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| Davis |
The Matrix Revolutions: (Don Davis) One of the most
storied series of fantasy films came to an abrupt end in 2003, with both
The Matrix Reloaded and
The Matrix Revolutions dazzling
audiences in the same year. The establishment of humanity's battle
against the machines that rule the future Earth in the prior two films
reaches its predetermined destiny in
The Matrix Revolutions, the
romantic tragedy of love and civilization lost countered by a
fulfillment of fate that doesn't necessarily end this epic battle, but
at least earns humanity a reprieve. Once again on display are concepts
and techniques in visual effects that offended conservative groups while
thrilling franchise faithful, and, unfortunately, Warner Brothers'
choice of releasing both films in the same year diminished either
sequels' chances of earning a wide range of technical awards. No fantasy
franchise concept in the decade since has come close to provoking as
much thought. While the music for the three films in the franchise was
never as well conceived in detail and arrangement as Howard Shore's
concurrent
The Lord of the Rings scores, composer Don Davis did
consider the three films to be an ongoing symphony of several developing
movements. Continuing his collaboration with directors Andy and Larry
Wachowski, Davis' involvement with
The Matrix Revolutions brought
about a momentous and epic conclusion to the trilogy. "It made perfect
sense to me to infuse some kind of individual personalities to
Reloaded and
Revolutions," Davis later stated. "It wasn't
a matter of improving on what I did in
The Matrix, it was a
matter of developing the ideas that we're established in the first
movie. Even though it's not what you can call a fanatic score, there is
a fanatic continuity." The music for
The Matrix was an edgy,
disturbed combination of razor sharp orchestral suspense and
atmospheric, electronic ambiguity. Its effectiveness was measured by its
ability to lure the audience into an uncertain world of distorted
reality, and it thus was equally disturbing as a listening experience on
album.
The music for
The Matrix Reloaded was arguably
intended to be the most stylish and contemporary of the three scores,
adding considerable influence from Juno Reactor and Rob Dougan to Davis'
equation. At the same time, the second installment began to introduce a
sense of satisfying orchestral harmony for the resolution in the third
film score, including several majestic choral cues for its higher impact
scenes. For
The Matrix Revolutions, the script demanded an even
more powerful orchestral presence for the anticipated movement towards a
fantastic, lengthy battle sequence at the end of the story. With the war
against the machines rising to the surface of the charred Earth and
culminating in Neo's final, spectacular battle with the them, Davis'
orchestra and chorus is busy matching the dissonant echoes of the past
with the finale's need for monumental order and tonality. Davis recorded
the 110-minute long score in August 2003 with a 99-piece orchestra and
80-member choir at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox in Los
Angeles, stirring up great anticipation among franchise fans for his
final act. The score's greater length was required due to the extensive,
epic fight sequences littered throughout the film (utilizing score
instead of songs or non-Davis instrumental material), and thus, only one
source song is employed in the picture. This is in contrast to the
previous two films, which featured a heavy dose of 1990's electronica in
the pictures and on their albums. Seemingly fewer collaborations with
electronica artists existed with Davis in
The Matrix Revolutions,
with Juno Reactor's Ben Watkins only contributing to a few cues for the
project. The collaboration of Davis, Watkins, and Dougan for the
previous 2003 installment was certainly a success on album, the 2-CD set
selling over 500,000 units and achieving Gold status. Davis himself
praised the approach of combining the score and songs onto one album,
stating, "As a consumer, I always feel a little bit slighted if I get a
soundtrack CD that's mostly songs or only score music. This soundtrack
is a real effort to change the paradigm of what's being offered to
consumers in film music." Undoubtedly, the move was a very profitable
one for Davis and increased exposure for his work as well.
With the shades of Dougan's "Clubbed to Death" now gone
from the series, Watkins' remaining contributions to
The Matrix
Revolutions are restrained to collaborations with Davis, and moreso
than before, Davis' influence leads Watkins' rather than the other way
around. Both collaborative cues, "The Trainman Cometh" and "Tetsujin,"
offer Davis' score with minimal integration of synthetic
instrumentation. The notable use of the Seraph Kodo drums in the latter
cue finally yields to straight, rocking electronica rhythms in its last
moments. It should be noted that the collaboration between Davis and
Juno Reactor seems better balanced here, with nothing as far reaching as
"Burly Brawl" from
The Matrix Reloaded breaking Davis'
established tones and pace of development. The one clearly out of place
and unfortunate cut in the project is "In My Head," Pale 3's much
heavier electronica contribution outside of Davis' influence. With less
song material to be heard in
The Matrix Revolutions, Davis' score
is finally the central source of attention. Interestingly, the composer
considered this third score to be a natural end of the road from a
procedural standpoint early in the process, saying, "On the first
Matrix they wanted me to be as creative as I could be, doing
something absolutely new, different, big and huge and all this kind of
stuff. Then
Reloaded came along and it has to be newer, more
different, bigger. I would think that by the time
Revolutions is
over I'll have pretty much reached the boundary of what I could do with
this." That boundary exists on the highest level of harmonic, tonal
development while still inserting just enough uneasy dissonance as to
remind the viewer of the troubling concept at the root of the trilogy's
story. For much of
The Matrix Revolutions, Davis provides lush,
romantically inclined orchestral and choral statements with just a tinge
of rambling, atonal accompaniment. Even in the score's highlight battle
cue, "Neodammerung," Davis brilliantly uses tonal chants and large
statements of the film's three dominant themes led by a consistently
rotating, off-key section of the orchestra in the background, one often
performing a grandiose version of the remarkably effective, accelerating
machine theme.
