Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,797
Written 5/25/18
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Buy it... only if you intend to deconstruct the surprisingly
predictable horror techniques explored by Marco Beltrami's team in this
otherwise unremarkable genre entry.
Avoid it... on album if you desire either a satisfying presentation
of the music heard in the film or if you expect any memorable sense of
innovation in this sadly wasted opportunity.
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| Beltrami |
A Quiet Place: (Marco Beltrami/Various) Despite its
immensely grim and depressing subject matter, 2018's spring horror
surprise, A Quiet Place, garnered widespread critical and popular
acclaim, propelling it to astonishing grosses and generating immediate
planning of a sequel. In a dystopic near future, humanity is depicted as
succumbing to attacks by a predator-like alien race with acute hearing
but no vision, one that kills anyone who makes a sound. This film
concentrates on the relationships of one rural family that copes with
this reality, highlighting its defensive and offensive mechanisms that
offer hope despite the significant deaths within the group. It's a
ghastly concept that begs for commentary about society's masochistic
tendencies in its entertainment, but from an artistic point of view, the
project did yield some intriguing possibilities in its sound design and
editing. The crew sought to minimize the usual ambient noise on set as
much as possible to highlight lesser, incidental sounds the family is
shown to be making. There was some debate about whether the film would
require an original score at all; it might have functioned eerily well
without any music whatsoever. But actor/writer/director John Krasinski
disagreed, seeking to maintain a traditional movie-going experience
despite the significant emphasis on silence in certain scenes. He thus
hired horror genre veteran Marco Beltrami to conjure an ambience of
distinctive unsettlement while working closely with the sound editors on
the project to synchronize the music's design-like characteristics with
the tones of the sound effects. Beltrami assembled his usual team of
ghostwriters, four in this case, to assist in concocting a mostly
discordant style of music for the story. The group combines a
deconstructed version of a typical, piano-driven suburban family
environment with tired, repetitive horror techniques using an orchestra
and synthesizers to accomplish nothing particularly new. If any film
score was ripe for experimentation with new methods of tackling the
genre, A Quiet Place would be that entry. Unfortunately,
Beltrami's team supplies perhaps the most predictable score imaginable,
one that competently and, at times, effectively addresses the emotional
needs of the film, but it's not a work that will impress you with any
memorable innovation. In the world of sound design scores, this effort
seems like an immensely wasted opportunity.
Structurally,
A Quiet Place is no doubt a
consistently developed score, utilizing a number of motifs faithfully
but without much satisfying evolution throughout the work. Beltrami's
team emphasizes the orchestra over synthetics, interestingly, preferring
to force the organic sounds into uncomfortable performance modes,
especially on strings. Thankfully, the amount of post-processing of
these mixes isn't distracting; instead, the approach leans on
Jóhann Jóhannsson's more brutally savage techniques to
grind the ensemble to death with atonal discord and abrasive force.
There are moments when the electronics do fully envelope the mix
negatively, "Rising Pulse" among the worst. But to the composers'
credit, the score remains loyal to its major motifs even in these
passages of outright obnoxious noise. The alien creatures are afforded a
pitch-declining effect of simplistic rhythmic oppression that is
supplied often by brass or synthetic alternative. By "All Together," the
beasts have an actual four-note descending phrase over the top. The
family receives a repeating motif of five notes that is rather anonymous
outside of its varying performance mutilations. Introduced in full
during "A Quiet Family," the detuned piano and cimbalom tune is
intentionally laced with performance flubs to denote a terrible
existence. The theme struggles but sometimes succeeds in achieving
greater tonal focus in later cues, especially in the two "Bonfire" cues
as violins offer soothing accompaniment. In these accessible passages,
the score strives for the gravity of John Williams'
Presumed
Innocent but fails to achieve the same punch. On the side, there
also exists a panic and chasing motif of resounding fear and
determination from bass strings late in "Labor Intensive." Some
listeners won't have the patience to distinguish these identities in the
score due to its grisly and occasionally painful demeanor. There are
times when the intention of Beltrami's team was to supply nasty
orchestral chaos as obnoxious as humanly possible, and the listening
experience on album is insufferable as a result. The deconstructed
family theme is of marginal interest, and "Kids Bonfire" is a
delightfully optimistic diversion from the otherwise harrowing
experience, but these few moments of accessibility are brief. The album
also seems to be missing some key statements of the chase motif as heard
later in the movie and during the end credits. Ultimately,
A Quiet
Place is dominated by its annoyingly generic horror sequences, and
its album seems pointless as presented. Strategic questions about
greater silence in the film's spotting will abound as well; few actual
risks were taken here.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Marco Beltrami reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.75
(in 28 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.8
(in 19,012 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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