 |
| Desplat |
The Golden Compass: (Alexandre Desplat) Few series
of fantasy novels have stirred the pot of religious controversy as
deeply as Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," which examines concepts
of nature and Christianity that Evangelicals find intolerably
blasphemous. The success of the trilogy in print, as well as a
renaissance of similar adaptations of children's fantasy to the big
screen since 2001, led New Line Cinema to throw hundreds of millions of
dollars at the concept with hopes of reprising the overwhelming success
of the trilogy of
The Lord of the Rings films. As with most of
these concepts, the details of the plot are largely inconsequential when
discussing the music written for their adaptations, with the exception
of the extent to which a composer attempts to address individual lines
of action, notions, or characters that recur throughout the stories.
Attention to such detail was easily the intent of French composer
Alexandre Desplat, whose assignment to
The Golden Compass follows
several dramatic entries into the international spotlight over the past
few years. Acclaim has largely resulted from scores like
The Painted
Veil and
The Queen, among many others, and Desplat is
commonly considered the foremost composer from France working today. He
received plenty of advice from director Chris Weitz about the sound
desired for the project, and film score veterans will be able to pick up
on the subtleties of these inspirations throughout the score. Perhaps
the most obvious aspect of the large, orchestral score's direction is
Desplat's treatment of the subject matter with the same respect to
trilogy development and thematic integration as Howard Shore achieved
with his immensely popular scores for
The Lord of the Rings.
Desplat follows Shore's lead in the incorporation of a surprisingly
detailed and large collection of themes, weaving them into the narrative
with such efficiency that a person familiar with the film can easily
follow the action through the score. Additionally, Desplat provides
fragments and whole sections of themes in ways that foreshadow the two
future scores, with unexplicable little motifs heard throughout
The
Golden Compass that could very well have been meant to be explored
further in the sequels.
Several tragic factors in the production of
The Golden
Compass cause problems with the score and disrupt the intelligent
design that Desplat likely conjured when outlining his themes (and their
presentation). First, the producers of the film rearranged significant
portions of the novel and completely left off the natural end of the
story in the film (despite filming it, interestingly). This editing came
so late in production that Desplat could not have anticipated them when
preparing his own development of the music. The fact that one of the
score's best cues is completely absent from a deleted scene from later
in the film is only the beginning of the problems. More disturbing is
the fact that
The Golden Compass did not fare anywhere near as
well in the theatres as New Line had hoped, putting in jeopardy the
trilogy's marketability and potentially leaving some of Desplat's
musical ideas in a lame duck status. That said, when you step back and
look at Desplat's music for
The Golden Compass, anyone who pays
attention to the details of his score can clearly hear the composer's
extremely intelligent thematic usage throughout the work. If you take
Shore's
The Lord of the Rings as the mould, then the assignment
of themes to the vast collections of characters and situations in the
film is necessary. And Desplat succeeds brilliantly in these regards. He
rarely varies his constructs in
The Golden Compass, meaning that
the themes he devises can be readily recognized in various instrumental
and rhythmic guises. As with his scores like
Birth and
The
Painted Veil, there is rarely a moment when there isn't some
statement of a theme in progress. In the case of
The Golden
Compass, there are so many of them that some listeners (and
especially those unfamiliar with the books or film) will become lost.
This leads to the greatest weakness of
The Golden Compass: a lack
of overarching identity that Shore managed to attain through the heavy
emphasis of one theme in each of his films. The "Fellowship" theme was
the first film's dominant and memorable musical element, and the trilogy
somewhat adopted it as is overarching identity through
Return of the
King. While featuring an abundance of good candidates,
The Golden
Compass has no such identifier.
