Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #810
Written 3/25/00, Revised 7/19/08
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Buy it... if you appreciate the ease of harmony and theme that
tends to accompany Randy Edelman in his synthetic scores for the genre
of drama.
Avoid it... if you require the score to actually serve as an
appropriate accompaniment for its film, for Edelman's music is far from
a perfect fit.
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| Edelman |
The Skulls: (Randy Edelman) Secret societies at the
college level can be fun, especially if they promise wealth, women, and
wild times. Director Rob Cohen has a warning for those who would
consider belonging to one, however, and it comes in form of the 2000
film The Skulls. A young man aspiring to become a law student at
Yale is chosen to belong to "The Skulls," which is his only hope of
financing his degree. Upon initiation, his relationships with his
friends from his prior life become strained, and when one cautioning him
about the Skulls is killed, the young man decides to learn the hard way
that leaving the group is not recommended. The film remains among the
worst by Cohen, failing to impress on any level. A clumsy script,
incredibly poor acting, and a somewhat awkward score by regular
collaborator Randy Edelman were all detriments. While Edelman's music
for previous Cohen films had often sufficed or excelled, he misses the
boat with The Skulls, producing music that is distracting in much
of the film. The year 2000 was shaping up to be a weak one for Edelman,
whose just previous The Whole Nine Yards was a frightful
disappointment. The most interesting aspect of the music for The
Skulls is that it does have redeeming value as a listening
experience on album despite its problems in the film. It's yet another
score that raises the debate about whether a synthetic score can
function in a film that obviously needed significant depth in emotion
and thematic development. With a film about the subtleties of trials and
trust comes a need for nuance and suggestion in its music, and Edelman's
often flowing, harmonious tendencies don't really address those needs.
The Skulls has many trademark Edelman sounds, and it's in part
because of these techniques that the music functions better on album
than it does in key scenes within the film. In those regards, the fact
that The Skulls is an electronic effort raises many of the same
concerns about authenticity that came from his music for The
Hunley television film the previous year. Still, while the ambience
created by Edelman's synthetics can be predictable and tiresome, his
themes are far more interesting.
The primary idea for
The Skulls is heard
immediately in "The Skulls," which combines a synthetic, rolling timpani
effect (which returns throughout the film) with a hopeful, but solemn
piano theme. The easy progressions of this very accessible theme, along
with the modern metallic percussion effects, make it the kind of
harmonious affair that you'd expect to hear under a love ballad. As this
noble piece repeats in "Will's Funeral," "Watch Me," and "Reprise,"
among others, it is compelling in a basic sense. But while it's a
likable theme on album, it really doesn't address the severity of the
situation in the story. The second theme in
The Skulls is a
powerful, rhythmic idea heard in "The Race" and "Revisiting the Race."
Its powerful strides, especially late in the first cue, combine the
attitude of Basil Poledouris'
Wind with the instrumentation of
Trevor Jones'
The Mighty. It's a victorious and grand theme, but
when rendered by Edelman's electronics, it is stripped of the scope it
needs to be convincing. Another motif that runs through the score is the
aforementioned timpani rhythm and its more complicated variants. The
movement of a choppy snare and synth string progressions in "The Duel"
remind heavily of the suspense cues in
The Hunley, and this is
one of the cues that is mixed too prominently into the film. Its
abrasive stance in the finished product simply betrays the simplicity of
the music and fails to produce the kind of emotional response the scene
needs. The remainder of the score is largely unremarkable, with generic
suspense tones occasionally yielding to a fake orchestra hit meant to
frighten. While adequately suspenseful in parts, the score fails to be
as heartbreaking as necessary. One notable acoustic guitar performance
is mixed at too high a gain. The modern percussion samples, reminiscent
of
Daylight, seem out of place as well. The four songs that
follow the 35 minutes of score stem from the alternative rock genre, and
while they're all decent, none was chart material. The Lorna Vallings
song "Taste" is the key accompaniment heard during the love scene and
the film's end credits. Despite the music's questionable stance in the
film, there are five or six tracks of chilling atmosphere that, along
with the songs, salvage the album.
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- Music as Written for Film: **
- Music as Heard on Album: ***
- Overall: ***
Bias Check:
For Randy Edelman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.05
(in 20 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.16
(in 29,260 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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