Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #375
Written 11/21/03, Revised 3/13/09
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Buy it... if you enjoy John Ottman's lyrical sense of style and personable,
thematic development in his suspenseful underscores.
Avoid it... if you prefer your thriller scores by Ottman to be flighty and
ambitious, with the whole orchestral ensemble participating in overt slashes and
hits.
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| Ottman |
Gothika: (John Ottman) With a production rushed at breakneck
speed in an attempt to capture a Halloween audience, Gothika missed its
mark and hit theatres at the height of the Christmas season. Call it a bad omen.
Its plot is leagues away from having the holiday spirit, with a criminal
psychologist (Halle Berry) accused of murdering her husband and driven nearly
insane in her search for the truth. During her investigation, she fights the
horrors of a dark prison and messages from ghosts that are giving her clues about
their own murders (which eventually relate as well to her own predicament).
Despite some hefty star power (including Robert Downey, Jr. and Penelope Cruz in
supporting roles), the film was introduced to composer John Ottman from the start
as a "low budget" horror project. While Ottman was not responsible for the film's
late arrival, the same process that caused the film's delays also led the
composer on his own journey of frustration and extremely rushed artistry. Ottman
was, of course, no stranger to the horror genre; he seems to excel with a sense
of morbid pleasure when offered horror films to score, and he even directed,
edited, and scored his own entry, Urban Legends: Final Cut, in 2000. For
Gothika, Ottman would need to lend an organic sound to the psychological
thriller, another task with which the composer was familiar. After presenting
demo material for 15 minutes of the film in just two days (be sure to read the
humorous account of this event on Ottman's official site, including his internal
response to the 2-day demo process: "Impossible! It will be shit!"), Ottman
impressed the director and producer of the film with his living, breathing style
of orchestral writing. In the latter stages of production, his score would be
expanded to fit into nearly every dark corner of the film's running time (a
circumstance that the composer had just dealt with in the post-production process
of Trapped), and the music had to be frantically placed into the film's
scenes before running the finished product (in pieces) past the studio for
approval. A notable exception is the placement of two songs (not presented on the
score album) over the end credits. As he had proven in the past, however, Ottman
is also no stranger to the art of quick-scoring, and his output for
Gothika, while not outstanding, is impressive under the circumstances.
First and foremost, it's important to mention that Ottman's
typical, lyrical style of providing a gothic atmosphere for his music is alive
and well in
Gothika. He occasionally loses that creative touch in the
horror genre, as had happened with
Trapped. But his knack for solemn
themes, choral majesty, and unusual percussion comes into full play here, making
Gothika a score that transcends the normal boundaries of 'fright and
flight' thriller scores. The orchestral ensemble is not as pounding and
relentless in its bold brass hits as, for instance, you would hear in his other
(or Chris Young or Graeme Revell's) slasher works. One notable moment of shrill
brass wailing comes in "Revelation." Restraining the score to the less obvious,
psychological realm, however, Ottman provides personal themes for three elements
in the film and relies on scratching, tearing, and quivering sound effects with
the ensemble for most of the traditionally scary accents. His piano and string
theme for the primary character, Miranda, is soft and personable, highlighted by
a three-note woodwind/choral motif over the top of concluding chords in each
phrase of the theme. This simple touch proves to be the highlight of the score,
because while Ottman would incorporate the full Miranda theme into a few other
places throughout the film, the three-note motif, embodying the same
compassionate appeal as the whole theme, is worked into many more cues throughout
the effort. The motif serves as a reminder of the character's goodness and
sustains hope in an otherwise troubled underscore. The theme for the little
girl's ghost is mixed with the sound effects of disjointed whispering sounds. An
oppressive theme for the prison itself is performed by cello and choir, and its
empathic connection with the audience is established in "One of Us" and "You're
Next." The latter cue serves as a suite, to some extent, of the film's thematic
ideas, and the score finishes with a slightly optimistic rendition of Miranda's
theme. For the sake of suspense, the cue "Final Escape" makes excellent use of
timpani and an array of clicking percussion, satisfying Ottman collectors who
prefer his keen sense of integrating an entire ensemble into each work. Overall,
there is at least ten minutes of very enjoyable, thematic development in
Gothika, and while the suspenseful material in between these moments is
nothing spectacular, Ottman collectors should not hesitate to investigate this
lyrical journey in the darkness.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For John Ottman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.17
(in 35 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.05
(in 21,449 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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