Before delving into the some of the larger conceptual
difficulties that plague the music for
The Golden Compass, merit
has to be awarded to Desplat for his multitude of themes. None of them
is a show-stopper, and some will remind you of other scores. But their
sheer number is ambitious enough to reward any fan of the stories with
an intellectual musical journey through each concept. The first theme
heard in the score is one for Dust, a five-note motif often performed by
Tibetan singing bowl, xylophone, piano, gong, and flute. Its cyclical
presentation and simple, rising structure in the score's prologue
sequence will raise memories of Danny Elfman's
Batman, though
film music purists will reference this theme all the way back to Bernard
Herrmann, who himself has seemingly influenced Desplate here on several
occasions. A more extroverted variation on this theme exists in several
places throughout
The Golden Compass, and it's difficult to
determine if Desplat considers these similar ideas (which often share
counterpoint) to be derived from the same notion. The robust ensemble
performances of this Dust variant is about as close as Desplat would
come to providing a title theme, using its performances to highlight
vast cinematography for the concept of the journey that prevails
throughout the novels. The full displays of this theme in "Sky Ferry,"
"Lord Asriel," and "Ragnar Sturlusson" are its most obvious statements,
whereas the subdued construct of the Dust theme, sometimes only
punctuating an appearance of the alethiometer, is far more obscure. The
rhythmic movement of "Sky Ferry" will remind Desplat collectors of the
travelling music in
Syriana. The young girl at the heart of the
story receives two major themes (Desplat has claimed that she has three,
but two of them seemingly overlap with such regularity that for the
purposes of trying to keep things simple, we'll discuss them in terms of
two themes). Her primary theme is a delightfully pretty woodwind melody
that gracefully moves with some shared progressions from James Horner's
An American Tail.
In its more fluttering and innocent movements, Lyra's
primary theme is among Desplat's weakest for the film, and one of the
more curious aspects of his entire score is the fact that the theme's
most dominant performances are in the final two cues; in these cues, the
theme still features an innocence that the character is quickly losing
in the story. This particularly applies to the "Epilogue," though this
cue makes a fantastic transition from a solo performance of the theme to
an ensemble representation with victorious trumpet counterpoint at the
end. The victory is a bit misleading at that point, but it sure makes
for a satisfying closing to the score. The second theme involving Lyra
is the one that develops along with her bond with the bear Iorek. This
theme explodes with its most obvious and heroic performance at the
outset of "Riding Iorek" and accompanies the emotions of Iorek's battle
and victory over Ragnar in "Ice Bear Combat" (with agony) and "Iorek's
Victory" (with relief). The rolling orchestral performance in "Riding
Iorek" is a blatant tug at the climactic moments of John Williams'
E.T., even down to the pulsating brass accompaniment. A noble
theme for Iorek himself is less often utilized, introduced in full in
"Iorek Byrnison," and receives its most glorious moment on brass near
the opening of "Iorek's Victory." One of the score's more enjoyable
themes is short on appearances; the courageous theme for Serafina
Pekkala does explode, however, in the rescue sequence of "Battle with
the Tartars." A string theme for Mrs. Coulter (and extending to her
daemon) is an intoxicating, rising movement over waves of hypnotic
rhythms that suggest some of the physical appeal of Jerry Goldsmith's
Basic Instinct. This theme would be best explored, naturally, in
her introductory "Mrs. Coulter" and would flourish with a short trumpet
fanfare at the end of "The Magisterium." The thematic representation for
the Magisterium itself uses the same fluid movement as the theme for
Mrs. Coulter, and Desplat intentionally blurs the lines between them.
While the two themes mingle, the Magisterium's idea is often given away
by the deliberately shifting and ominous accompaniment in the lowest
regions of the woodwinds and on piano. This theme, most easily heard in
between the giddy title theme statements in "Sky Ferry," would largely
become lost in more ambient sequences later in the score.
Also residing in the lowest regions of the ensemble is the
impressively simple but effective idea for Ragnar Sturlusson, heard
prominently in the cue of that title. The four-note piano motif,
utilizing the power of six pianos in striking fashion, would open his
cue and eventually receive full ensemble treatment a few minutes later.