Davis refers often to the technique of the alternating
chords of the series' primary motif to accomplish a background effect of
continuity. The dual-chord motif wavering between trumpets and horns, a
deceptively simple but memorable musical identity for the trilogy, is
introduced (in customary fashion) in the first cue of the score and
proceeds to add its flexible sense of warped reality to several cues
throughout the score. Interestingly, this theme becomes less apparent as
the score becomes more pleasant, only hinting softly at its own ghost on
woodwinds in the middle of "Spirit of the Universe." The directors asked
Davis to remove the motif from the very end of "For Neo" as to not
suggest a continuation of the story. The crashing theme for the
machines, striking the same note in an increasingly rapid pattern, is
applied mostly to the sentinels in
The Matrix Revolutions,
culminating in "Niobe's Run" and offering a considerable amount of
ruckus for chase cues that herald back to the truly disturbing moments
of the original trilogy score. The continuously growing love theme for
Neo and Trinity is freed from the awkward bonds that it experienced in
The Matrix Reloaded, providing the first true sense of compassion
(in a totally open, undivided performance) in the trilogy. This love
theme balances the non-stop action from this and the previous score with
fantastic performances on cello, horn, and clarinet in "The Road to
Sourceville" and "Trinity Definitely." The hero theme for Neo himself
doesn't alone experience the same rush of enthusiasm in its complete
form in this score, instead merging with the love theme to better
represent the character's fate. Other overarching stylistic choices that
Davis made early in the trilogy receive appropriately dying
representations in
The Matrix Revolutions. The swirling and
sometimes frenetic rhythmic movements representing the actions of
Morpheus' crew throughout the first score and, to a lesser degree, in
the second have been slowed to a crawl by the end of this one. The
broad, rumbling percussion motif that accompanies the title theme at the
outset of each film is slowly disassembled in the late minutes of
"Spirit of the Universe." This deconstruction is a continuation of
Davis' smart structural decisions in the music of this franchise, and
they will certainly be a highlight of
The Matrix Revolutions for
its collectors.
Despite the impressive attributes of the main themes'
maturity throughout the work, the action cue "Neodammerung" and finale
counterpart "Spirit of the Universe" are still the centerpieces of this
score. The choral chants of the former are translated into Sanskrit
(with
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace-style lyrics appropriately
matching the mythic proportion of the battle and the concept of 'The
One'). The fighting elements of tonality and atonality are overlayed in
this cue, and when considering that the "bigger is better" philosophy
was applied as well, the sheer energy of this action piece serves as an
appropriate conclusion to the Neo versus Agent Smith storyline. As Davis
had stated, there's really nowhere musically to go from here. Despite
the impressive attributes of that cue, however, the trio of "Spirit of
the Universe," "Bridge of Immortality," and "For Neo" is a more
fascinating study. Featured in "Bridge of Immortality" is the first and
only truly harmonious statement of the love theme (and Neo hero theme)
for the full ensemble without any dissonance in the background
whatsoever, and it features a flowing dramatism and thematic
resemblance, oddly, to his former associate James Horner's sweeping
theme for
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. From there, a boy
soprano serves a dual purpose by adding a religious implication of the
film's final message (along with a rolling harp) while also drawing a
connection to the similar vocal heard in
The Matrix as Neo is
first introduced to the crew and the real world, though the soloists in
the two works are different, as are the entire choirs. At the end of
this finale, Davis specifically returns to the closing passage of the
first score, hinting very slightly at the dual-chord theme on flutes, of
all things, and building up to one last, suspenseful anvil-aided blast
from the ensemble (the obvious main theme reference removed for this
take). It is here that you simply can't resist appreciating Davis' use
of percussion throughout the three scores. Whether it is simple pounding
on every drum known to man or the crashing of low notes on a piano like
a small child, the percussion is really the heart and soul of this
trilogy. Many prefer to label the brass as such, but it's hard to argue
with the effect that the percussion has on the ambience of these works.
