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Review of Identity (Alan Silvestri)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

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.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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.  *

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 32:07

• 1. Prologue (2:57) • 2. What Have You Done? (1:15) • 3. Settling In (2:24) • 4. Lou is Dead (3:24) • 5. Suicide Jumper (2:13) • 6. It Was an Accident (2:29) • 7. Bodies Disappear (1:44) • 8. May 10th (2:22) • 9. Rhode's Secret (2:39) • 10. Showdown (2:20) • 11. Orange Grove (2:55) • 12. No Second Chance (1:27) • 13. Identity End Credits (3:37)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information about the score or film.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Identity are Copyright © 2003, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 2/8/12 (and not updated significantly since).