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| Elfman |
Sleepy Hollow: (Danny Elfman) There are several
uneasy aspects of Tim Burton's gloomy but enticing 1999 adaptation of
Washington Irving's story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and not all of
them involve the Headless Horseman. The production will always be
remembered for its remarkable design, both visual and auditory, a
trademark of a truly fine Burton film. But
Sleepy Hollow suffered
from stale acting performances, despite several notable cameos, that
attempted to infuse life into a surprisingly underachieving expansion of
the short story for the purposes of filling a feature-length picture.
Both 1799 New York detective Ichabod Crane and the town of Sleepy Hollow
receive considerable backstories that don't entirely engage, and
countless excessively violent scenes of beheadings served Burton a rare
"R" rating for his career. The lack of a strong narrative may have been
one of the reasons why the film failed to debut for Paramount in time
for Halloween in 1999, instead languishing against the winter
blockbusters of late November. Substantial re-shoots and last-minute
edits of the movie caused challenges for everyone involved, including,
perhaps foremost, composer Danny Elfman. Because the film was being
edited in New York and the composer's score was being recorded in
London, the composer had to assemble recording sessions on multiple
occasions. The studio for the ensemble was subpar as well, causing
nightmarish logistical issues. Despite all of these difficulties, Elfman
looks back fondly upon the
Sleepy Hollow score as one of his
personal favorites. For the film music community, the hype and
anticipation involving the score over the previous year was tangible
enough to knock a person's head off by itself. Not only had there been
the issue of a strained professional relationship between Elfman and
Burton a few years prior, but the composer had also abandoned his
massively gothic fantasy style from early in his career in favor of a
stretch of more minimalistic, contemporary, or comedic entries in the
middle and later portions of the 1990's.
Many of the delicious details of Elfman's early writing
had been deemed lost by this time, and nostalgic fans yearning for
another taste of Elfman's grand, melodically overflowing style from the
start of the 1990's were watering at the mouth due to the opportunities
that
Sleepy Hollow presented the composer. There were arguments
about whether or not Elfman's growing maturity in an artistic sense, as
heard in
A Simple Plan and
A Civil Action, made it
unlikely that the composer would ever be inclined to produce another
tragic score in the mould of classics like
Edward Scissorhands or
Sommersby. He had, simply put, moved on to find new musical
avenues. What
Sleepy Hollow proved, however, was that Elfman was
able to reach back into the rich well of his early 1990's sensibilities
when necessary, and he enjoyed doing it. The most important thing to
keep in mind when thinking about
Sleepy Hollow is that anyone
expecting a return to the straight fantasy genre could be disappointed
by the fact that it is, primarily, a horror score. All of the horror
elements previously explored in the Burton/Elfman collaboration had
existed within the confines of the comedy or animation realms, and all
semblances of the associated Elfman zaniness from those works are gone.
There are still fantasy elements within the plot, but while the concept
of tragedy carries over from Elfman's famed period of early production,
Sleepy Hollow is far more excessively violent and brutal. Rather
than looking at this score as an extension of Elfman's more melodically
accessible relatives, like
Sommersby and
Black Beauty, it
should be viewed as a maturation of the ideas heard in
Nightbreed
and, to a lesser extent,
The Frighteners. One notable difference
between those scores and this one, however, is the incredible depth of
the recording. The performances and mix of the orchestra and two choirs
in England are more dynamic for
Sleepy Hollow than in perhaps any
other Elfman score of the decade. Some of the raw and undeveloped ideas
that Elfman flirted with in
Nightbreed are applied to a much more
substantial group of players and singers in this instance, giving the
style a level of hair-raising intensity that had never existed before in
Elfman's career.
The sound of the ensemble in
Sleepy Hollow is
defined by extremely aggressive low brass, ample contrabassoons and
other deep woodwinds, and a pipe organ. It was remarkably similar to the
approach of John Debney's concurrent
End of Days, the
similarities extended by a coincidental overlap of the opening four
notes of the primary themes. Both works' employment of raw orchestral
might is joined by a merging of boy soprano tones and a menacingly
resounding male chorus. Thematically,
Sleepy Hollow is a bit of
an oddity in that it's mostly a monothematic score. There is
supplemental motific development for the Headless Horseman that matures
in "The Windmill," but Elfman otherwise choses to apply his main theme
to nearly every other aspect of the tale, from character to locale,
mystery to romance. The composer follows his standard structure of
introducing the main theme in an overture format and building it to a
massive crescendo for the title sequence. This theme, like Debney's, has
slightly religious undertones, but here they relate more closely to the
mystery of witchcraft rather than the traditional establishment. Elfman
is extremely loyal to this theme throughout the work, adapting it best
for scenes of Ichabod Crane's youth and his awkward character
interactions. The versatility of the main theme extends from the
explosions of horror foreshadowed in the two opening cues, establishing
the work's lyrical side. The primary phrases of the melody and, in
partial shades, its lush interlude, are realized in the climactic
confrontations to the romantic tones that attempt to inject some warmth
into otherwise ice-cold interactions between Ichabod and Katrina Van
Tassel. The use of layered boy soprano voices in "Young Ichabod," "Sweet
Dreams," and "More Dreams" is intriguingly connected to the romance in
"The Gift," "Tender Moment," and "Love Lost" and offers the score a
much-needed sense of rounded, three-dimensional development that the
action and horror cues alone cannot sustain. One of the more curious
aspects of
Sleepy Hollow is the romantic string interlude, first
heard directly in the middle of the "Main Titles" and after the primary
Horseman motif is explored; despite some general tonal hints in places,
this theme is not really adapted fully for either of the situations
involving Crane's youth or his love interest in Katrina, and only in the
suite of the themes during the end credits does an abbreviated form of
this motif satisfactorily arise once again.