Perhaps the most intriguing thematic representation in
The Golden
Compass is a light melody for the character of Billy, which is one
of the only themes that experiences significant changes throughout the
score. It's heard first in explosively happy and charming form in "Lyra,
Roger, and Billy," exhibiting some of the ultra-positive attitude of
Hans Zimmer's music for Simba in
The Lion King. It shifts to
lullaby mode consistent with Horner's
Casper in the longing
"Letters from Bolvangar" before exposing a structure interestingly
similar to Bruno Coulais'
The Chorus during the boy's discovery
in "Riding Iorek" (the similarity to Coulais is especially evident in
the solo woodwind performance here). Far more consistent is a march for
the Gyptians, the score's most diverse theme. Making use of Desplat's
wildest array of Eastern European (and slightly Oriental) instruments,
this theme is a choppy, recursive theme that does little to extend the
overall personality of the score, but its appearances in "Lyra Escapes"
and "Lord Faa, King of the Gyptians" are interesting in and of
themselves. A slight clarinet motif also associated with the Gyptians,
used in the more subtle references to them, appears in several places
and is easily identifiable due to its Middle-Eastern progressions.
Another interesting thematic use for Desplat fans in
The Golden
Compass is the seeming adaptation of one of the primary themes from
The Painted Veil for use as the theme for the Gobblers here. It
most often appears as counterpoint on strings over other thematic
statements, reducing its impact on the score. Several other motifs
exist, some from the words of Desplat himself, and like the ideas for
Lee Scoresby, they may be more obvious in the planned sequels.
Otherwise, like Shore's work for
The Lord of the Rings, the
remaining ideas fade into the tapestry without much notice solicited for
each one.
All of these themes form the greatest strength of
The
Golden Compass. Outside of Desplat's loyalty to them, there are
several other aspects of this score that deserve praise. First, the
orchestration and instrumental creativity of Desplat and Conrad Pope is
outstanding. The collection of specialty instruments for
The Golden
Compass is typical of the most diverse works of Mychael Danna and
other stars of international, genre-bending scoring. The dynamic range
with which Desplat balances the ensemble is also important in this
score. From the throat singers and combined pianos in their lowest
octaves to the triangles and shrieking flutes over the top, the sonic
range in almost all of the cues in
The Golden Compass is
remarkable. Desplat has proven himself to be a composer for whom
masterful intricacy is not a challenge, and this score is perhaps the
best evidence of that technique. The subtle use of electric cello and
electric violin adds further texture and enhanced bass (in the case of
the cello) without betraying the orchestral personality of the overall
work. The use of voices is underplayed, though they make strong
contributions at various points. Aside from the throat singing, the
descending voices of a boys' choir creates a fantastic dissonance after
the initial thematic blast in "Riding Iorek" and an ensemble, adult
choral performance of the title theme in the middle of "Rangar
Sturlusson" is a highlight of the score (despite the awkwardly thumping
bass that raises memories of Toto's worm-riding sequences in
Dune). The most important comment about all of these performers
is their accuracy in performance. The London Symphony Orchestra is on
its game here, which tremendously assists the Elliot Goldenthal-like
frenzy of activity in the score's four or five massive, but
disappointingly short action pieces. The swirling strings near the start
of "Ice Bear Combat" and the frenetic brass and woodwinds in the middle
of "Lord Asriel" are of particular interest. The harmonic resonance of
the Serafina Pekkala theme amongst the chaos in "Battle with the
Tartars" is another highlight.
Because of all the great strengths of
The Golden
Compass listed above, the score is commonly considered to be among
the best --if not the single best-- of 2007. While it does deserve to
reside near the top of those scales, the score is not without its
weaknesses. If Desplat was attempting to mirror Howard Shore in his
technique for
The Lord of the Rings, then he placed too much
emphasis (while successful) on thematic depth and lost sight of two
other aspects of Shore's scores that made them so monumentally popular.
First, none of the themes mentioned above is dominant enough to sustain
itself for a mainstream listener outside of the film. Most of the major
ideas do receive a full ensemble performance at some point in the
journey, but they are often brief and range widely in their placement.
