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Maleficent: (James Newton Howard) So was Disney's
2014 cinematic re-envisioning of its own 1959 classic,
Sleeping
Beauty, a commentary about dangerous rape culture or American
socio-economics? Could it have been both? A movie has to garner
significant attention before the scholars and academically inclined
journalists start asking such questions, and
Maleficent managed
to make it happen. The script throws a monkey wrench into the original
plot by not only exploring that tale's villain as the central character
to this adaptation, but making her the hero for good measure. Much was
apparently to be misunderstood about Maleficent, and the 2014 movie
details her efforts to save Aurora the princess in the absence of truly
loving care from the faeries or her father. Of course, her father, King
Stefan, represents humanity as a wretched rapist, having violated a
young Maleficent by drugging her and taking her wings. And, from his
kingdom, you encounter a battle between humanity's industrial capitalism
and the socialistic utopia of the faeries' realm. Perhaps somewhere in
all these analogies, the critics didn't buy into the premise of
Maleficent, but with the vital selling point of actress Angelina
Jolie in the title role, an attachment that stretched back to the days
in 2011 when Tim Burton was slated to direct the picture, the film was a
major success. Burton's Oscar-winning art director for
Alice in
Wonderland (among other hits like
Avatar), Robert Stromberg,
eventually took the helm and made
Maleficent his initial effort
as a director. As the brother of well-respected film music conductor
William Stromberg, he may have received wise counsel about retaining
Disney's veteran collaborator, James Newton Howard, to handle the
scoring duties on
Maleficent. Howard's collaboration with Disney
was initially noticed during the three-picture contract he signed with
the studio in 2000, including
Dinosaur,
Atlantis: The Lost
Empire, and
Treasure Planet. While his work in the fantasy
genre has led to remarkable successes in the years since, notably for
the box office duds
Lady in the Water and
The Last
Airbender, his music for fairy tales is not heard as often as his
collectors would like. Even fleeting moments of that intangible sense of
"magic" in a score like
Snow White & the Huntsman teases such
fans without delivering the same goods.
With
Maleficent, you receive pure and unadulterated orchestral and choral fairy tale music on a massive scale from Howard. Like Alexandre Desplat for the nearly concurrent remake of
Godzilla, Howard employed an abnormally large number of brass players for this project. Orchestral purists will appreciate the minimal application of special instrumental accompaniment in
Maleficent, a few enhanced percussive sequences and occasional electronic manipulation but the whole sounding quite organic. The choral ensemble is flexed in a number of ways, from cooing to staccato bursts and solo soprano boy. Prominent instrumental solos are offered to cello and tuba, and while there may be something of an emphasis on the bass region in this score's suspense and action sequences, expect a satisfying amount of treble concentration as well. The accessibility of the score ranges significantly, some long cues featuring consecutive minutes of easily digestible, tonal fantasy of a beautiful nature. Others unleash forceful ruckus that doesn't necessarily infuse dissonant irritation as often as it simply explodes with overwhelming, oppressive power of volume. Howard really hides nothing in the general emotional tone of his score, with one very notable exception of his intentional thematic misdirection involving the characters. The lovely portions overflow with gorgeously harmonic progressions and sonic colors. The brutal sections beat you into submission with brass equal to the number of players, sometimes to the point of over-saturation. On the lighter side of the score, you hear many connections to vintage James Horner animation scores, especially in the orchestration and progressions of the theme for Aurora and Maleficent's relationship. Contrasting that are a few moments of heavy-handed brick-tossing, highlighted by the electronic and percussion dominant rhythmic sequence in the middle of "The Christening." The action cues are more often organic, however, the remainder of that cue an example of excellent pulsing from bass strings and wickedly ambitious brass figures. To Howard's credit, he resists the urge to pound away with dissonance just for the sake of cheap scares, the most obnoxious such moments of the score coming as dull percussive thuds at the conclusion of his lengthy rhythmic crescendo of phrases in the curse's theme. Those listeners seeking the easy, light tonality of
Lady in the Water will have plenty to enjoy, while those who prefer the action movements in
The Last Airbender will be equally served.
The themes of
Maleficent are an interesting study, because there's plenty of history in this concept and the story has some deception woven into its definition of "true love" that is directly reflected in the score. The original Disney classic, of course, was scored almost completely with adaptations from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's score for the ballet of 1890 that served as the inspiration for the film. Those who grew up with
Sleeping Beauty will recall a balance of hopelessly optimistic songs with one of the scarier moments in film music history as Aurora is lured to the curse in the form of a spindle. The 2014 production doesn't follow Tchaikovsky's lead with the exception of an extraordinarily creepy adaptation of the love song "Once Upon a Dream" and arguably some vague similarities between the famed spindle scene in the original and Howard's identity for the curse in the 2014 picture. By comparison, the overall soundtrack for
Maleficent is darker in more contemporary fantasy methodology, leaving behind any sense of classicism aside from some devilish waltz applications for specific scenes. Rather, Howard conjures several recurring themes for the 2014 film and manipulates them in ways that aren't always straightforward. Most of the identities connect back to Maleficent in some way, and that's logical because she is the heart of the story, stone or otherwise. The theme that will garner the most attention from casual listeners is that for the curse, if only because it takes so long to establish its phrases in a crescendo format that its four or five performances are hard to miss. Some reviewers have indicated that this theme consists of four notes, but this is erroneous. It is formed with four two-note phrases, and while the choral performances can bleed the pairs together at times, the instrumental accompaniment clearly establishes them as pairs. The first performance of this long series in "Maleficent Suite" is the only one to resolve neatly, segueing into Maleficent's own dramatic theme with tonal ease. More challenging are the performances in "The Christening," "The Spindle's Power," and "The Curse Won't Reverse," each rendition consistent in the bed of celeste and tuba or bass strings in the background but "The Spindle's Power" excelling in its multi-layering of counterpoint over it, including an eerie secondary line for the choir. There's a distant sense of nobility to this theme's brass accompaniment that is highly suggestive of a heroic counterpart to the theme, so it's no surprise when elements of the theme's rhythmic figures are suggested in transfigured phrases for Maleficent's brighter days.
