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Written 1/25/12
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Buy it... if you have embraced Alberto Iglesias' previous and often
understated scores for topics of drama and intrigue, for this entry's
extremely restrained atmosphere requires patience to appreciate on its
hour-long album.
Avoid it... if you lament the fact that Iglesias did not adequately
extend the intelligently layered noir-like personality of his melody for
the primary character into the remainder of the otherwise dull score.
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| Iglesias |
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: (Alberto Iglesias) The
convoluted spy novels of John le Carre continue to inspire filmmakers
even as the author's writing extends into its fifth decade. Instead of
seeking one of his more recent spy tales, the makers of 2011's Tinker
Tailor Soldier Spy sought the early 1970's story and set it in its
original time period. Through the unglamorous inner-workings of
Britain's intelligence mechanisms, the plot examines the dynamics of
complicated relationships between the British, American, and Soviet
espionage agencies, with crossings and double-crossings sorted out by
Gary Oldman's leading, intuitively brilliant British agent. As with any
of le Carre's stories, there is a fair amount of political intrigue,
conversational tension, doomed romance, and character misdirection to be
considered when attempting to determine who can be trusted, and
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy adds some well-placed shootings to the
equation. The film, despite its inherent tendency to bore audiences not
prepared for its maze of misdirection, was very well received by critics
and enjoyed enough fiscal success in Britain to turn a profit. Director
Tomas Alfredson sought the services of Pedro Almodovar's regular
collaborator, Alberto Iglesias, to realize the music for his film. Of
the eight adaptations of le Carre's novels to the big screen as of 2011,
Iglesias will have scored the most recent two, including Fernando
Meirelles' The Constant Gardener in 2005. The composer received
an Academy Award nomination for both that work and Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy (along with The Kite Runner in between), becoming
one of those regular nominees who never stands much of a chance of ever
winning. Despite this recognition for Iglesias' work for le Carre
adaptations, his music in these circumstances is understated and feeds
off of the other production elements rather than truly extending its
hand in an attempt to shape the movies. Far more impressive, for
instance, are the scores for the prior two le Carre adaptations, The
Russia House by Jerry Goldsmith in 1990 and The Tailor of
Panama by Shaun Davey in 2001. By comparison, Iglesias intentionally
diminishes the impact of his music in these stories, providing a layer
of textural ambience rather than melodramatic force. Gone in this
assignment is the Spanish composer's past exploration of world genres in
his work, the authenticity this time focused on dabbling slightly in the
noir genre without making much of an attempt to place the score in any
particular region or time.
The extremely conservative approach taken by Iglesias
to
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is evident immediately in the
instrumental palette chosen for the score. A small string orchestra is
accompanied by a significant variety of soloists, but all of them rather
conventional in tone. Solo trumpet and piano perform over very slight
pop percussion and electric bass, joined frequently by a myriad of
woodwind performances and the occasional use of synthetic haze to
maintain dissonant soundscapes. The soloists are seemingly in constant
battle with the strings and synthesizers in
Tinker Tailor Soldier
Spy, the former group struggling to convey very noir-like
performances of the composer's tonal ideas for the score while the
latter quiver, whine, and drone in the background to emphasize the
suspense of the tale. Naturally, when separated from context, the more
melodic passages for soloists are the highlights, led by the "George
Smiley" suite that opens the album and represents the lead character's
demeanor. While the trumpet and piano are the clear noir connections for
him, the rotating woodwind interjections yield a slight element of
warmth to the identity. The theme that Iglesias explores in this cue is
adequate but anonymous, dissolving into the background during its many
recapitulations in fragments later in the work. Slight taps on cymbals
and drums, plucking of harp, and subtle string ostinatos are
highlighting contributors to these tonal passages as well. Thereafter in
the score, however, Iglesias allows the mystique of the noir romanticism
to be frayed badly, only barely recapturing it on celli in "Tarr and
Irina." When the composer tentatively takes the main theme into action
territory, he only marginally succeeds, finally breaking through in the
suite-like "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" to close out the album. His
handling of suspense is extremely muted in the score, only the synthetic
layers of "One's Gone" providing a convincingly dark and engrossing
sound. The majority of the remainder of
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
stews without much definition, becoming increasing devoid of interesting
instrumental layers as it progresses. Once it dissolves into basic
dissonant atmosphere in the latter half, it's difficult to retain
interest. Had the entire score been better able to build upon the very
promising personality in "George Smiley," then a four-star score could
easily have resulted, meriting all the praise showed upon this work by
awards bodies. The increasingly tedious hour-long album would have
benefitted from a 20-minute trimming and the much-needed inclusion of
Julio Iglesias' performance of "La Mer" from the end of the film. Like
many of Iglesias' scores,
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will only
appeal to those familiar with and appreciative of the composer's
techniques of restraint.
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