Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #1,600
Written 9/3/09
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Buy it... if you seek an intelligent but often difficult cross
between Danny Elfman's own "Serenade Schizophrana" concert piece and the
contemplative, hazy churning of Philip Glass' most commonly associated
film music tendencies.
Avoid it... if you expect to leave this listening experience with
anything other than a disheartening, somber mood, for Elfman uses both
the lightly devious and heavy brooding of his familiar style to coldly
underline the sickness on screen.
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| Elfman |
Standard Operating Procedure: (Danny Elfman) The
most remarkable aspect of Errol Morris' lifetime of work in the genre of
documentary filmmaking is his ability to present a subject without any
guiding comment whatsoever. He allows the audience to process the cold
truths he conveys and assign their own perception to what they see. This
continued to be the case with Standard Operating Procedure, a
mechanical 2008 examination of the famous photographs taken of detainee
abuse by American forces at the dreaded Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Unlike many of the documentaries that delve into the unpleasant actions
in America's wars of the 2000's, this one provides no answers or
opinions other than those by the relevant people collected for
interviews (sometimes paid, though still likely truthful). Morris even
acquired an interview with some of those seen in the photos, allowing a
cloudy but fascinating picture of the events to unfold. There are hints
that powers higher of up the chain of command were likely responsible
for the existence of this scandal, but despite a short scene at the
start showing footage of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that mystery
is not revealed here. Morris' inclusion of grainy video footage of the
torturous photo sessions was the film's best selling point. Still,
however, the audience for Standard Operating Procedure was
limited because of these grim, graphic visuals; no plethora of positive
reviews or nominations at film festivals could gain the production a
wider viewership. It was suggested by Roger Ebert that the entire tone
of the film, absent and color in the rest of the production elements,
fell completely on the shoulders of Danny Elfman's score. The composer
claimed to have been impressed by Morris' work since his acclaimed
Gates of Heaven in 1978, and Morris likewise had admired Elfman's
music throughout the past two decades. The long collaboration between
Morris and composer Philip Glass yielded to an opportunity for Elfman
and Morris to finally join forces, and the resulting music is indeed a
fascinating study on its own. Much commentary was offered in 2008 about
the similarities between the style of Elfman's music for Standard
Operating Procedure and that of Glass, though most of those
resemblances are limited to the fact that Elfman chose to tackle the
assignment with the flowing, almost disembodied rhythmic structures that
have defined much of Glass' work. Other than this basic similarity,
Elfman's music here is distinctly reminiscent of his own history.
The specific words used by Ebert to describe Elfman's
shaping of
Standard Operating Procedure were "sad," "elegiac,"
and "relentless." These are apt descriptors, though "mechanical" needs
to be added to that list. While Elfman alters the tone of each rhythmic
cue slightly, there is no doubt that the constant movement gives the
listener the impression that there are wheels turning in the military
and intelligence system that are unstoppable and that the events seen on
screen here are just part of an ongoing set of behavior accepted in the
dark corners of those institutions. The major difference between Glass'
usual methodology and the one here is that Elfman provides several
traditional melodies that are staggered in their progressions to match
the underlying rhythmic motion. These themes are so elongated in that
process that they may not stick with the listener long after the score
has concluded, but they nevertheless keep the environment almost
continuously harmonic. The ensemble is not of great size; in full
performances such as the disheartening "Main Titles: Vacation in Iraq,"
the sparse number of musicians is exposed. But for the perpetual
churning effect, a heavy emphasis on intimate, dry string recordings and
occasional help from woodwinds and piano is sufficient. The sensibility
of the work owes much to Elfman's 2006 concert composition "Serenade
Schizophrana," to which
Standard Operating Procedure finally
connects his film music. The range of emotions in the work starts with
the glum and strained, heard in the portions of the work like "The
Infamous Pyramid" that incorporate either dissonance or electronic
accents, and extends to the sickeningly jolly, which is summed up best
in "Photos," a cue that merges the synthetic vocal tones familiar to
Elfman and John Ottman's work with tuba and saxophone performances that
tug at the same strings as
The Nightmare Before Christmas. The
instrumental creativity here is not as pronounced as in
A Simple
Plan and other Elfman works that accomplish much with limited
ensembles, but there is usually a presence of some form of tinkling or
struck percussive element in each cue in
Standard Operating
Procedure to extend the soundscape. In fact, it is in this portion
of the orchestration that Elfman's score makes the most damaging
statement about the images on screen, offering a sickeningly optimistic
set of instrumental tones over an otherwise morbid and restrained bass.
Overall,
Standard Operating Procedure is a score that will
hypnotize in some of its longer rhythmic portions (and especially in the
first track on its album), but on the whole begs for intellectual
appreciation over effortless enjoyment.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
Bias Check:
For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.12
(in 95 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 154,830 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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