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| Pope |
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| Desplat |
My Week With Marilyn: (Conrad Pope/Alexandre
Desplat) Long in development, the 2011 British production of
My Week
With Marilyn experienced a year of influence by independent film
legend Harvey Weinstein that culminated in significant awards season
hype for the BBC Films endeavor. The story is based upon the memoirs of
Colin Clark, a British filmmaker who was an assistant director fresh out
of school during his work on the 1957 movie
The Prince and the
Showgirl. That movie starred Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence
Olivier, and the shooting in Britain was also meant to serve as Monroe's
honeymoon with her husband, writer Arthur Miller. When Miller departed
the country, however, Monroe was left largely alone and was escorted by
Clark, who naturally developed a crush on the famous American actress.
During the week they spent together, Clark's inevitable heartbreak and
Monroe's less glamorous and insecure side are both explored, the duality
of Norma Jean and her screen persona exposed during this turbulent time.
A highly acclaimed performance by actress Michelle Williams in the
primary role caused much of the praise and hype generated in late 2011
for
My Week With Marilyn, and riding that wave of relatively
unexpected interest is composer Conrad Pope. The career orchestrator has
for decades labored behind the scenes for countless famous film scores,
applying his expertise to innumerous projects by John Williams, Jerry
Goldsmith, and other major Hollywood composers. More recently, his
association with Alexandre Desplat (which includes orchestration work on
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, bringing another aspect of
continuity back from the original three Williams scores) is what led to
his assignment on
My Week With Marilyn. Pope has always been one
of those orchestrators who, like Mark McKenzie, has maintained a
significant rooting section from within the film music collecting
community, especially after his impressive work for
Pavilion of
Women in 2001. His attachment to
My Week With Marilyn may not
have come via glamorous means, but he tackled the assignment with
workmanlike attention to several competing musical interests in the
film.
Academy Award winner Stephen Warbeck was originally
slated to score the movie, though Weinstein eventually approached
Desplat to write a replacement score. The French composer, who has
reached the A-list of industry names after a relatively short time,
agreed to write a main theme for
My Week With Marilyn but then
insisted that Pope be hired to write and adapt the remainder. As a
veteran orchestrator and arranger, Pope was well-equipped to handle the
various musical ingredients in the project. Desplat wrote a somber but
beautiful main theme for the film that required his associate to adapt
into several cues throughout the film. Additionally, the genre of big
jazz from the 1950's and prior was not only applied as source material,
but supplied in original form as well for at least two cues. There were
also times when Williams' vocal performances had to segue from and into
original score seamlessly, requiring Pope to arrange bridge-like
orchestrations. On top of that, the actual score had to tackle the
Jean/Monroe duality in how it applied her theme and also address Clark's
own enthusiasm with a perky British edge. On top of all of that, renown
Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang was hired to perform a half dozen cues
in
My Week With Marilyn and infuse Desplat's main theme with
another layer of elegant emphasis. The entire soundtrack, when
considered as a whole, is clearly a musical souvenir of the film's
narrative, blending classic songs with an emotional rollercoaster in the
original material that will be too disjointed for some listeners (though
rearrangement of the album's contents can assuage such concerns). The
Desplat theme itself undergoes its own transformations in the score,
often switching between the major and minor keys for its first set of
progressions, sometimes within the same minute. A good-humored film
music collector may find some amusement in the fact that this opening
progression is a close sibling to Williams' theme for Krypton in
Superman, and the similarity at least makes the melody
distinctive enough to recognize in every instance it is referenced here.
In several cues during which Pope only arranges this theme, sometimes
into light orchestral variations, Desplat is given solo compositional
credit. Upwards of ten tracks on the album presentation of
My Week
With Marilyn are at least partially attributed to Desplat, but as
pretty as his main theme is for the film, the arguably more engaging and
interesting material is provided by Pope alone.
The job of tackling Clark's character and the British
locale in
My Week With Marilyn rested upon Pope's shoulders, and
he responds with characteristically intelligent, sensitive music that at
times reminds of other composers' works but ultimately serves as strong
orchestral counterpoint to Desplat's piano identity. The exuberant side
of Clark and his filmmaking aspirations are expressed in an enthusiast
rhythmic subtheme heard in "Colin Runs Off to the Circus," "Driving
Through Pinewood," and the opening of "It's a Wrap." The woodwind
figures in the first cue, as well as the brass work in the second,
combine with rollicking pulsations from the full ensemble that very
clearly emulate vintage Williams tones of excitement. This similarity
represents the bulk of the influence from other composers, though the
slightly lurid woodwind performances over wavy rhythms in "Rushes" may
be curiously reminiscent of Goldsmith's
Basic Instinct for some
listeners. A touch of John Barry can be heard in the very slight
sensuality of other romantic cues, though the Golden Age sensibilities
of the orchestration and the duality of the main piano theme will more
recently remind of Philippe Rombi's remarkable 2007 score for
Angel, especially in the grand opening of "Paparazzi." Pope's
usually understated but graceful melodic material culminates in "Such
Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," his most poignant symphonic expression
of his own ideas for the film. The album presentation will require you
to manually assemble or program this and equivalent cues to yield a
smooth listening experience. Pope's two explosions of vintage jazz,
"Colin Joins the Circus/Mr Jacobs" and "Eton Schoolyard," are very
competent but are better matched with the Dean Martin and Nat King Cole
songs. The songs performed by Michelle Williams' herself are
sufficiently believable but not particularly remarkable; a bit better
matched is the performance of "That Old Black Magic" at the end of the
product. Just like Desplat's
The King's Speech, the source
material for
My Week With Marilyn was recorded using authentic
microphones of the era, restricting the vibrancy of the soundscape by
design. Overall, Desplat's main theme, Pope's own enthusiastic and
melodramatic music, and Lang Lang's performances make for a solid and
effective treatment of the topic. The integration with source material
is also commendable, though the album will present challenges for
listeners not interested in the narrative of the film (and therefore the
songs). You have to extend kudos to Desplat for recommending Pope for
this job, because hearing the orchestrator's own voice, even if it is
adjoined with several influences in parts of this score, is always a
treat.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert includes a short note about the film.
