Filmtracks: The Golden Compass (Alexandre Desplat)

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Written 2/2/08

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Buy it... if you are knowledgeable enough about the plot of The Golden Compass to let Alexandre Desplat's intricate thematic constructs and textual diversity lead you on a loyal musical journey through the story.

Avoid it... if you expect the intelligent quantity of themes and depth of ensemble in this score to translate into the powerful resonance and memorability of Howard Shore's genre-defining scores for The Lord of the Rings.

Desplat

The Golden Compass: (Alexandre Desplat) Few series of fantasy novels have stirred the pot of religious controversy as deeply as Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," which examines concepts of nature and Christianity that Evangelicals find intolerably blasphemous. The success of the trilogy in print, as well as a renaissance of similar adaptations of children's fantasy to the big screen since 2001, led New Line Cinema to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at the concept with hopes of reprising the overwhelming success of the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings films. As with most of these concepts, the details of the plot are largely inconsequential when discussing the music written for their adaptations, with the exception of the extent to which a composer attempts to address individual lines of action, notions, or characters that recur throughout the stories. Attention to such detail was easily the intent of French composer Alexandre Desplat, whose assignment to The Golden Compass follows several dramatic entries into the international spotlight over the past few years. Acclaim has largely resulted from scores like The Painted Veil and The Queen, among many others, and Desplat is commonly considered the foremost composer from France working today. He received plenty of advice from director Chris Weitz about the sound desired for the project, and film score veterans will be able to pick up on the subtleties of these inspirations throughout the score. Perhaps the most obvious aspect of the large, orchestral score's direction is Desplat's treatment of the subject matter with the same respect to trilogy development and thematic integration as Howard Shore achieved with his immensely popular scores for The Lord of the Rings. Desplat follows Shore's lead in the incorporation of a surprisingly detailed and large collection of themes, weaving them into the narrative with such efficiency that a person familiar with the film can easily follow the action through the score. Additionally, Desplat provides fragments and whole sections of themes in ways that foreshadow the two future scores, with unexplicable little motifs heard throughout The Golden Compass that could very well have been meant to be explored further in the sequels.

Several tragic factors in the production of The Golden Compass cause problems with the score and disrupt the intelligent design that Desplat likely conjured when outlining his themes (and their presentation). First, the producers of the film rearranged significant portions of the novel and completely left off the natural end of the story in the film (despite filming it, interestingly). This editing came so late in production that Desplat could not have anticipated them when preparing his own development of the music. The fact that one of the score's best cues is completely absent from a deleted scene from later in the film is only the beginning of the problems. More disturbing is the fact that The Golden Compass did not fare anywhere near as well in the theatres as New Line had hoped, putting in jeopardy the trilogy's marketability and potentially leaving some of Desplat's musical ideas in a lame duck status. That said, when you step back and look at Desplat's music for The Golden Compass, anyone who pays attention to the details of his score can clearly hear the composer's extremely intelligent thematic usage throughout the work. If you take Shore's The Lord of the Rings as the mould, then the assignment of themes to the vast collections of characters and situations in the film is necessary. And Desplat succeeds brilliantly in these regards. He rarely varies his constructs in The Golden Compass, meaning that the themes he devises can be readily recognized in various instrumental and rhythmic guises. As with his scores like Birth and The Painted Veil, there is rarely a moment when there isn't some statement of a theme in progress. In the case of The Golden Compass, there are so many of them that some listeners (and especially those unfamiliar with the books or film) will become lost. This leads to the greatest weakness of The Golden Compass: a lack of overarching identity that Shore managed to attain through the heavy emphasis of one theme in each of his films. The "Fellowship" theme was the first film's dominant and memorable musical element, and the trilogy somewhat adopted it as is overarching identity through Return of the King. While featuring an abundance of good candidates, The Golden Compass has no such identifier.

