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| Shapiro |
Year One: (Theodore Shapiro) What happened to
Harold Ramis? How has such a great career so thoroughly gone down the
toilet? What exactly was he thinking when he took command of
Year
One? The hopelessly stupid buddy film had potential as a biblical
satire, exploring the book of Genesis through the perspective of two
dorky, primitive men in search of women and a higher existence. What
could have been a film that touched upon Monty Python territory instead
became ensnared by all the pitfalls of mindless comedies that rely upon
fart and penis jokes to sustain interest. The fact that co-producer Judd
Apatow once stated that he would insert a penis in each of his future
projects does impact the amount of grotesque male and female flesh in
Year One, some of which so disgusting that some audiences
reportedly wept (and not due to laughter). The involvement of various
biblical figures and locations in the plot is diminished by the low
intelligence of the humor and poor screen chemistry between leads Jack
Black and Michael Cera. Critics universally exposed these problems,
though that didn't stop brainless audiences from rewarding Columbia
Pictures with sizable grosses. Approaching the music to these crossover
films always presents trouble for composers. Two extremely important
questions have to be asked when faced with this kind of project: will
the period and location be treated absolutely seriously to produce a
parody effect by juxtaposing totally serious orchestral and ethnic music
with the actions and punch lines on screen? Or will the film's intent as
a silly, mindless comedy be exposed directly in the tone of the music,
serving as a bridge between contemporary culture references and ancient
times? When it comes to the interest of soundtrack collectors, the only
truly listenable material when divorced from the visuals results when a
composer and the production team choose the first option. The best
recent example of a completely serious score for a dumb comedy that
works well on album is Christopher Lennertz's
Meet the Spartans.
Unfortunately, while experienced comedy composer Theodore Shapiro
originally followed a similar path, he eventually took the score in the
direction of option two, exposing the true nature of the project but
thus creating an album that is haphazardly challenging in its
incongruent culture clashes.
Shapiro has produced enough comedy works over the
course of the 2000's to recognize this balance between serious and
flamboyantly dumb parody, and it's interesting to know that he changed
his mind about his approach halfway through his scoring process for
Year One. He originally sought to utilize his orchestral
ensemble, padded by several soloists on Middle Eastern and African
instruments, to produce a straight forward score for the era. He later
diminished the role of those performers in many places and inserted
contemporary rock elements in between and on top of those otherwise
sufficiently appropriate sounds. As such, you hear Hammond organ
effects, rip snorting guitar blasts, and drum loops of immense power
mingling often with the historically accurate performances. The score
thus maintains no stylistic consistency outside of its tongue in cheek
attitude, alternating wildly and suddenly between concepts that are
alone fine (and occasionally quite attractive) but together are too
outrageously bizarre to tolerate for the sake of a standalone listening
experience. The score almost plays as though Shapiro decided halfway
through the process that this film was so awful that only the tactic of
addressing any sense of comedy whatsoever in an effective manner
necessitated the modern sounds for an ancient location. The rock parts
are, in and of themselves, not intolerable; in fact, some of the loops
are downright awesome. The orchestral material is a bit limp, however,
attempting in a cue like "Virgin Sacrifice" to draw upon the Roman epics
of Hollywood's Golden Age (
The Ten Commandments comes to mind)
while also taking some obvious inspiration from
The Prince of
Egypt and
Raiders of the Lost Ark. As the score shifts to a
more heavily orchestral approach in its final cues, these references are
a bit more evident, though they help salvage the album from the
distracting disparities in its previous parts. The recording of the
ensemble sounds weak, a problem compounded by the lack of mixing
emphasis on the oud and other solo elements that could have given this
score more character. It's difficult to summarily dismiss Shapiro's work
for
Year One because it was confined to the style of such a
ridiculously terrible film. But at the end of the day, scores like this
(and, for many, Shapiro's superior
Tropic Thunder) rarely make
good albums. Avoid this commercial, score-only release unless you
specifically seek a souvenir from the production.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
The insert includes a list of performers, but no extra information about
the score or film.
