Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,183
Written 1/8/24
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Buy it... if you need hapless, unsettling, avant-garde orchestral
suspense music geared towards making you believe conspiracy theories
about the end of society.
Avoid it... if you expect to encounter dramatically variable music
for a highly personal tale of apocalyptic survival, this cold score
supplying no narrative or human connection.
Leave the World Behind: (Mac Quayle) With the
support of former American president Barack Obama, the 2023 Julia
Roberts production Leave the World Behind postulates that
widening cultural divides in the United States will cause the country's
destruction. The Netflix movie shows that process as a psychological
thriller from the perspective of New Yorkers vacationing on Long Island.
The apocalyptic events include the elimination of all internet and
television signals, interrupted satellite signals causing ships and
airplanes to crash, and leaflets dropped from the sky proclaiming "Death
to America." The protagonists are forced to deal with issues of both
race and class as they navigate potential friends and foes during the
crisis, and the social commentary is laid on with an extra-thick layer
of obviousness. The obligatory scene of New York City being heavily
bombed at the end provides rather mundane special effects, and the ship
and airplane crash scenes are equally tepid in execution. On the upside
for those seeking cheap humor in the genre, a long line of Tesla
vehicles is shown crashing into a massive pileup on a highway during an
auto-pilot takeover while the lead family tries to evade them, a visual
which must thrill the automaker. Writer and director Sam Esmail had
foreshadowed this kind of damning scenario in his popular television
series "Mr. Robot" during the previous decade, and he once again called
upon collaborator Mac Quayle, who won an Emmy award for his work on that
series, to provide the music for Leave the World Behind. The
director made it clear to the longtime television composer that he
didn't seek typical horror music for the concept despite some truly
scary, near-death scenes, ultimately requiring Quayle to dial back his
score at times to suit a more avant-garde environment of suspense. (Even
the songs chosen by the director for placement were meant to be off the
beaten path.) After determining that a classically-informed orchestral
approach was preferred, the two turned to process. Because Esmail wanted
no temp score utilized in his editing process, Quayle was compelled to
write a variety of suites based upon his initial ideas for the story so
they could be used as a temp score instead. While a final score was
crafted out of these ideas, only about 20% of the finished work was
recorded after the movie's edit to suit individual scenes. The remainder
was pieced together by Quayle after he had experimented with three
general ideas and recorded them with an orchestra.
The composer constructed the general sound of
Leave
the World Behind upon tonally unusual scales with the intent of
infusing classicism and dissonance. For music students, this meant
emulating 20th Century French composer Olivier Messiaen and the third of
his Messiaen modes. The challenging environment that results sometimes
devolves into straight rhythmic suspense without much overlaid motific
action, requiring the typically restrained force of the orchestra's cold
demeanor to supply the right emotion for particular scenes. The ensemble
consists of 34 strings, 11 brass, 6 woodwinds, and percussion, with
piano a well-mixed highlight and techniques sharp all-around. Instruments are
sometimes performed to emulate animal sounds. Each section of performers was
recorded separately, creating a somewhat intentionally disconnected
overall sound to the combined mix. As the plot exposes the degenerate
nature of society, and in particular how observing animals are
referenced in relation to it, Quayle increasingly slathers on heavy
layers of slapping percussion in extremely unnerving methods,
culminating in the largely unlistenable "Human vs. Nature." In this and
several other, long dissonant crescendos, brass is applied as a blunt
tool of abrasion, blurting uncomfortably. Woodwinds, particularly in the
higher ranges, aid in creating a secondary suspense atmosphere that is
only less uncomfortable due to its underwhelming volume. The entirety of
the work is cobbled together without any regard to an overarching
narrative or human connection, a trait of the story that inspired the
film but one that leaves this score extremely diminished for the final
context. The main theme (of sorts) is an ascending, nine-note phrase
adapted all over the score, including in some of the earlier rhythmic
patterns. The phrase is heard immediately at the start of "Space" on
piano but never enunciates itself clearly enough to serve a connective
purpose in the way a film score typically strives to connect the movie's
ideas. The entire plot of
Leave the World Behind is
too-conveniently explained in a late scene, and the music that
accompanies it in "The Third Stage" fails to capture any of the gravity
of the moment, leaving only the acting to carry those duties. Because of
how Quayle pieced together his work, there is no beginning, no middle,
and no end to be heard in this score, only the same dissonant angst for
the entire running time. The music is thus basically sufficient, but it
ultimately lacks any personal touch where one was needed in the finished
film. It's unpleasant thriller music that starts dirty, digs around in
heaps of dirt in the middle, and closes in even more dirt. The downfall
of American society demands more dramatic variance than that.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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