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| Siliotto |
The Punisher: (Carlo Siliotto) First appearing as
an auxiliary character in a Spiderman comic in 1974, Frank Castle would
eventually gain his own comic series and international fame in the
mid-1980's. His story being one of emotional torment, Castle is a former
decorated Marine who abandons his service when his family is gunned down
in cold blood, adopting the persona of "The Punisher" while becoming an
expert freelance crime fighter. For the 2004 film adaptation, some of
the facts of the original comic were twisted to suit a more modern age,
but the table is still set for Castle to become his own superhero of
sorts and, in this case, take down the wealthy Florida crime family (and
John Travolta, quite entertainingly) which wrongly killed his own. The
most important aspect of the Castle character remains intact: his
ability to fight as a superhero without any magically unnatural
superhero powers. He relies simply upon good hand to hand combat tactics
and a mastery of weaponry in order to seek his revenge, an urban version
of John Rambo in many regards. Conversely, on the other far end of the
spectrum of humanity is Italian composer Carlo Siliotto, a man in his
mid-50's at the time who, as he humbly stated, spends most of his time
sitting at a piano composing music. It was the mere luck of the
phenomenon known as "the distinctive demo tape" that landed Siliotto on
the film version of
The Punisher. Writer and director Jonathan
Hensleigh (in his directorial debut after writing screenplays for
several major summer action hits) claims that of all the demo tapes
received for
The Punisher, Siliotto's entry, an excerpt of a
theme from his 1992 score for
Flight of the Innocent, was not
only different from all the others but also seemed to capture the tragic
but equally heroic spirit of the title character. Siliotto, originally
an arranger of popular Mediterranean songs, wrote dozens of scores for
mostly European films in the 1990's and 2000's, and
The Punisher
was his first venture into the large stage of mainstream American cinema
in a while. He was immensely enthusiastic about this opportunity and
therefore put considerable effort into creating a lasting musical
identity for Frank Castle. By no means did the composer ultimately write
a masterpiece of complexity for
The Punisher, but in the
simplicity of the score's constructs and raw performances comes a
refreshing distinction of good and evil defined in incredibly disparate
and clear tones.
The hero's theme in
The Punisher is an
amalgamation of major and minor key ideas from every genre cliche and
other hero themes that had come before, all filtered through an oddly
romantic Mediterranean sense of despair. Its performances are often
focused solely on the primary melody, without regard for counterpoint,
depth of instrumentation, or even the layering of its own
instrumentation. The solo trumpet for the war veteran, joined by a flute
for a sense of innocence, yields to a string interlude that sounds like
cookie cutter genre fare. And yet, it's the kind of simplicity of focus
that a man like Castle perhaps needs, and the theme, no matter your
regard for its rather sparse layering and depth, will be floating around
in your head for quite some time after you hear it in the film or on
album. What Siliotto has done with
The Punisher is create an
environment in which the standard techniques of the superhero genre
flourish in their own excess, nurtured by their assembly from the point
of view of a Hollywood outsider and his sense of care in preserving the
strictly orchestral nature of the entire package. For instance, if you
take a cue such as "Castle's Loneliness" (misspelled on the score album
packaging), you hear the rolling sounds of lower woodwinds a la Danny
Elfman and the broad strokes of brass whole notes in a supporting role a
la Basil Poledouris, and, in the subsequent "Call Me 'The Punisher'"
cue, you hear a cello lament lost romance in a fashion typical of a Rome
street corner love story long gone. These defining moments throughout
the score are what give Siliotto's music for
The Punisher such
grip for its surprisingly simplistic substance. A sense of propulsive
rhythm does not escape Siliotto, greeting listeners with marching drums
in "Otto Krieg" (along with the usual operatic solo female vocal that
seems mandatory in this generation), determined string, piano, and
guitar rhythms in "Setting a Trap" and "Joan's Suffering," and one
outstanding finale performance of the title theme in "The Skull." A
female vocal and pipe organ announce the start of battle with grand
style in "God's Gonna Sit This One Out." A toll of a bell and distant
wail of an electric guitar signal the hero's entry into an enemy lair
("Entering the Fort") with adequately cool suspense. The synthetic
elements are well handled in the score, emulating the effect of the pipe
organ in efforts to not only place the score in contemporary times but
also give the assassination and superhero professions a quasi-religious
element. Occasional saxophone solos are welcome genre newcomers as
well.
The most unexpected aspect of the music for
The
Punisher is its pleasant overall demeanor, the tender piano theme
for Castle's family and other softer applications appearing several
times throughout the score during contemplative moments. The
aforementioned hint of Italian romance prevails in
The Punisher
at times, a strange but strikingly effective approach to the tragedy of
the story. Even the "Massacre" scene is scored less with the horror of
the moment and more with the dramatic agony that results from it. Entire
five-minute sections of the score can pass by with the elegance of
Siliotto's easily digestible piano writing, and you can then traverse
into a cue of stealth and killing without the inconvenience of a jarring
interruption by brass, percussion, or other element. On the whole, the
score doesn't overwhelm you with its power or complexity upon first
listen, but its strong character more than compensates for the lack of
orchestral depth in many of the main thematic performances. There are
downsides to the score that require exposure, foremost the fact that the
sparse depth of orchestration will bother some listeners. The recording
sounds as though it resulted from only 50 players, and the prominent
mixing of low brass (and especially blurting tubas at times) doesn't
help that impression. Likewise, the family theme in the score is oddly
reminiscent of Nino Rota's immigrant theme from
The Godfather Part
II, and the interlude to Castle's theme is a distinct foreshadowing
of melodic material from Siliotto's fantastic 2007 score for
Nomad:
The Warrior (a work that solves the problem with sparse instrumental
depth). Hearing parts of
The Punisher performed with greater
intensity by a larger orchestral and choral ensemble could place it in
historically rare territory should a re-recording ever be a possibility.
On album, the lacking moments are campy at the worst and addictive at
best, and the greatest strength of
The Punisher is the surprising
loyalty that Siliotto has shown to the cause of orchestral action
scores. With the film's controversial adaptation of the original story
and a song album released upon its release, general expectations about
the underscore were initially bleak, but Siliotto's effort is highly
commendable, and his hour of material on the subsequent score album from
La-La Land Records (one of their earlier ventures) is easily palatable
in its entirety and highly enjoyable in individual cues. A mild rock
song and the inclusion of the opera piece "La Donna E' Mobile" from
"Rigoletto" round out the score album's presentation. It's a shame that
The Punisher did not lead to a bevy of deserved offers for
Siliotto in the international mainstream thereafter.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert includes detailed information about the score and
film, including notes from the composer and director. The album
incorrectly lists total time as 65:37 (seemingly omitting the opera song
at the end in the total).
