Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,915
Written 2/8/12
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Buy it... if you love punishing yourself with wretched sound
effects and dissonant orchestral techniques that could appropriately
drive a person insane.
Avoid it... if you believe for an instant that Alan Silvestri might
tackle the horror passages in this atmospheric nightmare with the same
intelligence and muscularity exhibited in his respected action works.
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| Silvestri |
Identity: (Alan Silvestri) Honestly, does a movie
like Identity really make anybody feel better about mankind? Did
anybody leave the theatre after witnessing this film with personal
fulfillment and an overwhelming desire to make the world a better place?
If anything, the story of the 2003 film encourages society to execute
those who are mentally ill. The derangement of one motel manager in
particular is the focus of Identity, the battle in his head a
result of ten conflicting personalities he's harboring. The audience
doesn't realize until most of the way through the picture that the
collection of stranded characters at the secluded motel are all people
whose identities have been adopted within this nutcase. As he attempts
to sort through these invading personas, the inhabitants of the motel
are murdered in horrible fashion. A false ending provides cheap thrills
at the end, and it's hard to fathom how this movie managed to attract
positive reviews and impressive box office returns. The ensemble cast of
character actors are stereotyped as one might expect, and it's difficult
not to notice similarities in the killings and locations to prior films
involving motel felonies. Perhaps Identity appeals to viewers who
like contemplating characters whose heads are even more screwed up than
their own. Or perhaps it was simply meant as stupid slash-fest fun, in
which case its gruesome deaths may inspire those with a torture fetish.
Director James Mangold has rotated through composers randomly for most
of his career, and Alan Silvestri was the unlikely recipient of the
assignment for Identity. Although the composer had already
created a name for himself in nearly every other genre of film, horror
was not among them, only the mediocre What Lies Beneath (and its
Bernard Herrmann references) representing a major and recent venture
into the realm of fright. In what was perhaps a situation better suited
for Marco Beltrami to tackle at the time, Silvestri ended up producing a
score that wouldn't sound very out of place in Beltrami's career. Along
those lines, enthusiasts of Silvestri will find very little in
Identity to remind them of the composer's trademark mannerisms.
There is intelligence behind some of the composer's constructs and
instrumental applications in the score, but all of them are so
wretchedly insufferable (as necessary for the arduous film) that it's
impossible to casually appreciate them outside of an intellectual
analysis on album.
You can hear what Silvestri was attempting to do with
Identity in how he collects different instrumental styles and
techniques and throws them into an unsettled soup to reflect the
psychological disorders of the primary character. The orchestra is
hassled by oddly rendered electric guitar, percussion, and synthetic
effects throughout the score. The most distinctive instrumental
application is a scratching violin technique that plucks obnoxiously in
the background of many cues, testing the listener's endurance. Extremely
whiney string tones offer clouds of dissonance in the many places as
well, at times congealing into a two-note descending motif (as heard
immediately in the score and at the outset of "Lou is Dead"). In
"Settling In," Silvestri clearly tangles the various instrumental
facets, forcing layers of guitar, drums, tingling metallic percussion,
synthesizer, and sound effects together and increasing their intensity
as the cue progresses. By "Rhode's Secret," these sounds degenerate into
mere noise. A heartbeat sound effect thumps away in several cues with no
apparent purpose. Thematically, the score features two full-fledged
ideas, neither really making much of an impact. A pretty but doomed
woodwind one in "Prologue" is reprised in "May 10th" and "Orange Grove"
but does little more than offer temporary comfort (though still
unsettled) and a false sense of security. Rattling metallic grinding
effects exist behind this theme's performances, making it truly
impossible to appreciate for its muted lyricism. The second theme is a
slightly twangy one, expressed in "Settling In" and restated in the
eclectic "Identity End Credits." Don't look for the themes in
Identity to save the listening experience on album, however,
because the score's most obvious feature is the series of stingers that
accompanies each killing and discovery of a body. These disturbing
strikes are very generic to the genre and feature none of the creativity
that Silvestri has exhibited with percussion-driven ensemble outbursts
in other works. In between these strident pokes are passages of ambience
that are largely nondescript. The sound of blowing wind has seemingly
been captured and manipulated for these sequences. The presentation of
"Identity End Credits" on album is questionable; its inclusion of
dialogue is distracting, reducing the effectiveness of its purpose as a
summary of most of the score's instrumental techniques. Overall,
Identity is easily Silvestri's least inspired career effort for a
mainstream picture and the 32-minute album contains 30 minutes of
torturous despair. At least the composer spared listeners more such
punishment by avoiding the horror genre for the rest of the decade and
beyond.
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Bias Check:
For Alan Silvestri reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.47
(in 43 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.33
(in 40,196 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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