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| Serra |
Léon (The Professional): (Eric Serra) If
there was one overarching staple of Luc Besson's films of the 1990's, it
was the concept of scantily-clad women willing and capable of shooting
and killing someone. In several cases, Besson went on to bed and marry
many of his much-younger leading ladies, but that was fortunately not
the case with 12-year-old Natalie Portman debuting in 1994's
English-language movie,
Léon, known as
The
Professional internationally. Her character's family is killed in
crime violence involving crooked cops, and the girl is taken in by a
hesitant, neighboring "cleaner" who is at first uncertain about the
girl's interest in his profession. With vengeance against the villainous
police at the forefront of their minds, the veteran assassin (Jean Reno)
teaches the girl his trade. The plotline has no happy ending for the
duo, but the girl does achieve some sense of resolution by the end.
Slick performances by Reno and Gary Oldman as the antagonist have aided
Léon's cult status, though the girl's fleshy (in this
case, underage) sexuality also plays a role, as typical in a Besson
movie. Critical responses weren't glowing, and the movie never quite
captured the same essence as Besson's earlier
La Femme Nikita,
but one area of improvement for
Léon was its hybrid score
by the director's longtime French collaborator, Eric Serra. With the
composer, who was clearly at the height of his international appeal in
the mid-1990's, you could always expect some influence from grungy
electronics and rock mannerisms in his larger scores, and this one is no
exception. Whereas Serra's music for
La Femme Nikita was
minimally rendered and rather unsophisticated in its dated, sometimes
grating synthetic sound, some of the lyricism in that 1990 score's
finale is expanded upon in the strategic approach to
Léon.
Serra's instrumental employment is surprisingly varied for the New York
setting of the movie, assembling exotic woodwinds and Italian mafioso
elements in support of a sizeable orchestra and his standard
synthesizers. The woodwind applications are particularly extensive in
this entry, growling bass bassoons a unique touch in late fight cues.
Brass rarely provides much muscle to the soundscape, though, a detriment
to several cues that could have used it to a greater degree.
Aside from the orchestral depth of the score for
Léon, the music's utilization of percussion and
electronics as sound effects for a sense of gravity dominates the
soundscape, especially in a cue like "Cute Name." Serra's thunder sound
effect, as heard at the start of "Back on the Crime Scene," is a mixed
bag. Synthetic pan pipes do lend a slightly exotic feel in "Can't I Have
a Word With You?" and others. The wet, industrial metal effects from
struck percussion are a Serra calling card, and its use is prominent
here as well. The feel of the score is ethnic and tragic on one side
while starkly sterile in its menacing half. Though Serra establishes a
convincing general style for the music, his cues don't develop themes or
motifs particularly well, his technique of static movement from the
start to the end of a cue tending to annoy too often. Like in "Fatman,"
several cues contain rhythms that can drone on for five minutes without
interest. The action cues are downright boring, in fact, with nothing
exciting in this score; the final confrontation cues are about as tepid
and underplayed as they could be. Even in these underwhelming moments,
though, Serra does manage to remain loyal to his thematic constructs
despite their flaws. While there are four themes that define characters
in
Léon, only two have a lasting impact. One represents
the villain of the tale, Oldman's corrupt (and stoned) drug enforcement
lead. He is treated to an oddly Middle-Eastern series of descending
slurs, slippery structures that sound almost foreign. This theme is
overly cool against a restrained rhythm at 3:02 into "Noon," with
tambourines that seem a little bright here and in other cues that apply
them. A variant on strings over industrial percussion follows at 0:06
into "What's Happening Out There?" and persists for the whole cue in
much the same form. The idea becomes its most poignantly dramatic on
strings at 0:45 into "She is Dead" and reduces its presence for the
midsection of the story. It haunts "Leon the Cleaner" in subtle
references, provides allusions from timpani in "Room 4602," and only
barely informs the edges of "The Fight (Part 2: Bring Me Everyone)." The
villain's theme returns in full early in "The Fight (Part 3: The Big
Weapon)" over militaristic rhythms; the tambourine persists, which is
still somewhat strange, but the theme gains momentum and volume
throughout the cue, eventually adding some crashing cymbals.
Comparatively, the idea is less coherent in the latter half of "The
Fight (Part 4: One is Alive)."
Serra's theme for Reno's Léon assassin is a
descending and ascending motif of remarkable sadness, but it's somewhat
generic due to its static pacing in most performances. There's no hint
of swagger in his music. This theme debuts at 0:42 into "Cute Name" on
bass flute and strings and intensifies as the cue goes on, yielding the
most impactful moment in the score. It consolidates on solemn oboe over
morbid string layers in "Leon the Cleaner," meanders slightly on guitar
and piano in "The Game is Over," and is deconstructed in the disturbing
"When Leon Does His Best" until renewed focus on the proper melody at
the end of the cue. Léon's theme is keyboarded with string warmth
in the first half of "Back on the Crime Scene" and moves to a low flute
solo at the outset of "The Fight (Part 1: The Swat Squad)," its ominous
low wind and string renditions of fear a nice touch. For the story's
resolution, the theme is conveyed tenderly on piano at the outset of
"Two Ways Out," swelling to string melodrama in the latter half.
Initially related to the brighter incarnations of this idea is
Mathilda's theme, which is the lightest part of the work in its acoustic
guitar and low xylophone performances that offer rare innocence for only
one cue in the score. Appropriately soft at 0:30 into "Ballad for
Mathilda" over a wash of comfortable guitar and strings, the idea
disappears until it blends well with the Léon theme in the finale
sentimentality of "Two Ways Out." Ancillary to the score is an offshoot
of the Léon theme's progressions for his Italian mafia employer,
Tony. This twist of the prior identity is slightly Italian in its
personality due to bandoneon and other regional instrumentation in "Tony
the IBM." That same bandoneon spirit is toned down significantly in "How
Do You Know It's Love?," and that's the extent of such material in the
score. Ultimately, Serra offers a bevy of interesting and at times
compelling concepts in his music for
Léon, but the whole
suffers from the composer's inability to generate any genuine sense of
dread, excitement, or payoff. The suite of "The Fight" cues at the
climax of the film is badly underplayed, almost as if Serra was
attempting hypnosis rather than thrill. On its nearly hour-long album,
the score definitely needs culled to concentrate the dramatic highlights
into a suite of slightly exotic and better than average Serra
tonalities. A European version of the album also includes the bonus
track "Hey Little Angel," very Serra-like, light rock song with film
dialogue sprinkled throughout. Collectors of Serra's music will
undoubtedly appreciate the hybrid electronic and orchestra highlights,
but don't expect the composer to sculpt a well-rounded score out of
them.
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The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.
