has
a distinctly crossover American, British, and French sensibility from
director Alain Resnais. Set in Rhode Island but largely shot in France,
the movie is a highly disjointed psychological fantasy and drama that
shows the imaginative muses of an alcoholic writer who inserts his
family members into a bizarre set of unrealistic events that include
infidelity, death, and werewolves. He conjures this weird set of scenes
without much need for logical connectivity, which leads audiences to
wonder what on earth they are watching until the story's truths are
revealed in the third act. During that resolution, the writer hosts all
his family in their real form at his mansion for lunch, but you can tell
that there's an undercurrent of unease that makes one wonder if the
family knows what the author imagines for them on the side. His sudden
dismissal of all of them in the final scenes is an unsatisfactory ending
that serves at the very least to make your own family seem a little more
normal. Resnais, like most filmmakers at the time, had assumed that
legendary composer Miklós Rózsa had retired in the 1970's
after writing only two scores in the first half of the decade. When he
learned of Rózsa's availability, though, he sought the composer's
services to bring a Golden Age sound to the film's soundtrack, and
Rózsa was impressed with the collaboration that resulted. Resnais
may not have known exactly what he would receive from Rózsa, but
the final six scores from the composer in the late 1970's and early
1980's all espoused similar tones of nostalgia and an unwavering loyalty
to the late 1940's sound that had made him famous. The score
intentionally or otherwise serves as an anchor for the completely
disjointed plot, staying within the composer's typical sound and not
taking any chances in how it conveys the imaginative versus realistic
portions of the story. That said, the composer does indulge his darker
influences, and he appropriately shifts his tone very suddenly and with
obvious technique as the fantasy realm suddenly ends.
The orchestra employed for
Providence is standard
except for a theremin, which addresses the mystery of the concept
briefly, trilling in the background to generate a creepy ambience. There
reside many darker textures than usual for Rózsa in the score,
his brooding, thumping rhythms often supplying an aggressively
malevolent tone. None of these techniques is too dissonant to appreciate
on album, but the work contains more than its fair share of morbidly
obtuse material. Listeners expecting to hear flowing romanticism from
Rózsa will not receive as much as they might want, because that
element of the tale is often troubled by surrounding aspects of the
fantasy and mystery that defines the film. Still, it's a
characteristically melodic score from the composer, who alternates
between two themes and roots them firmly in the imaginative half of the
narrative. On one side is the theme for love and justice while the other
addresses the violence and werewolf topics. The main theme for the
brighter side is an eight-note construct of melancholy but pretty intent
for the characters and location, and the highly appealing, secondary
phrasing of the theme is where it soars in its romantic applications.
This pair of ideas emerges on woodwinds out of a processional mood of
despair in "Générique" while the strings introduce the
secondary sequence with more fluid appeal; the strained string rendition
of the phrasing thereafter is heavily tinged with agony. The theme tries
to achieve some warmth in "Après le Jugement" but struggles
mightily, and it still fails to reach that satisfactory end in the
meandering "Feuillages" until the romance starts to reveal itself in the
second half of the cue on reeds. The theme plays starkly in pieces
against a darker, separate conflict motif in "Arrivée Dans la
Maison" and continues in the same mode during the deeper presence of "La
Rue." It finally realizes Rózsa's full, unashamed romantic mode
in "Helen," though the film version of this cue in "Helen (Alt. Take)"
is left hanging without resolution. Similar shades of embrace exist in
"Autre Hôtel" but without the same flow of passion. These two cues
are a solid representation of the composer's softer side for the
story.
A hurried version of the main theme over the conflict
motif proceeds from low strings in "Kevin Blessé," the romantic
explorations continuing in "Sonia et le Saint Suaire" and start of
"Tendresse," at which point the mood turns dark as the representation
of death in an empty sports stadium is seen. Strings and woodwinds offer
determined but careful swooning in "Le Jardin Public" for the idea
with harp. An important conversational scene in
Providence
applies lighter usage of a breezy waltz adaptation of the main theme in
"Valse Crépusculaire" for piano and strings, the sound
contemporary and lovely. A piano solo variation was also recorded for
the album, and this tandem is the bait for listeners. Woodwinds are
tentative with the idea in "Desenchantement" for the confession on
screen, and this mode finally translates to brighter though still
somewhat disturbed tones in "Kevin et Sonia." The composer then pushes
pieces of the melody to punctuate his conflict motif for the extended
fantasy element in very low registers in "Poursuite." Out of the blue,
the striking change of tone in the film and score arrives in "Plaisir
de Vivre" and "Le Hérisson," where the theme soars with the
composer's usual bright optimism without any of the prior, disruptive
dissonance. Related lines continue to wander without concern on
overlapping woodwinds in "Le Déjeuner," and this exploration
continues to lower but still pleasant ranks in "Tristesse."
Rózsa builds the idea to its natural crescendo in "Final" as
the story comes to an awkward end, though the rendition here still has
hints of the conflict motif in its undercurrents, keenly suggesting the
main character is going to drink himself into more imaginative fantasy
thereafter. The largest rendition for the main theme is saved for the
flighty ensemble bombast of "Providence" over the end credits. This is
the typical Rózsa adventurism expected for the end of any of his
scores, and the big brass counterpoint and pounding timpani bloat the
theme to immense size whether deserved or not. The composer's second
major theme, that for darkness, fashions long, ascending lines that
meander with no sense of key or reality. Descending, secondary phrasing
in this idea espouses the composer's usual five-note motif of drama at
the time.
The composer uses his darkness theme to introduce
highly troubled haze in "La Maison de Clive" against fragments of the
main theme, and a more traditional suspense stance takes the idea on
woodwinds in "Le Vieil Homme." Secondary phrasing from this theme
extends quivering mystery briefly in the two "Le Palais de Justice"
cues, and its primary line then toys with the main theme on bassoon in
"Feuillages" as the intrigue of seduction plays out. Punctuating the end
of "La Rue" as a reminder and doing the same at the outset of "Helen,"
this theme's use persists for interactions that continue in "Autre
Hotel." It closes out the revelation of "Poursuite" with an unresolved
note and transitions into a more aggressive moment in "Mort de Kevin."
That's the end of the imagination portion in the tale and thus the
sudden conclusion of this theme in the narrative. The aforementioned
conflict motif is for the outright fear in the story, its four notes
continuing in cyclical rhythms as plucked or struck on the same note for
lengthy periods. This tool is heard during much of "Arrive Dans la
Maison" for heightened suspense, continues in less refined form in "La
Rue" and "Kevin Blessé," and finally resumes its earliest
threatening posture in "Poursuite." The score for
Providence has
always been a somewhat strange listening experience because of the
narrative's jarring redirection. The movie's sudden tonal shift
two-thirds through the narrative (the four cues supplied on the end of
the expanded album) was not included on the original album
presentations, which made the products a strange representation of
mostly the fantasy portions. Generally, the listening experience mirrors
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover the same year in that its
romanticism battles the darker, rhythmic portions tainted by dissonance.
That lofty character material is more easily digestible here, but not at
great lengths. The highlight apart from the film is obviously "Valse
Crépusculaire." Positioned as something of a source piece, this
score thus reflects an album-targeted point of interest that listeners
would hear shortly thereafter in
Time After Time. That cue does
have some strange aural artifacts in its middle section due to how its
plucking is spread into the stereo mix. An avid Rózsa collector
will be able to assemble ten to fifteen minutes of the warmer, more
conventionally tonal romance highlights in decent sound quality, but the
rest can be challenging despite its proficiency.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on Album: ****
- Overall: ****