Maleficent herself is provided several identities
depending on her relationship to various concepts. Her main theme,
anchoring the bulk of the second half of "Maleficent Suite" and the
victorious passages in "Maleficent Flies," is flighty Howard adventure
music at its best, the composer hovering on several absolutely glorious
tonal chords at key points. Her tender side is explored on piano at the
very end of "Maleficent Suite," paired with the boy soprano solo that is
featured additionally in "Maleficent Flies." This idea morphs into an
idea that Howard expresses for the growing relationship between
Maleficent and Aurora in "You Could Live Here Now" and especially
"Aurora in Faerieland" before disintegrating as necessary in "Are You
Maleficent?" An important thread in the score is an interlude sequence
to Maleficent's own tender theme, heard first at 1:49 into "Maleficent
Flies." This beautiful descending section of the theme extends to a
loving full ensemble performance at 0:32 into "Aurora and the Fawn" and
is toned down wisely in "True Love's Kiss." The only expansion of the
idea comes amidst the statement of Maleficent's lighter identity early
in "The Queen of Faerieland," where this theme fragment is repeated
twice in succession. Maleficent's theme also serves itself as an
interlude to the theme for the Moors, appropriately, in "Welcome to the
Moors," and the same bouncing spirit (which is Celtic in some ways)
informs Maleficent's truly "happy" theme variant, heard at 2:21 into
both "Maleficent Flies" and "The Queen of Faerieland." The evil humans
in the story receive a punchy brass motif introduced with militaristic
zeal late in "Aurora and the Fawn." Even heavier treatment with choir is
afforded the idea at the outset of "Path of Destruction." Howard
identifies the villains of
Maleficent with a strangely sickening
form of waltz step, taking this idea to the realm of the bizarre in "The
Army Dances" (which returns to the electronics at the beginning but
ultimately employs a tambourine, of all things, to aide in its
marginally comedic demeanor) and at the end of "The Queen of Faerieland"
in the little teaser burst to close out the score. Not all of the action
material in the score employs these structures, so if you can't handle
the swing of these identities, you can instead seek out cues like "The
Wall Defends Itself" or the outset of "The Iron Gauntlet," which
features a sinister, descending idea that was previously heard late in
"The Christening." The culmination of the material for the humans is
"Maleficent is Captured," a bombastic action cue that is overtaken by
Maleficent's heroic and flight-related material as her wings return to
the story.
There are a few points of intrigue regarding
Maleficent, both positive and negative, that require some
commentary. Perhaps the most brilliant move that Howard made with this
score was one that many listeners won't even notice, and that's because
it's an intentional absence of theme that is key to the plot. On a
casual listen, a Howard enthusiast may wonder why Prince Phillip's
material is so wishy-washy and ultimately irrelevant. Howard seemingly
intended not to provide him with a theme, instead content to write
meaninglessly fluffy underscore for his scenes. Once you realize that he
is not Aurora's true love, then this choice makes perfect sense. The
most important cue in
Maleficent is "True Love's Kiss," when
Maleficent herself breaks the spell by kissing Aurora. Howard treats the
scene with a lovely rendition of Maleficent's tender theme and lovely
interlude sequence for choir. You have to admire that intelligence in
the planning of the score. Secondly, there seems to be some mixed
reviews of the song that opens the end credits, preceding the
"Maleficent Suite" during those credits. Angeline Jolie handpicked young
American singer Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (known as Lana Del Rey) to
perform a spooky cover of the 1959 adaptation of Tchaikovsky's ballet
for "Once Upon a Dream." The classic Disney film rearranged that waltz
portion of the ballet into a song, and this version emulates the exact
melodic structure and lyrics of its predecessor. The difference, of
course, is in tone and performance; whereas the 1959 recording was
sickeningly sweet and innocent, Del Rey's performance resides in the low
ranges and is slightly distorted in the mix. Ominous orchestrations by
capable composer Jane Antonia Cornish are excellent at balancing
romanticism and disillusionment. It is yet another depressingly
enticing, motherly song in the mould of Angelo Badalamenti's memorable
"Who Will Take My Dreams Away?" from
The City of Lost Children,
but with the melody's final phrases here now resembling Boy George's
"The Crying Game" from 1992. There are few downsides to the soundtrack
for
Maleficent on the whole. One of them is Howard's seeming
inability to really clarify his themes with the obvious delineation you
typically hear in massive fantasy scores. In other words, some listeners
will have difficulty placing the themes and instead content themselves
by soaking in the whole. It is not as taut a thematic narrative as
Lady in the Water, but few scores will be. The album also suffers
from inconsistent gain levels, so you have to adjust the volume yourself
from track to track in order to even hear the softer material after an
action cue. Still, you rarely find fantasy scores of this caliber in the
2010's, such spectacular orchestral majesty a truly rare commodity.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 62 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.34
(in 74,626 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes a list of performers, lyrics to the song, and
photography from the recording sessions.