Before delving into the some of the larger conceptual difficulties that plague the music for The Golden Compass, merit has to be awarded to Desplat for his multitude of themes. None of them is a show-stopper, and some will remind you of other scores. But their sheer number is ambitious enough to reward any fan of the stories with an intellectual musical journey through each concept. The first theme heard in the score is one for Dust, a five-note motif often performed by Tibetan singing bowl, xylophone, piano, gong, and flute. Its cyclical presentation and simple, rising structure in the score's prologue sequence will raise memories of Danny Elfman's Batman, though film music purists will reference this theme all the way back to Bernard Herrmann, who himself has seemingly influenced Desplate here on several occasions. A more extroverted variation on this theme exists in several places throughout The Golden Compass, and it's difficult to determine if Desplat considers these similar ideas (which often share counterpoint) to be derived from the same notion. The robust ensemble performances of this Dust variant is about as close as Desplat would come to providing a title theme, using its performances to highlight vast cinematography for the concept of the journey that prevails throughout the novels. The full displays of this theme in "Sky Ferry," "Lord Asriel," and "Ragnar Sturlusson" are its most obvious statements, whereas the subdued construct of the Dust theme, sometimes only punctuating an appearance of the alethiometer, is far more obscure. The rhythmic movement of "Sky Ferry" will remind Desplat collectors of the travelling music in Syriana. The young girl at the heart of the story receives two major themes (Desplat has claimed that she has three, but two of them seemingly overlap with such regularity that for the purposes of trying to keep things simple, we'll discuss them in terms of two themes). Her primary theme is a delightfully pretty woodwind melody that gracefully moves with some shared progressions from James Horner's An American Tail.

In its more fluttering and innocent movements, Lyra's primary theme is among Desplat's weakest for the film, and one of the more curious aspects of his entire score is the fact that the theme's most dominant performances are in the final two cues; in these cues, the theme still features an innocence that the character is quickly losing in the story. This particularly applies to the "Epilogue," though this cue makes a fantastic transition from a solo performance of the theme to an ensemble representation with victorious trumpet counterpoint at the end. The victory is a bit misleading at that point, but it sure makes for a satisfying closing to the score. The second theme involving Lyra is the one that develops along with her bond with the bear Iorek. This theme explodes with its most obvious and heroic performance at the outset of "Riding Iorek" and accompanies the emotions of Iorek's battle and victory over Ragnar in "Ice Bear Combat" (with agony) and "Iorek's Victory" (with relief). The rolling orchestral performance in "Riding Iorek" is a blatant tug at the climactic moments of John Williams' E.T., even down to the pulsating brass accompaniment. A noble theme for Iorek himself is less often utilized, introduced in full in "Iorek Byrnison," and receives its most glorious moment on brass near the opening of "Iorek's Victory." One of the score's more enjoyable themes is short on appearances; the courageous theme for Serafina Pekkala does explode, however, in the rescue sequence of "Battle with the Tartars." A string theme for Mrs. Coulter (and extending to her daemon) is an intoxicating, rising movement over waves of hypnotic rhythms that suggest some of the physical appeal of Jerry Goldsmith's Basic Instinct. This theme would be best explored, naturally, in her introductory "Mrs. Coulter" and would flourish with a short trumpet fanfare at the end of "The Magisterium." The thematic representation for the Magisterium itself uses the same fluid movement as the theme for Mrs. Coulter, and Desplat intentionally blurs the lines between them. While the two themes mingle, the Magisterium's idea is often given away by the deliberately shifting and ominous accompaniment in the lowest regions of the woodwinds and on piano. This theme, most easily heard in between the giddy title theme statements in "Sky Ferry," would largely become lost in more ambient sequences later in the score.

