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The Happening
(2008)
Album Cover Art
Composed and Co-Produced by:

Conducted and Co-Orchestrated by:
Pete Anthony

Co-Produced by:
Jim Weidman
Stuart Michael Thomas

Co-Orchestrated by:
Jeff Atmajian
Brad Dechter
Jon Kull

Performed by:
The Hollywood Studio Symphony

Maya Beiser (cello)
Labels Icon
LABEL & RELEASE DATE
Varèse Sarabande
(June 3rd, 2008)
Availability Icon
ALBUM AVAILABILITY
Regular U.S. release.
Awards
AWARDS
None.
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ALSO SEE





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   Availability | Viewer Ratings | Comments | Audio & Track Listings | Notes
Buy it... only if you can appreciate a chilly series of nervous, ambient crescendos of dissonance and a subtle funeral march led by a heartless cello and alienating piano as a title theme.

Avoid it... if you expect any compelling, harmonic sense of awe outside of the penultimate cue on the album.
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EDITORIAL REVIEW
FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #833
WRITTEN 6/6/08
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Howard
Howard
The Happening: (James Newton Howard) This, what M. Night Shyamalan claims was his easiest production to date, is ironically the popular director's most horrifically violent and disturbing. Twentieth Century Fox encouraged Shyamalan to embrace a full "R" rating for The Happening, allowing the writer/director to truly push the boundaries of the concept of unexplained deaths with gruesome detail. His story proposes that nature plays a nasty, sudden trick on humanity, stripping people (of all walks of life) of their most basic instinct: survival. With society killing itself, intentionally or otherwise, for seemingly no reason, one Philadelphia teacher (Mark Wahlberg) attempts to evade the mysterious plague by rushing his family by any means to the countryside, where fate is no kinder to them. In traditional fashion, Shyamalan's story and production design contains spooks around every corner, though the typical twist that exists at the end of his films is reserved for a larger statement about humanity. The director maintained much of his usual crew for The Happening, including composer James Newton Howard, whose music for Shyamalan's films have earned both an Oscar nomination and significant praise from film score collectors. Not surprisingly, the music for this film resides more closely in general tone to Signs and The Sixth Sense than the more readily enjoyable The Village and Lady in the Water. As Howard has done for previous films in the collaboration, he began writing his thematic ideas for The Happening based on only the script and conversations with the director. The two discussed creating a score that would primarily extend the film's sense of urgent confusion, as well as one that would set a rhythmic progression that builds in intensity as the unknown phenomenon creeps closer to the family at the heart of the story. Shyamalan mentioned Jerry Goldsmith's unconventional score for The Planet of the Apes, though Howard's end result is closer to a Bernard Herrmann effort for a classic Alfred Hitchcock suspense story.


Ratings Icon
VIEWER RATINGS
1,375 TOTAL VOTES
Average: 3.23 Stars
***** 279 5 Stars
**** 346 4 Stars
*** 321 3 Stars
** 276 2 Stars
* 153 1 Stars
  (View results for all titles)

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COMMENTS
3 TOTAL COMMENTS
Read All Start New Thread Search Comments
Brass Section (Hollywood Studio Symphony)   Expand >>
Kino - August 17, 2008, at 5:25 p.m.
2 comments  (2980 views)
Newest: April 16, 2009, at 9:26 a.m. by
The Anti-Nicolas Rodriguez Quiles
Cold and effective
SolarisLem - June 14, 2008, at 2:48 p.m.
1 comment  (2506 views)
More...


Track Listings Icon
TRACK LISTINGS AND AUDIO
Audio Samples   ▼
Total Time: 49:58
• 1. Main Titles (2:18)
• 2. Evacuating Philadelphia (2:21)
• 3. Vice Principal (1:56)
• 4. Central Park (2:58)
• 5. We Lost Contact (0:59)
• 6. You Can't Just Leave Us Here (1:43)
• 7. Rittenhouse Square (1:59)
• 8. Five Miles Back (1:13)
• 9. Princeton (3:06)
• 10. Jess Comforts Elliot (2:31)
• 11. My Firearm is My Friend (2:59)
• 12. Abandoned House (1:32)
• 13. Shotgun (4:27)
• 14. You Eyin' My Lemon Drink? (4:28)
• 15. Mrs. Jones (1:44)
• 16. Voices (1:36)
• 17. Be With You (3:41)
• 18. End Title Suite (8:36)

Notes Icon
NOTES AND QUOTES
The insert includes extensive credits and a list of performers, but no extra information about the score or 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 The Happening are Copyright © 2008, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/6/08 (and not updated significantly since).
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