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| Julyan |
Insomnia: (David Julyan) For the critically successful 2002
thriller
Insomnia, acclaimed director Christopher Nolan produced a murder
mystery that takes place in Alaska during the summer season. Thus, the sun never
really dips below the horizon, and the 24-hour per day sunlight can cause insomnia
for those who are not accustomed to it. Hence the title of the film and a
substantial aspect of the detective-related plot. The production was actually a
remake of a 1997 film that is often considered superior to this Hollywood version,
though the storyline of Nolan's telling at least makes a concerted effort to remain
true to the original circumstances. A cast of three Oscar winners is somewhat
underutilized, however, not allowing any of them to shine particularly brightly.
For the task of scoring
Insomnia, Nolan once again teamed with composer
David Julyan to produce a low key, relatively quiet musical effort that assists in
maintaining the environment of the bleak landscape on film without intruding upon
it. The works of Julyan have been most notably tied to those of Nolan (prior to the
resurrection of the
Batman franchise); both men were best known at the time
for their collaborations on
Following and the award-winning
Memento
more recently. The score shares more in common with the previous collaborations
than just a single word title, because much of
Insomnia is reminiscent of
the hauntingly underplayed methodology utilized in
Memento. For the budding
fan group of Julyan's work, this score was a welcome extension of the same general
style. Outside of his collaborations with Nolan, Julyan's filmography was sparse,
leading many to consider him as a young wildcard who could have taken a career step
in any direction from this point on. His badly underdeveloped score for
The
Prestige in 2006 didn't help his cause, however.
Perhaps working against him is the fact that his scores don't draw
much attention to themselves outside of the context of their films, a situation
that will kill the appeal of
Insomnia for listeners seeking an engaging
soundscape of at least minimal warmth. Instead of using any overt thematic
development in
Insomnia that could be particularly memorable in any of its
slightly altered forms, Julyan slowly elaborates on a few lengthy progressions of
disjointed chords to identify the work. This title theme, which really only reaches
out to the listener in its end titles performance, spends a full hour of bubbling
beneath the surface before it matures, aiding in the accompaniment of the music
within the film but drawing several blanks throughout the first half of the score
on album. Despite the title of "Kay's Theme," the motif suggested in the title is
nothing more than half a minute of a meandering piano, wandering aimlessly in the
fog and adhering to the bleak tone of the score for
Insomnia as a whole. The
music flirts with several levels of boredom throughout the first half of its album
presentation, but its representation of the effects of the medical condition of
insomnia grow in the second half. Each cue becomes steadily more pronounced in its
progressions as the Al Pacino's detective wits become more distorted (though Julyan
curiously avoids dissolving from harmony to disjointed dissonance as a tactic). The
chopping strings of "Walter's Lake House" are the culmination of this
transformation. There are plenty of synthesized effects to supplement the small to
moderate orchestra in this task, including a use of the horns to sound like an
approaching blast of a train whistle. The sound effect of a firing handgun is
emulated in "Fog," intelligently matching the pivotal scene's action. Other similar
electronic samplings were a staple of Julyan's early career as well, and these
elements provide most of the suspenseful touches in the score.
Instead of using any crashing or banging orchestral cues as, for
instance, Christopher Young might prefer to utilize, Julyan inserts the samples at
low volumes but with a sudden arrival, and that's what causes the score to maintain
its uneasy edge. Julyan also succeeds in producing eerie music for particular
scenes by ensuring that there is never true harmony in the score. This rule of
thumb may simply seem universal for all suspense scores, but Julyan does remarkably
well in soliciting an elevated performance from the orchestra that would be
perfectly harmonious if not for one constantly off key group of players in its
ranks. This technique, however, makes the score a burden on album. There are few
scores that exhibit such a grim personality as this one, failing to provide a
glimpse of sunlight despite the abundance of it in the picture. With this
challenging personality in mind, the entirety of
Insomnia, as a listening
experience, will appeal to a very small, specific crowd of listeners who seek the
dour mood of a subtle suspense score. It's not a piece of music that can be
recommended to most listeners, not because it is too challenging, but instead
because it is a work that is perfectly tailored for the film and should be enjoyed
in that context instead. Normally, scores like this receive low ratings, but that
is typically due to the fact that mind-numbing atmospheric material is usually
applied to a film due to budget restrictions rather than artistic merit. In this
case, Julyan represents the concept of a conflicted and increasingly agitated
insomniac very well, and his approach therefore deserves due praise. There are
three or four cues of chasing or action material that provides a sneak peek at the
kind of edgy, extroverted music that Julyan could produce for other genres, and it
would be both interesting and rewarding to hear him expand upon those ideas in
another musical genre. The album for
Insomnia, meanwhile, is aimed mostly at
enthusiasts of the film and is potentially (and ironically) a good tool with which
to tackle insomnia.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
*NM*
