Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #2,064
Written 9/5/20
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Buy it... if you appreciated Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders'
approach to supplementing the film's songs with their own vintage jazz
and rock score of matching coolness.
Avoid it... if you require a solid narrative flow to the score, the
composers content to allow their jam sessions with a 15-member band to
carry the work via instrumental personality rather than coordinated
structure.
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| Beltrami |
Ford v Ferrari: (Marco Beltrami/Buck Sanders) It is
often said that the best sports movies are those that focus on the
personalities of the main characters rather than the sport itself, and
the 2019 racing film Ford v Ferrari did a masterful job of doing
just that. While the movie is a based on the famous battle between the
titular automakers at the Le Mans races of the 1960's, the plot of
director James Mangold's film focuses on the relationship and struggles
of automotive designer Carroll Shelby and British driver Ken Miles as
they work on behalf of Ford to unseat Ferrari as the master of the
raceway. The men succeed in 1966, but the story is not without some
tragedy. The film's most notable production aspect is its editing,
particularly of its sound, as the cars involved in the races each had
distinctive sonic personalities of their own. One of the primary
challenges facing composers Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders was
providing music that could enhance the emotional impacts of especially
the driving scenes without getting in the way of the fantastic sound
editing. (Sanders typically receives composing credit when his
contributions to Beltrami's scores are significant, as they are here.)
They opted to not compete with it via emulating the effects of the sound
mix, refraining from applying mechanical enhancements to their music.
Instead, Mangold encouraged them to use jazz and rock from the 1950's to
1970's as inspiration, capturing the coolness and sleaze of the era
organically and not overwhelming the picture with a traditional sports
score. Their approach to the assignment was to forgo an orchestra
completely and use a 15-member band for every cue, rotating between the
instruments as the shifts in era and genre necessitate. More
importantly, Beltrami and Sanders did not apply significant synthetic
accents or pre/post production processing to this music, allowing the
performers to breathe an authentic sense of life into the recording. The
intimate but snazzy atmosphere they create is a solid match for the
film, the jam sessions of their performers managing to straddle the line
between jazz and rock in a sort of timeless retro fashion. This decision
was key to allowing the score to mingle extensively with songs of the
era as well, and Beltrami and Sanders were generally applauded for their
contribution despite not receiving much awards recognition for their
toil.
While the atmosphere of Beltrami and Sanders' music for
Ford v Ferrari is pitch perfect, their handling of each cue as a
singular jam session doesn't allow for a truly cohesive narrative across
the whole. Don't expect to hear thematic development of any significant
depth in the score, with simple, rising figures repeating at a few
moments to provide the film with its only distinguishing motifs. This
material seems aimed primarily at the redemption of the Miles character;
slight hints of these structures emerge on acoustic guitar in "The
Request/The Car is Yours/Perfect Lap," transition to somber electric
guitars in "Team Player" and "Crescent Wrench," and only evolve to a
more expected sports movie mode in "Le Mans 66," where
Rocky-like
trumpets express the matured phrasing over aggressive rock rhythms. The
"Le Mans 66" cue is the one place in the score when the composers were
allowed to really exert the sports element in full, and expect this cue
to receive the most attention from film score collectors. Other cues in
the score are singular expressions by the band, and how the composers
comprise each cue is more important than the rather mundane melodic
meanderings they follow. Three or four electric and acoustic guitars are
joined by electric and/or string bass, drum kit, a saxophone/flute
player, a handful of trumpets and trombones, and a piano/organ player.
For the scenes earlier in the chronology, as in "Henry Ford the Second,"
you hear the string base, piano, and trombones. Likewise, the coolness
of "Ferrari Factory" extends those same instruments but adds the flute
for a touch of European sophistication. For the younger characters, the
electric guitars and organ play an enhanced role. There are a few
passages when Beltrami and Sanders employ their band as a replacement
for their synthesizers, capturing the suspenseful moments such as
"Chasing Bandini" and "Night Driving" by forcing the players into
non-traditional performance methods to produce a more grating edge;
these cues are clearly a detriment to the otherwise groovy listening
experience on album. On the flip side, there are some underachieving
cues of sparse but pleasant atmosphere, such as "7000 RPM." The three
score cues that made the song album for
Ford v Ferrari present a
solid 11 minutes of representation and will serve casual enthusiasts
well. For collectors of Beltrami and Sanders' music, be prepared for a
score-only album of vintage jazz and rock jams that is badly out of film
order and therefore fails to maintain even a minimal narrative flow.
It's cool but disjointed.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Marco Beltrami reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.75
(in 28 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.8
(in 19,012 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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