Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #869
Written 12/26/08
Invert Colors
Buy it... only if you are a teenage girl seeking another souvenir
from the film or if you are already accustomed to Carter Burwell's
unconventional harmonies and structures from his prior, equally dense
works.
Avoid it... if any score with exploding, groaning, and shrieking
electric guitars in monumental crescendos of dissonance is automatically
eliminated from your consideration.
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| Burwell |
Twilight: (Carter Burwell) The vampire subculture
in America received an infusion of blood upon the arrival of Stephanie
Meyer's novel "Twilight," filling a literary void left by the conclusion
of the "Harry Potter" series of books. The immense popularity of Meyer's
concept translated into mega-earnings at the box office for its 2008
adaptation to the big screen. Films like Twilight do well no
matter what critics or arthouse crowds or awards voters think about it,
because such cult-status films serve a very specific crowd of teenage
girls that frankly don't care about what any of those demographics
think. One aspect of Twilight worth noting is that Meyer took
many generous liberties in her reinvention of the vampire myth in order
to squeeze it into a high school romance setting without sounding any
alarms in the logic department. The story, regardless of the fantasy
elements, is still essentially one of teenage angst, social outcasts,
and cultural commentary that are all common to the less creative variety
of high school-related flicks. At least the slasher concept has morphed
into something a tad more romantic. The director of Twilight,
Catherine Hardwicke, proudly exclaims that she considers the topic to be
one of great density and complexity and was thrilled to hear a score of
equal description to come from veteran composer Carter Burwell. While
skirting the mainstream in the 1990's, Burwell's output in the 2000's
has never accompanied anything close to blockbuster status and, as such,
Twilight represented a significant opportunity for him
(especially with the prospect of sequel films looming on the horizon).
His writing has never lent itself to straight forward harmony, making it
difficult to hum even his most memorable tunes (such as those for
Conspiracy Theory and The Hi-Lo Country), and that lack of
clearly defined thematic expression is apparently what Hardwicke praised
the most about Burwell's work for this film. His meter, progressions,
and slightly dissonant chords all figure into his primary theme for
Twilight, thus extending his rather distant style into yet
another genre. The same tendencies inhabit the music for the darker half
of Twilight, though this material usually disintegrates into
nonsensical textures for the instruments he employs to represent the
supposed coolness of the vampires.
All of these usual Burwell techniques form a score that
is indeed dense and stylish in modern textures, but one that is so
troubling in its expressions that it's not the kind of music that
anybody other than devoted fans of either the composer or the "Twilight"
concept will be able to tolerate for very long. Without question,
Twilight is a score of two personalities, and it's not hard to
imagine why. The romantic half is anchored by "Bella's Lullaby," a piece
that Burwell wrote to convey his own loss of a girlfriend (though she
eventually became his wife anyway) and applied by chance to this picture
with effective results. This theme, primarily performed on piano and
acoustic guitar, is sensitive enough to represent the Bella character,
but as with Burwell's other more harmonious themes, he leaves enough
discomfort in its structure to keep it once again from being truly
memorable. He does work the idea into several cues in
Twilight,
sometimes in creative rock-related guises. But even its final
performance in "Edward at Her Bed," the theme's awkward structure
restrains its obvious heart. The second half of the score underlines the
alternately cool and somewhat frightening culture of the vampires, and
this is where Burwell will lose most film music collectors. His
obnoxious rock-inspired motifs for the group on electric guitars and
other grating elements are given textures that suit them adequately,
though the lack of fluid movements in Burwell's rhythms keeps this
material from being listenable. The score flips wildly between its two
halves, with seemingly little common ground to save the album
experience. The startling transition from "Bella's Lullaby" to the
completely unlistenable "Nomads" is nightmare inducing. The shrieking
and pounding dissonance of the darker half of
Twilight leaves
little reward for those attempting to access the already difficult
lullaby. Whatever sense of delicate humanity on piano, harp, and guitar
representing Bella Swan and her effect on Edward Cullen is completely
overshadowed by the drum kit and electric guitars of the other vampires,
leaving no room for really intelligent mingling of the textures.
Overall,
Twilight makes no strides towards acceptance in the
mainstream, and Burwell's music reflects that same devotion to a single
crowd. The album is far too disjointed in the battle of two musical
styles to create any kind of coherent listening experience.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Carter Burwell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.84
(in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.82
(in 11,704 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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