Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #877
Written 12/28/97, Revised 3/12/06
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Buy it... if you enjoy engaging and intelligent suspense scores
and/or Don Davis' typically strong instrumental creativity.
Avoid it... if you prefer your noir-ish scores to have a strong
identity, or were hoping for the score to reflect more of the eroticism
of the film.
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| Davis |
Bound: (Don Davis) While the collaboration between
composer Don Davis and filmmakers Larry and Andy Wachowski is
highlighted by the trilogy of Matrix films, their start came two
years earlier, in Bound. The Wachowski brothers were in their
20's, college dropouts from Chicago, making their first feature film.
And Bound is exactly the kind of debut you'd expect the two to
make. A mixture of genres, Bound takes themes from both the Cohen
and Marx Brothers and slaps you in the face with a caper film that
throws gangsters and lesbians into a slapstick environment and twists
you half a dozen times until you feel as though you're part a crime
syndicate yourself. It is certainly offensive to many audiences, with
graphic violence and sexual undertones throughout, and if it doesn't
offend your sensibilities, it could very well leave you puzzled. In the
dangerous environment of organized crime, two neighboring lesbians carry
on not only a sexual affair, but become involved in the increasing body
counts as well. The film was met with a substantially positive critical
response, though it flew largely under the radar in theatres because of
its arthouse origins. Don Davis was equally anonymous to mainstream
collectors in 1996, having composed mostly television episodes for
Star Trek and SeaQuest. He paid his bills by serving as a
regular orchestrator for both James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith (his
credits includes projects as successful as Titanic and Air
Force One), among others. But his compositional skills would lead
him down a more unconventional path than such mainstream scores would
suggest, with Davis' output often resulting in interesting, though
difficult scores. Indeed, many of the challenging aspects of the
Matrix scores would be foreshadowed in Bound, from a
technical point of view. On its own, though, Davis' score for
Bound fails to really establish itself with a clear identity in
the film or on album.
The score is instrumentally creative, and it is this
array of percussive elements and wise use of solos that cooks up the
necessary atmosphere in
Bound. Davis uses tingling synthetics and
outwardly forward (and heavily mixed) drum loops to form the rhythms of
his suspense, occasionally building with a full ensemble to bizarre,
dissonant crescendos like that at the end of "Thelma and Louise from
Hell." Solo performances by piano and bass seem unfortunately lost in
the bleak environment that Davis attempts to create, with hints of film
noir elements always poking around in the background without
pronouncement. One of the more successful elements in
Bound is
the incorporation of brutally honest brass, with bold, muscular
statements in deep ranges often highlighting whole notes in Davis'
rhythms with a fantastic sense of menace. In "Chicago's Finest," Davis
allows one such rhythm over dramatically rolling strings to boil over in
to a glorious statement of intimidation. Horner-haters will enjoy
hearing the typical crashing piano in the lower ranges (in "Out of the
Closet and Down the Stairs") that has become a staple of James Horner's
suspense scores. The emotional roller-coaster created by the numerous
rhythmic crescendos works similarly to John Ottman's large-scale debut
in
The Usual Suspects, but perhaps the most curious aspect of
Bound is its lack of sophistication on the sensual front. There
is really little in Davis' score to suggest a sultry side of the film,
and this surprising absence perhaps gets back to the equally missing
noir side of the music. The lack of a strongly coherent theme or set of
motifs doesn't necessarily hurt this score, but a clear musical identity
for the two lead women, built and evolved slowly in front us from start
to finish, may have assisted the score in maintaining an identity. The
noir statement of theme at the end, with cymbals crashing and timpani
pounding, along with the elegant mambo in the final cue, are a strong
finish to the album, and perhaps a glimpse of some ideas that could have
been better developed throughout the score. The album was released by
Supertracks in 1997 as a promotional item, and is still available
occasionally through specialty soundtrack outlets.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Don Davis reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3
(in 10 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 44,959 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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