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Also residing in the lowest regions of the ensemble is the impressively simple but effective idea for Ragnar Sturlusson, heard prominently in the cue of that title. The four-note piano motif, utilizing the power of six pianos in striking fashion, would open his cue and eventually receive full ensemble treatment a few minutes later. Perhaps the most intriguing thematic representation in The Golden Compass is a light melody for the character of Billy, which is one of the only themes that experiences significant changes throughout the score. It's heard first in explosively happy and charming form in "Lyra, Roger, and Billy," exhibiting some of the ultra-positive attitude of Hans Zimmer's music for Simba in The Lion King. It shifts to lullaby mode consistent with Horner's Casper in the longing "Letters from Bolvangar" before exposing a structure interestingly similar to Bruno Coulais' The Chorus during the boy's discovery in "Riding Iorek" (the similarity to Coulais is especially evident in the solo woodwind performance here). Far more consistent is a march for the Gyptians, the score's most diverse theme. Making use of Desplat's wildest array of Eastern European (and slightly Oriental) instruments, this theme is a choppy, recursive theme that does little to extend the overall personality of the score, but its appearances in "Lyra Escapes" and "Lord Faa, King of the Gyptians" are interesting in and of themselves. A slight clarinet motif also associated with the Gyptians, used in the more subtle references to them, appears in several places and is easily identifiable due to its Middle-Eastern progressions. Another interesting thematic use for Desplat fans in The Golden Compass is the seeming adaptation of one of the primary themes from The Painted Veil for use as the theme for the Gobblers here. It most often appears as counterpoint on strings over other thematic statements, reducing its impact on the score. Several other motifs exist, some from the words of Desplat himself, and like the ideas for Lee Scoresby, they may be more obvious in the planned sequels. Otherwise, like Shore's work for The Lord of the Rings, the remaining ideas fade into the tapestry without much notice solicited for each one.

All of these themes form the greatest strength of The Golden Compass. Outside of Desplat's loyalty to them, there are several other aspects of this score that deserve praise. First, the orchestration and instrumental creativity of Desplat and Conrad Pope is outstanding. The collection of specialty instruments for The Golden Compass is typical of the most diverse works of Mychael Danna and other stars of international, genre-bending scoring. The dynamic range with which Desplat balances the ensemble is also important in this score. From the throat singers and combined pianos in their lowest octaves to the triangles and shrieking flutes over the top, the sonic range in almost all of the cues in The Golden Compass is remarkable. Desplat has proven himself to be a composer for whom masterful intricacy is not a challenge, and this score is perhaps the best evidence of that technique. The subtle use of electric cello and electric violin adds further texture and enhanced bass (in the case of the cello) without betraying the orchestral personality of the overall work. The use of voices is underplayed, though they make strong contributions at various points. Aside from the throat singing, the descending voices of a boys' choir creates a fantastic dissonance after the initial thematic blast in "Riding Iorek" and an ensemble, adult choral performance of the title theme in the middle of "Rangar Sturlusson" is a highlight of the score (despite the awkwardly thumping bass that raises memories of Toto's worm-riding sequences in Dune). The most important comment about all of these performers is their accuracy in performance. The London Symphony Orchestra is on its game here, which tremendously assists the Elliot Goldenthal-like frenzy of activity in the score's four or five massive, but disappointingly short action pieces. The swirling strings near the start of "Ice Bear Combat" and the frenetic brass and woodwinds in the middle of "Lord Asriel" are of particular interest. The harmonic resonance of the Serafina Pekkala theme amongst the chaos in "Battle with the Tartars" is another highlight.

Because of all the great strengths of The Golden Compass listed above, the score is commonly considered to be among the best --if not the single best-- of 2007. While it does deserve to reside near the top of those scales, the score is not without its weaknesses. If Desplat was attempting to mirror Howard Shore in his technique for The Lord of the Rings, then he placed too much emphasis (while successful) on thematic depth and lost sight of two other aspects of Shore's scores that made them so monumentally popular. First, none of the themes mentioned above is dominant enough to sustain itself for a mainstream listener outside of the film. Most of the major ideas do receive a full ensemble performance at some point in the journey, but they are often brief and range widely in their placement. This score, more than any fantasy or adventure score in recent memory, badly needed a prologue, epilogue, or concert suite arrangement that prominently provided four or five of the major themes in glorious and obvious fashion. Indeed, the first and final tracks do each intentionally cover many of the themes, but once again, they appear in fragments or other subtle form. As such, The Golden Compass is a score that is forced to rely on the sum of its themes and their creative textures to define itself. That may work for film music intellectuals, but for the average fan, this score is lacking that intangible sense of distinction in theme that carried so many of the great John Williams scores that seemingly played a role in influencing The Golden Compass. As discussed before, Shore's scores for The Lord of the Rings weren't as blatantly obvious as a typical Williams score themselves, but he compensated by heavily emphasizing at least one theme per film and made sure to include a valiant statement of that theme at the end of the picture or its credits. The Dust theme in The Golden Compass is used so often, and yet you never hear it mature into something as weighty as that which it represents. Nor do you hear a connection between it and the journeying variant for bright major key expression.

