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Review of Good Will Hunting (Danny Elfman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek the kind of small-scale, mystical, eerie, and
withdrawn score in Danny Elfman's career that equals The Spitfire
Grill for James Horner at about the same time.
Avoid it... if the occasional harmonic beauty that Elfman can create with acoustic guitars and pennywhistle can't substantiate less than half an hour of otherwise directionless pondering.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Good Will Hunting: (Danny Elfman) Winning over
critics without any of the spectacular and flashy production elements of
its competition in 1997, Good Will Hunting was best described as
an ordinary film made enjoyable by the subtle strengths of its
individual scenes. Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and directed by
Gus Van Sant, the movie is a "feel-good people-story" starring its two
writers alongside Robin Williams and Minnie Driver, all with notable
performances. It's a "coming of age" story as well, showing Damon's
brilliant youthful mind of Will Hunting at odds with his job at a top
academic college as a janitor. His relationships with a professor,
therapist, and girlfriend save him from his own temper, which lands him
in jail early in the film. Requiring patience, Good Will Hunting
essentially thrives on scenes of dialogue with these characters, and the
screenplay and performances were clever enough to gain the film several
Academy Award nominations and recognition to Miramax as a studio adept
at finding these lofty little projects. One of the film's more curious
Oscar nominations came for Danny Elfman's score. For a composer whose
first decade of compositions at the time were so notable and popular, it
is still baffling to accept that Good Will Hunting, along with
the equally curious Men in Black, would represent Elfman's first
(simultaneous) nominations from AMPAS, the duo of nominations seemingly
a "make good" for the group's prior refusal to acknowledge Elfman as a
legitimate artist in the industry. His score plays a distinctly faint
role in the film, only providing an accent to a handful of scenes and
often existing underneath dialogue that easily overshadows its impact.
Conversely, the songs were the heart and soul of the film, leading to a
popular album of their own and likely causing the Academy to nominate
Elfman's work for largely the same reason that Anne Dudley would be
nominated (and win) for The Full Monty the same year.
In its short running time, Elfman's score for Good Will Hunting served as further proof that the composer's transition from large-scale Gothic efforts to more troubled character scores was in effect. Some of the instrumental usage from Elfman's collaboration with Van Sant for the bizarre To Die For carried over to Good Will Hunting, but with a far more listenable and streamlined personality. By Elfman standards, that is. His score features acoustic guitar, piano, slight orchestra (primarily for strings and woodwinds but also utilizing very minimal brass), whistles, and a light choral accompaniment. The presence of a pennywhistle, often performing longing fragments of the score's primary theme over soft guitar accompaniment, provides a distinctly Irish flavor to Good Will Hunting, perhaps a choice by Elfman to address the locale of the film's story. The solitary tone of the score is its defining aspect, raising adjectives such as mystical, eerie, pondering, ominous, magical, and withdrawn. In this minimalistic package, the score fits the personality of its title character well. Hints of elegance from Black Beauty are countered by dissonance from To Die For, and a slight sense of a plea for help incorporated musically into Edward Scissorhands is also present. Together, Elfman takes seemingly complimentary elements and makes them incongruous for parts of Good Will Hunting; off kilter progressions and rhythms and the slightly detuned mix of the orchestra give the score a wishy-washy sound that yearns for harmonic resolution but only accomplishes it in a few places. In "Main Title," "Them Apples," "Weepy Donuts," and a couple of short performances in between, the primary theme does just that. Not surprisingly, these are the highlights of the score. Like Will Hunting, though, Elfman's score gives the surface impression that it doesn't have a clear sense of direction. There is indeed a development that comes to a distinct conclusion in "Weepy Donuts," but it can slip by unnoticed so easily that the score likely won't maintain the interest of most listeners outside of the occasional beauty of the whistles over the top of the ensemble. The score has never been fully released commercially. The two best cues, "Main Title" and "Weepy Donuts," were included on the popular song compilation album for the film, one of the better such products of its age. To boost its own chances for a high Oscar nomination count, Miramax pressed 500 copies of a promo that included 23 minutes of Elfman's music (17 minutes of which was previously unreleased). Miramax actually altered the pressing, causing two promos to exist. The first promo had no label and was 23 minutes long in total. It did not include any songs and had mislabeled tracks near the end (or tracks with no titles at all). The officially marked Miramax variant that followed and was more widely available on the secondary market has roughly 4 more minutes than the other due to the inclusion of the "Miss Misery" song by Elliot Smith that was also very popular at the time (Elfman further collaborated with Smith and the resulting music remained only on the commercial album). Both albums featured similar artwork on its packaging; the second Miramax promo has "Good Will Hunting" written alone on the side packaging, whereas the first promo (with the mislabeled tracks) has "...by Danny Elfman" on the side next to the title. The few copies of both original promo albums that worked their way to collectors began with a price of $50 at the CD stores in Los Angeles that would redistribute such items from Academy members to fans. But not long after, the promo fetched bounties over $100, a surprisingly high price for 23 minutes of score, the best seven of which already released. It was always far more economical for most listeners to just purchase the song compilation album. In 2014, Music Box Records released upwards of 30 minutes of the score and paired it with several Smith songs, including the short sequence of "Between the Bars" featuring Elfman's string orchestrations in the background. Even this was a limited and obscure album, and Elfman's score simply is not enthralling enough to merit a search for an original copy of the promo or the 2014 product. The sound quality on the two isn't significantly different. Watching a film about a confused genius seeking direction is one thing, but listening to a score that embodies much of the same isn't as thought provoking or inspiring. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1998 Miramax Promo:
Total Time: 26:56
(track times not listed on packaging) 2014 Music Box Album: Total Time: 44:37
NOTES & QUOTES:
None of the original promotional variants contained any information about the score or film. The insert of
the 2014 Music Box album contains extensive notation about the score and film.
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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 Good Will Hunting are Copyright © 1998, 2014, Miramax (Promo), Music Box Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 3/15/98 and last updated 8/17/14. |