Davis allows the low rumbling of the piano to simply fade away at the
end of this score, leaving an uneasy afterthought with the viewer and
listener.
On its original 2003 album release, the score for
The Matrix
Revolutions was mixed using very loud gains, with the more sensitive
cues raised in volume and the techno elements quieted to match that
dynamic range. It's a sort of "in your face" move by the engineers, and
while it may give the casual listener a headache, it also allows for the
full ensemble to be better heard on album. The best example of this
attention is heard in the rich and deep resonance of the opening
rumbling of the piano in "Logos/Main Title." The only cue seemingly over
the top is Juno Reactor's remix of "Neodammerung," called "Navras"
(meaning 'nine emotional states,' mirroring the Hindu belief that these
nine states are exhibited through music) and placed at the end of the
album. The Hindustani classical vocals and instrumentation here are
obviously out of place, but Davis' orchestral and choral foundation is
so strong that the cue could easily become a guilty pleasure for the
listener. A Middle-Eastern or Indian influence has become almost cliche
in recent years for large-scale film scores, but then again, Juno
Reactor's three artists provide enough techno flavor to simply throw the
whole cue into a realm of the bizarre. As a presentation on album, about
half of Davis' material was originally available in a generously
straightforward format on the 2003 product. The first two scores from
the trilogy had already both been floating around the secondary bootleg
market in a more complete form and yet this final commercial album in
the series was inclusive enough (and largely without interruptions from
songs) to suffice for most listeners. The La-La Land Records label
released both
The Matrix Reloaded and
The Matrix
Revolutions in greatly expanded forms in 2013 and 2014, and while
the first album could be designated as the more "necessary" of the two
from a quantity viewpoint, both sets contain enough intriguing
additional material to recommend. In the case of
The Matrix
Revolutions, most but not all of the critical material near the end
of the picture had already been released. The pulsating action of "Deus
Ex Machina" is the only late cue of significance added, with just
minute-long snippets here and there added to adjacent cues during the
climax. Other passages, such as the just earlier "Neovision" are largely
non-descript and do not merit attention from those outside of the loyal
fanbase for these movies and scores. What people formerly referred to as
"Spirit of the Universe" was actually a pair of cues, "Bridge of
Immortality" and "For Neo."
Some of the most fascinating additions to the 2014
La-La Land set's listening experience for
The Matrix Revolutions
come in the middle of the score, after early newly released cues usually
stew without much notice. Some of the most satisfying material in this
score from a traditional standpoint is the battle music for the control
of the underground Zion lair, beginning with "Men in Metal" and
continuing for several cues with snare drums utilized to represent
logical counterparts in the world of weaponry. Between the just prior
"The Smith Within Us" and "The Breach/Boom Hilda" and "Die Brunett
Walkure/Mjolnir Mastication/Charra Broiled," some major action music is
heard on this set for the first time. The more streamlined percussive
barrage in some of these cues cannot be resisted, the snare of maximum
importance. The bonus cues are also of particular interest on the set,
the original "For Neo" closing superior to its replacement (the concept
was never completely finished; why the Wachowski Brothers couldn't
accept the music hinting at the survival of the matrix and birth of
another generation is genuinely baffling). The duo of "Die Brunett
Walkure" and "The Trainman Cometh" are outstanding, the latter the
non-Juno Reactor version highlighting hyperactive woodwind contributions
in its great, propulsive rhythms. On the whole, enthusiasts of the
franchise should seek both of the La-La Land expanded sets for the
sequels, for they provide solid pleasure in both cases. Overall,
compared to the other two scores, Davis' music for
The Matrix
Revolutions is a more engaging, fascinating, matured listening
experience, and while casual purchasers of only this effort may not
understand the evolution of its themes and harmonic structures, this
work is probably the easiest of the three for traditional film score
fans to enjoy on album. Still, Davis continues to utilize dissonance in
both the forefront and distance to provide that unsettling edge
necessary for the concept, and listeners should be aware that this score
is likewise no free tonal ride. Between this necessary element and some
lingering, downright funky electronica,
The Matrix Revolutions
remains less than perfect on album. But it offers much of the best music
in the franchise, completing Davis' outstanding achievement for the
trilogy as a whole. In retrospect, the complexity of the lines of action
in these works, often the result of Davis' own phenomenal orchestration
skills, rivals the density of Shore's
The Lord of the Rings
scores, and in the post-2000 soundtrack industry, that's among the
highest compliments possible.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For Don Davis reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.2
(in 10 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 44,199 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The 2003 album's insert includes extensive credits and lyrics to "Neodammerung," but no extra
information about the score or film. The 2014 La-La Land set's insert contains extensive notation about both.