Still, the impressive extent to which Elfman restates
and manipulates the main theme is the glue that holds
Sleepy
Hollow together. This is an important point, for despite the score's
immense technical strengths, it lacks a distinctive direction and,
outside of its knack for brute force, a transcendent personality. From
Batman to
A Simple Plan previously, from the most
grandiose to the sparsest, Elfman scores had usually conveyed a clear
narrative. One of the obvious exceptions was
The Frighteners, and
the most significant weakness of
Sleepy Hollow is the score's
tendency, like the earlier work, to stir up a mess of noise that never
actually goes anywhere. The difference here, however, is that
Sleepy
Hollow is so well colored in its choral tones, orchestrations, and
mixing that some of that lack of personality, especially in the latter
half, can be forgiven. Related to this one weakness of the score is the
occasional inadequacy of its fantasy appeal. Though thematically
functional and energetically verbose,
Sleepy Hollow loses some of
the "wonder" factor in its brutal second half. Much of the bewildering
enchantment that sprouted in the first half of the score is due to
Elfman's elegant mixing of the various shades of the voices together,
culminating in such appealingly haunting moments as "Into the Woods,"
which uses an especially wet mix of the sopranos to set a perfect
atmosphere. For Elfman veterans, some of the lack of identity in the
latter half of
Sleepy Hollow will be compensated for by a style
of instrumentation that reminds of
Black Beauty in its flowing
viola solos and
Batman Returns in its creepy, low woodwinds.
There are occasional, curious references to previous Elfman/Burton
scores' themes as well, including a hint of Penguin material from
Batman Returns in the middle of "The Gift," phrases in the main
theme that are clear carry-overs from the main identity of
Black
Beauty and, strangely, allusions to "Making Christmas" from
The
Nightmare Before Christmas, especially at the start of "End
Credits." The romping action material in the score is complete with
harsh, pulsating brass, floating and whiny strings, ripping snare, and
the always-gothic pipe organ. Some of the exciting rhythms will exhaust
you with their length. By "The Chase" and "The Final Confrontation,"
however, Elfman resorts to flashy orchestral strikes without the
thoughtful tone of the score's opening introductions. The creatively
light finale and, to an extent, the pounding end credits, try to
recapture that sense of magic.
Overall, even though
Sleepy Hollow was not the
monumental return to raw, early fantasy form for Elfman that many had
hoped to hear, it offers a violent contrast to the minimalistic scores
penned by the composer throughout the late 1990's and well beyond. Its
rich texture and resounding sound quality make it arguably the best
quality horror score in Elfman's career. The generous 68-minute album
from Hollywood Records in 1999 is all that most collectors will require
from the work, presenting many of the composer's best film variants of
several cues. An extra ten minutes of material was added at the end of
that existing presentation on CD #8 in the enormous, expensive, and
maligned 2011 set, "The Danny Elfman and Tim Burton 25th Anniversary
Music Box." Only four totally new cues are added at the conclusion of
the previously available commercial ordering of tracks, "Philipse's
Death" easily the intellectual highlight despite being frightfully
unpleasant. Also finally made available on the set was the extended film
version of "Main Titles," recorded in a different session and adding
another minute to account for late changes to the film's final cut. The
set's USB stick-only contents include a drab alternate version of "More
Dreams" and an early demo of the themes for the score; Elfman mentioned
at the time that there wasn't much of substance to add. No doubt, do not
spend $500 on this limited, 2000-copy product for the sake of this score
alone, despite its many strengths. Its music from
Sleepy Hollow
was rendered totally moot by a limited and not-quite-as-expensive 2021
4-CD set assembled for the score by Intrada Records. This massive
presentation provides the initial 1999 album on its first disc and
follows with a faithful recreation of the film's final soundtrack on the
second disc and part of the third. On the remainder of the product,
Intrada offers 97 minutes of alternate takes, showing just how hectic
the late changes to the film were. The most interesting new inclusions
come on the fourth disc, where some of Elfman's earlier inclinations
showed a bit more romantic influence on the score, a few cues' original
versions offering a totally different tone. While four hours and twenty
minutes of material from
Sleepy Hollow will certainly be overkill
for most listeners, the Intrada treatment is as thorough as any Elfman
enthusiast could imagine. More casual fans will be served just as well
by the 1999 product, which carries a tighter narrative arc than the
score in its fuller form. Despite its immense depth of rendering, the
work's less than spectacular personality and overbearing darkness keep
it from being the kind of score worth cutting off someone's head in
order to obtain.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 87 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 151,394 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert of the 1999 Hollywood Records album includes no extra
information about the score or film. The 2011 Warner set features notes
from Elfman about his choices of music for inclusion on the product.
The insert of the 2021 Intrada product contains extensive details about
the film and score.
