Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #885
Written 3/15/97, Revised 4/9/06
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Buy it... only if you are familiar with Ennio Morricone's score in
the film, including the fatally annoying synthetic effects that
interrupt its best cues.
Avoid it... if you expect a clear and structured horror score that
devolves intelligently along with its title character.
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| Morricone |
Wolf: (Ennio Morricone) With a $70 million budget
that would reunite director Mike Nichols with actor Jack Nicholson and
cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, Wolf explored the intriguing
idea of inserting a classic monster movie fable into the world of
corporate politics. After being bitten by a werewolf, a senior editor of
a publishing company (good old Jack, of course) exacts his revenge
against the rich investor that fires him from his post and the yuppie
rat-like replacement who taunts him. Pairing up with the daughter of the
investor who will befriend any enemy of her father, Nicholson and
Michelle Pfeiffer present a "beauty and the beast" scenario of
convenient romance despite the looming suspense of Nicholson's
transformation. The film succeeded in its first half, when animal
instincts provide the title character with an uncanny ability to stir up
trouble in the human world, though the film devolved considerably when
lackluster make-up jobs on Nicholson were demanded, and somewhat flimsy
special effect shots of the wolf leaping from buildings entangled the
film in B-rate horror trouble. Maestro John Williams was originally
reported to score Wolf, though after his astounding success in
1993, Williams would make the concert rounds and refrain from scoring a
film in 1994. That left Wolf with the odd assignment of Italian
Ennio Morricone, and you have to wonder how much of an influence the
darkly classical score for Dracula a few years earlier by fellow
European Wojciech Kilar had on the hiring of another European in a
situation where any number of American composers might have sufficed.
Morricone's abilities in straight drama, romance, and action are
well-respected, though his horror work has never really turned many
heads. Undoubtedly, Wolf would allow him to follow some of the
familiar romantic and/or melodic lines that we have come to expect from
Morricone, though the end result is a tumultuous score that never
establishes a clear direction or style outside of its own disjointed
sounds.
As expected, Morricone begins with a classically jazzy
noir approach in
Wolf, and utilizes fragments of the resulting
melodic structures throughout the score as Nicholson transforms. The
problem, however, is that Morricone never really established the jazzy
lure of editor's previous life in the big city, instead choosing to
start the score in an already-devolved state. Snippets of noir shine
throughout
Wolf, with the "Will's Final Good Bye" cue presenting
a remarkably layered brass farewell, and the tense moments of romance
between the main characters takes us back to a few shots of Morricone's
romantic strings. But the transition cues are handled with a complete
lack of creativity, landing firmly on the side of atonal sound effects,
grinding with the ensemble in an attempt to heighten the horror of the
events while losing all the romantic appeal of the fantasy. Likewise,
Morricone doesn't necessarily succeed when he attempts to get really
creative either. In "The Howl and the City," Morricone uses wailing solo
brass, with no regard to pitch, as well as the awkward combination of
high woodwind blasts over rambling drum rhythms. Perhaps the most
interesting (and ultimately irritating) element in
Wolf is the
use of a synthetic harpsichord effect that appears frequently throughout
the score. Rarely existing in the same key as the rest of the cue, this
electronic effect is slowly mixed into a cue, where it is overbearing in
volume, and then slowly fades away. It's clear that Morricone was
attempting to use this sound effect to represent the animal instincts
that come and go in the title character, as well as the inherent
suspense in the story, but the execution of the sound in otherwise
already-effective suspense cues is extremely distracting. On the whole,
Morricone's score has no clear direction and seemingly no goal, despite
the film's strong goals and direction. He hits you with the devolved
version of a noir score heard only in shadows, and without starting at
point 'A' and arriving at point 'B,' we have no frame of reference for
the horror music once it hits us early on. There are fragments that
work, including the solace heard in the final "Laura" cue, though even
this music is interrupted by the synthetic harpsichord effect that
ultimately ruins this score.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Ennio Morricone reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.18
(in 11 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.29
(in 10,063 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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