This score, more than any fantasy or adventure score in recent memory,
badly needed a prologue, epilogue, or concert suite arrangement that
prominently provided four or five of the major themes in glorious and
obvious fashion. Indeed, the first and final tracks do each
intentionally cover many of the themes, but once again, they appear in
fragments or other subtle form. As such,
The Golden Compass is a
score that is forced to rely on the sum of its themes and their creative
textures to define itself. That may work for film music intellectuals,
but for the average fan, this score is lacking that intangible sense of
distinction in theme that carried so many of the great John Williams
scores that seemingly played a role in influencing
The Golden
Compass. As discussed before, Shore's scores for
The Lord of the
Rings weren't as blatantly obvious as a typical Williams score
themselves, but he compensated by heavily emphasizing at least one theme
per film and made sure to include a valiant statement of that theme at
the end of the picture or its credits. The Dust theme in
The Golden
Compass is used so often, and yet you never hear it mature into
something as weighty as that which it represents. Nor do you hear a
connection between it and the journeying variant for bright major key
expression.
The second major flaw with
The Golden Compass is
that so much attention was given by Desplat to instrumental detail that
he managed to lose the sense of fantasy integral to scores sharing this
same genre. Every instrumental soloist, down to the last harp pluck and
piano strike, is emphasized in the recording with absolute crystal
clarity. Once again, for the intellectuals, the lack of reverb in the
mix allows for appreciation of the intricacy of the composition. But
this presentation lacks any power whatsoever for most of the score; even
the action sequences seem sparse at times, betraying the ensemble's
outstanding performances and the presence of interesting textures by
forgetting that resonance as a whole does matter. Some say that Shore
went too far in the opposite direction with
The Lord of the
Rings, washing so many of the elements together with a wet mix that
all you get is the overwhelming sense of the whole. But Shore's scores
also illuminated its themes well above that whitewash of sound, whether
it was a flute solo for the hobbit themes or noble horns for the
fellowship. Desplat's music for
The Golden Compass badly needs
some reverb added back into the mix to help it achieve its place in the
fantasy genre, and you could certainly do so without sacrificing the
intricacies of each performer. The final flaw of the score is one that
plagues the film, and that is the re-arrangement of the material in
post-production. With the scene for the cue "Lee Scoresby's Airship
Adventure" omitted and two sections of the book inverted late in the
production process, the score's flow, as especially made evident on
album, is poor. The majority of action sequences end in the middle
section of the album, leaving no natural conclusion for that material
outside of the brief Tartar battle music. Luckily, only a very little
amount of music from the film is absent from the album, which is almost
too long given the redundancy of some of the softer cues.
Rounding out that album, which was delivered to CD
stores long after the movie had already lost steam in the theatres, is
the unrelated song "Lyra," a short new age piece written and performed
by Kate Bush. It's an obvious attempt to mirror
The Lord of the
Rings once again, using Bush's meandering, echoing vocals to the
same degree the Enya did for the first film in the prior trilogy. With
its synthetic choir and keyboarded strings, the song is pleasant but
non-descript, making no attempt to connect itself to the score. The 70
minutes of Desplat's score preceding it is so infinitely more
intelligent that there's no reason to discuss the song further. It
remains difficult to determine exactly how most film music fans will
react to
The Golden Compass. Some have given the score a cursory
browsing and have written it off as lacking cohesive thematic presence.
Technically, those listeners are wrong. But they are correct in pointing
out that for the mainstream listener, the score won't be particularly
memorable once it concludes. Even for fans of the work, there will be
three or four themes that strike the best chord with you, and
The
Golden Compass is definitely a score that could use some personal
rearrangement by fans. The album presentation is, of course, completely
out of order. But the fact that Desplat typically has a distinctive
beginning and end to each statement of theme allows for ease in the
process of personal rearrangement. Overall, many critics and fans were
surprised to see that
The Golden Compass failed to garner an
Academy Award nomination, especially coming a year after Desplat's
nomination for
The Queen. Given that the group has shown to have
no bias against European composers in its nominations, it is distinctly
possible that the score suffered more from the lack of power and
memorability than hardcore film score fans might admit. It is truly
frightening to imagine no sequel for a score composed specifically as
the first of three that would eventually unfold into a larger tapestry
of music, and it would be fascinating to hear what Desplat could do in
subsequent entries in the series. But
The Golden Compass remains
a score better built for intellectual appreciation rather than
mainstream enjoyment.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.39
(in 31 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.22
(in 16,383 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
