Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #680
Written 8/8/01, Revised 2/9/09
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Buy it... if you took particular notice of Alejandro Amenabar's lightly
atmospheric music in the context of the film and have no expectations of
greatness for that material on album.
Avoid it... if you do, conversely, expect the chilly music from The
Others to be as engaging on album as it was in the mix of the film's
soundtrack.
The Others: (Alejandro Amenabar) Only once in a while does a
mainstream film feature a single writer, director, and composer all in one, and
this was the case with Alejandro Amenabar's 2001 English speaking and scoring debut
for the late summer horror hit, The Others. With a story that is similar in
many ways to that of The Sixth Sense, this production succeeded not because
of its numerous plot twists and surprise revelations, but because of the extremely
effective atmosphere created by adept cinematography and sound editing. The plot
may move too slowly for viewers hoping for a more actively frightening ghost and
haunted mansion story, but The Others compensates by saturating the senses
with the enveloping fog of its mystery. Another key element in that engaging
environment is the music, which includes both Amenabar's own traditional score and
the use of source-like, distant, echoing piano performances to lend an eerie sense
that the family at the heart of the film indeed has some existential problems.
Questions are always raised about whether or not one man should ever attempt to
write, direct, and score the same film, because such efforts have often led to
disastrous outcomes in the history of the industry (though John Ottman and Robert
Rodriguez remain two of the few composing filmmakers with enough talent to make it
work). With its popular success and a spattering of mixed critical reviews, The
Others did well at a slow time of the year, but the score on its own did not
enjoy as much praise. Amenabar's composing techniques were not what you had come to
expect from mainstream composers. Instead of conceiving of the music for this score
in a studio, Amenabar did so very informally in his own apartment, sometimes to the
torment of his roommates. Because of his possible over-extension, he did not
conduct or produce the work in its later stages. Nevertheless, one of the reasons
audiences heralded The Others was in part because of the effective
atmospheric tone of that music. There is no doubt that the score adds an undeniably
powerful density to the environment for the downright creepy film. But whereas some
viewers point to the score's refreshing lack of cliched sounds, others had no
reaction to its quiet style of enhancing the story, even claiming boredom in some
cases. The latter distinction is a common fate for horror scores that attempt too
hard to be refreshing, because middle ground is difficult to find in this genre.
You either hear something that simmers, like James Newton Howard's The Sixth
Sense, or an explosively extroverted extension of the film, like Christopher
Young's Hellraiser scores.
All the different kinds of horror scores have their own set of
cliches they'd like to avoid, because, after all, there are only a finite number of
ways to musically scare the audience with the individual pieces of an orchestra.
Amenabar's approach to
The Others is among the kind of horror scores meant
simply for the establishment of another layer of atmospheric density in the film,
succumbing to predictable, occasional bursts of ensemble fright when necessary.
While repeating motifs do exist in the work, there is no distinctive title theme at
any elevated level of volume, nor can a single instrument be pointed to as the
carrier of the score's burden. Nevertheless, Amenabar succeeds in using the
orchestra (and particularly a heavy set of strings) in a remarkably anonymous
fashion to extend the suspense of the story. While this kind of minimalistic score
is playing it safe (so to speak), it is a viable piece of the film's puzzle,
despite the fact that it lacks any exciting or interesting hook to sustain a
prolonged listening experience on album. Amenabar's functional (and even admirable)
score still falls a few steps behind comparable scores by more established
composers of the era. Howard's
The Sixth Sense is a better example of a work
which extends its character motifs, especially with piano, onto the medium of the
album without the loss of much allure. Another interesting aspect of the music for
The Others is its ability to hide its occasionally cliched uses of
instrumentation while playing in its proper context. If you inspect the score
closely, you'll hear all the same female voices, wandering pianos, lonely music
boxes, and brass hits that had already been employed by hundreds of composers in
decades past. Amenabar, to his credit, doesn't slap the listener in the face with
such cliches, as Jerry Goldsmith did with
The Haunting a few years prior,
because those stock horror elements in
The Others are exercised (or hidden)
with greater care. Still, the score on album is a significantly different
incarnation of Amenabar music than what was heard in the film. Having served its
purpose well, there is really no reason to complain about a chilly presentation out
of context, but if you've seen the movie and are assuming that the score on album
will be equally provocative, then you will be disappointed by the forty minute Sony
Classical product. Its pacing is withdrawn and the lack of a sharp or poignant
performance by the London Session Orchestra (which can sometimes produce some of
their most and least inspired performances on consecutive days) causes the album to
barely convey the same shadowy sense without enough personality to carry itself
completely in the absence of the visuals.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: **
- Overall: ***