The second major flaw with The Golden Compass is that so much attention was given by Desplat to instrumental detail that he managed to lose the sense of fantasy integral to scores sharing this same genre. Every instrumental soloist, down to the last harp pluck and piano strike, is emphasized in the recording with absolute crystal clarity. Once again, for the intellectuals, the lack of reverb in the mix allows for appreciation of the intricacy of the composition. But this presentation lacks any power whatsoever for most of the score; even the action sequences seem sparse at times, betraying the ensemble's outstanding performances and the presence of interesting textures by forgetting that resonance as a whole does matter. Some say that Shore went too far in the opposite direction with The Lord of the Rings, washing so many of the elements together with a wet mix that all you get is the overwhelming sense of the whole. But Shore's scores also illuminated its themes well above that whitewash of sound, whether it was a flute solo for the hobbit themes or noble horns for the fellowship. Desplat's music for The Golden Compass badly needs some reverb added back into the mix to help it achieve its place in the fantasy genre, and you could certainly do so without sacrificing the intricacies of each performer. The final flaw of the score is one that plagues the film, and that is the re-arrangement of the material in post-production. With the scene for the cue "Lee Scoresby's Airship Adventure" omitted and two sections of the book inverted late in the production process, the score's flow, as especially made evident on album, is poor. The majority of action sequences end in the middle section of the album, leaving no natural conclusion for that material outside of the brief Tartar battle music. Luckily, only a very little amount of music from the film is absent from the album, which is almost too long given the redundancy of some of the softer cues.

Rounding out that album, which was delivered to CD stores long after the movie had already lost steam in the theatres, is the unrelated song "Lyra," a short new age piece written and performed by Kate Bush. It's an obvious attempt to mirror The Lord of the Rings once again, using Bush's meandering, echoing vocals to the same degree the Enya did for the first film in the prior trilogy. With its synthetic choir and keyboarded strings, the song is pleasant but non-descript, making no attempt to connect itself to the score. The 70 minutes of Desplat's score preceding it is so infinitely more intelligent that there's no reason to discuss the song further. It remains difficult to determine exactly how most film music fans will react to The Golden Compass. Some have given the score a cursory browsing and have written it off as lacking cohesive thematic presence. Technically, those listeners are wrong. But they are correct in pointing out that for the mainstream listener, the score won't be particularly memorable once it concludes. Even for fans of the work, there will be three or four themes that strike the best chord with you, and The Golden Compass is definitely a score that could use some personal rearrangement by fans. The album presentation is, of course, completely out of order. But the fact that Desplat typically has a distinctive beginning and end to each statement of theme allows for ease in the process of personal rearrangement. Overall, many critics and fans were surprised to see that The Golden Compass failed to garner an Academy Award nomination, especially coming a year after Desplat's nomination for The Queen. Given that the group has shown to have no bias against European composers in its nominations, it is distinctly possible that the score suffered more from the lack of power and memorability than hardcore film score fans might admit. It is truly frightening to imagine no sequel for a score composed specifically as the first of three that would eventually unfold into a larger tapestry of music, and it would be fascinating to hear what Desplat could do in subsequent entries in the series. But The Golden Compass remains a score better built for intellectual appreciation rather than mainstream enjoyment. **** @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.41 (in 32 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.22 (in 16,610 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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