
Flight: (Alan Silvestri) Although the 2012 movie
Flight is a well-respected character study featuring an
outstanding acting performance by Denzel Washington, it is best
remembered for its stunning early scene of a miraculous crash landing of
a commercial airliner. Washington plays a pilot with severe alcohol and
drug additions, but he manages to save most of a plane full of
passengers during a catastrophic mechanical failure that causes the
flight to lose vertical control. Inspired by a real Alaska Airlines
disaster in 2000, the Robert Zemeckis film postulates that the pilot
rolls the plane upside down to stop its rapid descent, eventually
flipping it back over just in time to land it in a field. Because he was
drunk at the time of the flight, however, he is eventually sent to
prison. Most of the plotline concentrates on the personal struggles of
the pilot before and especially after the event, though the lengthy
crash scene, shown mostly from within the plane, is among the most
compelling ever depicted on screen, joining Cast Away as proof
that Zemeckis could capture an aviation disaster as realistically as
anyone. Like several of the director's other more introspective later
films, Flight doesn't make significant use of an original score,
but he nevertheless turned once again to composer Alan Silvestri for
what minimal music was needed. Only roughly twenty minutes of score was
heard in the picture, and most of the major scenes in the narrative
exist without music, including the famous flight scene. While the
presence of only the dialogue and sound effects in that memorable moment
was a smart spotting decision, the film arguably could have used music,
albeit restrained, in more of its running time. Zemeckis and Silvestri
seemingly concentrated the role of the score on moments of the pilot's
battling with internal demons, though his breakthrough admission at the
hearing late in the story was also left unscored. Despite the highly
troubling and depressing nature of the story, there is very little
actual disturbance in the work, the dissonant ambient effects for "Crash
Site" a rare diversion from the otherwise quietly accessible tone. The
ensemble for the score consists of a string section, piano, oboe, harp,
acoustic guitar, and synthetics, their broadest performance in the
finale cue still more muted than equivalent contemplation in a score
like The Walk. Don't expect meaningful volume during this
listening experience, and some will find the short score to be too
insignificant to appreciate.
One area in which Silvestri excels for Flight is
in his thematic development, which is surprisingly well coordinated
despite the work's brevity. A sadness theme for the pilot uses a solemn
solo piano to explore ascendant pairs after a single opening note. This
theme is cyclically stuck without any hope of resolving, a good
representation for addicted hopelessness. It occupies all of "Opening"
by itself on piano with subtle accompaniment, and that solo piano
returns for a faster rendition on piano over a string sustain in "News
Report." The theme recurs on piano over slightly more ominous strings in
"Meeting's Over," and a similar tactic continues in "The Letter" but
with harp and oboe joining. Given more depth against the addiction motif
in "Whip's Mad Drive," the theme receives other layers for deeper drama.
Its underlying chords guide the intensifying addiction motif in "Whip
Inspects Room" while it jousts with that motif in a deceptively hopeful
moment during "Mini Bar." That additional motif, an identity of personal
destruction, consists of a thumping electronic bass rhythm for the
pilot's obsessive behaviors and the call of alcohol to him. Emerging
with sudden force from piano late in "The Letter," this idea propels the
main theme in "Whip's Mad Drive," is stripped back to a ticking effect
but still gnawing in "Whip Inspects Room," and retreats even further in
"Mini Bar." Silvestri offers the pilot a recovery theme in later cues, a
solo oboe replacing the piano for this evolution. That instrument
attempts but fails to elongate other theme's chords in "News Report" and
is blended with that theme and slowed considerably on solo piano in
"Driving," offering hope at the cue's end with brief but deeper string
and woodwind accompaniment. A warmer extension of the melody returns on
oboe in "Because I'm an Alcoholic" and eventually develops into its
destined form over pleasant but still sad strings for the finale, moving
back to piano in "I Need Your Help." The last theme in Flight is
for the secondary Nicole character, and it uses wandering, upward
acoustic guitar phrases that are also stuck in the loop of addiction.
Detailed in its doomed cycle throughout "Nicole Leaves Hotel" but with a
hint of escape at end, this theme is reprised similarly in "Nicole
Returns Home" and softened for piano in "The Old Farm House," hinting at
the pilot's recovery theme as well. These structural elements are never
really compelling, though, because of the restraint inherent in
Silvestri's approach to Flight. This is a score of extreme
subtlety, and at only 23 minutes on its promotional release, it won't
appeal to most. The composer didn't make any obvious mistakes with the
cues he recorded, but he wasn't given enough of a canvas to paint a
picture that anyone could care about.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31
(in 59 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.2
(in 42,939 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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Total Time: 22:41
• 1. Opening (0:55)
• 2. Nicole Leaves Hotel (0:50)
• 3. Nicole Returns Home (0:25)
• 4. Crash Site (1:22)
• 5. The Old Farm House (1:08)
• 6. News Report (1:39)
• 7. Driving (1:37)
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• 8. Meeting's Over (1:10)
• 9. The Letter (2:22)
• 10. Whip's Mad Drive (1:06)
• 11. Whip Inspects Room (1:53)
• 12. Mini Bar (1:42)
• 13. Because I'm an Alcoholic (4:46)
• 14. I Need Your Help (2:30)
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There exists no official packaging for this album, including the cover art.
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