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| Horner |
The Life Before Her Eyes: (James Horner) If you're
looking for a downer, then look no further. No glorious footage of the
gorgeous Connecticut countryside can soften the impact of
The Life
Before Her Eyes, a time-shifting examination of a life that flashes
before your eyes, quite literally. The adaptation of Laura Kasischke's
novel of the same name was originally titled "In Bloom" upon its debut
on the eighth day of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival,
though its wider (but still limited) release more than half a year later
reverts to the book's title. To describe the plot of the film without
revealing its conclusive twist is difficult, though both the title and
soundtrack track listings plainly give that twist away. Essentially,
The Life Before Her Eyes jumps haphazardly between three eras in
a timeline, blurring them in such as fashion as to suggest parallel
universes. The primary character of Diana is alternately seen forming a
bond with her best friend in high school, facing a crazed student in the
middle of shooting up his school (who gives the two trapped girls the
choice of which one he should kill), and dealing with the tragic event
fifteen years later. None of the three times is particularly sunny,
especially as the adult Diana sees her life slipping away due to her own
inability to deal with the trauma. Grim, gloomy, and almost grotesque in
its ominously confusing narrative shifts,
The Life Before Her
Eyes has been described as a story much better left on paper, where
the cerebral explorations are more coherent. Director Vadim Perelman
made a splash with his debut for
The House of Sand and Fog in
2003, and this, his second feature, also contains a contemplative score
by veteran James Horner. As the composer has ventured further into the
arthouse scene in the 2000's, his work has become more unpredictable.
There is little in the music of
The Life Before Her Eyes that
will remind most mainstream listeners of the composer's famous works,
but as any collector tired of hearing "Hornerisms" will admit, some
originality is never to be frowned upon.
In the early years of Horner's career, synthetic works
were somewhat common. As his orchestral scores soared in popularity, he
left behind the sparse, electronic sound of such 1980's music. His
return to the concept of synthetic, small budget minimalism is an
intriguing move in his career, though not spectacular by any means. His
score for
The Life Before Her Eyes technically fills the void of
2007 that, with the delay of the wide release of the film, left the
composer without an official work in that calendar year. It's a score
that won't gain much attention and will likely serve as a curiosity for
the composer's collectors (at best). The ensemble for the score includes
piano and synthesizer, with solo guitar and string effects that may or
may not be synthetic as well. Only the piano conveys itself as truly
genuine in an organic sense. There are really no "Hornerisms" to speak
of in
The Life Before Her Eyes, with even the harsh and
occasionally grinding electronic bass tones unique to this effort. An
ethereal synthetic female voice, the clear identity of Diana's soul, is
a faint throwback to the lofty effects of
Titanic and
Deep
Impact, among others. The tone and depth of Horner's synthetic array
has matured considerably since the days of
The Name of the Rose
and
Unlawful Entry, though this score emulates those two
obscurities in Horner's career in the general understatement of its
style. Make no mistake about it;
The Life Before Her Eyes is a
bleak score, with only hints at a hopeful resolution in the final two
tracks featured on the album. Both the highlights and the tragedy are
scored with a wishy-washy atmosphere of meandering electronic
keyboarding and aimless dissonance. The first ten tracks presented on
album are so numbing and melancholy in a dismal and cold atmosphere that
you can't help but search forward for a brighter moment. While that
redemption in "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" and "Young Diana's
Future - A Future That Could Have Been" comes in the form of more
coherent harmony, don't expect the score to become any more attractive
than the descriptor of "morbidly haunting."
Thematically, Horner is extremely deliberate in his
presentation of the primary idea for
The Life Before Her Eyes.
Performed exclusively on piano, this theme very slowly develops
throughout the score, and an excruciatingly restrained tempo masks many
of its renderings. By the final track, Horner's own solo performances
help define the theme at a more transparent pace, though it may very
well have already put you to sleep by then. A secondary motif is
conveyed in the style of the synthetic female vocals. In only fragments
in most of the score, this representation of spirit in the final two
cues exists in minor-key harmony that has similarities to a few of Danny
Elfman's early afterlife ideas for
Beetlejuice. A solemn piano
line wanders through these performances and, in the final moments of
"Two Worlds; The Past and the Future," even emulates the starkly grim
tones of John Carpenter's famed
Halloween theme. One of the more
striking auxiliary elements in
The Life Before Her Eyes is the
use of a harsh and metallic bass effect, a distant cousin of Jerry
Goldsmith's "blaster beam," perhaps. Its employment (along with a
cymbal) is always a grounding element of the cue's key. These elements
(the piano, synth voice, and harsh bass effect) are pivotal to the
success of the final two cues because they are focused into a coherent
series of thematic performances or, at least, harmonic progressions.
They aren't any more pleasant in tone, however, concluding the score
with the same frightful disillusionment with which it began. The three
minutes of "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" and the middle five
minutes of "Young Diana's Future - A Future That Could Have Been" are
worth exploring for their hints at forming a heart, but there's really
no reason to try to accept these renderings when the same general idea
of cerebral atmosphere was given a soaring spirit by Horner in
A New
World. Casual listeners will refer to
The Life Before Her
Eyes as monumentally dull, while the composer's most ardent fans may
attempt to place the label of "profound" on it. If the entire score had
featured the focus of the final two cues, then perhaps the latter would
apply. But as it stands overall, the score is gloomy without being
beautiful, and that's a dangerous recipe for boredom.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.15
(in 108 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.23
(in 203,515 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
