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Review of My Week With Marilyn (Conrad Pope/Alexandre Desplat)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you desire a very satisfying souvenir of the soundtrack from the film, including Alexandre Desplat's somber piano theme, Conrad Pope's original drama and jazz, and the numerous source songs used prominently on screen.

Avoid it... if you expect extended sequences containing any of the above elements, because as good as Desplat's theme and Pope's various identities can be, the album requires significant rearrangement to achieve even minimally consistent doses of each facet.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

My Week With Marilyn: (Conrad Pope/Alexandre Desplat) Long in development, the 2011 British production of My Week With Marilyn experienced a year of influence by independent film legend Harvey Weinstein that culminated in significant awards season hype for the BBC Films endeavor. The story is based upon the memoirs of Colin Clark, a British filmmaker who was an assistant director fresh out of school during his work on the 1957 movie The Prince and the Showgirl. That movie starred Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier, and the shooting in Britain was also meant to serve as Monroe's honeymoon with her husband, writer Arthur Miller. When Miller departed the country, however, Monroe was left largely alone and was escorted by Clark, who naturally developed a crush on the famous American actress. During the week they spent together, Clark's inevitable heartbreak and Monroe's less glamorous and insecure side are both explored, the duality of Norma Jean and her screen persona exposed during this turbulent time. A highly acclaimed performance by actress Michelle Williams in the primary role caused much of the praise and hype generated in late 2011 for My Week With Marilyn, and riding that wave of relatively unexpected interest is composer Conrad Pope. The career orchestrator has for decades labored behind the scenes for countless famous film scores, applying his expertise to innumerous projects by John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and other major Hollywood composers. More recently, his association with Alexandre Desplat (which includes orchestration work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, bringing another aspect of continuity back from the original three Williams scores) is what led to his assignment on My Week With Marilyn. Pope has always been one of those orchestrators who, like Mark McKenzie, has maintained a significant rooting section from within the film music collecting community, especially after his impressive work for Pavilion of Women in 2001. His attachment to My Week With Marilyn may not have come via glamorous means, but he tackled the assignment with workmanlike attention to several competing musical interests in the film.

Academy Award winner Stephen Warbeck was originally slated to score the movie, though Weinstein eventually approached Desplat to write a replacement score. The French composer, who has reached the A-list of industry names after a relatively short time, agreed to write a main theme for My Week With Marilyn but then insisted that Pope be hired to write and adapt the remainder. As a veteran orchestrator and arranger, Pope was well-equipped to handle the various musical ingredients in the project. Desplat wrote a somber but beautiful main theme for the film that required his associate to adapt into several cues throughout the film. Additionally, the genre of big jazz from the 1950's and prior was not only applied as source material, but supplied in original form as well for at least two cues. There were also times when Williams' vocal performances had to segue from and into original score seamlessly, requiring Pope to arrange bridge-like orchestrations. On top of that, the actual score had to tackle the Jean/Monroe duality in how it applied her theme and also address Clark's own enthusiasm with a perky British edge. On top of all of that, renown Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang was hired to perform a half dozen cues in My Week With Marilyn and infuse Desplat's main theme with another layer of elegant emphasis. The entire soundtrack, when considered as a whole, is clearly a musical souvenir of the film's narrative, blending classic songs with an emotional rollercoaster in the original material that will be too disjointed for some listeners (though rearrangement of the album's contents can assuage such concerns). The Desplat theme itself undergoes its own transformations in the score, often switching between the major and minor keys for its first set of progressions, sometimes within the same minute. A good-humored film music collector may find some amusement in the fact that this opening progression is a close sibling to Williams' theme for Krypton in Superman, and the similarity at least makes the melody distinctive enough to recognize in every instance it is referenced here. In several cues during which Pope only arranges this theme, sometimes into light orchestral variations, Desplat is given solo compositional credit. Upwards of ten tracks on the album presentation of My Week With Marilyn are at least partially attributed to Desplat, but as pretty as his main theme is for the film, the arguably more engaging and interesting material is provided by Pope alone.

The job of tackling Clark's character and the British locale in My Week With Marilyn rested upon Pope's shoulders, and he responds with characteristically intelligent, sensitive music that at times reminds of other composers' works but ultimately serves as strong orchestral counterpoint to Desplat's piano identity. The exuberant side of Clark and his filmmaking aspirations are expressed in an enthusiast rhythmic subtheme heard in "Colin Runs Off to the Circus," "Driving Through Pinewood," and the opening of "It's a Wrap." The woodwind figures in the first cue, as well as the brass work in the second, combine with rollicking pulsations from the full ensemble that very clearly emulate vintage Williams tones of excitement. This similarity represents the bulk of the influence from other composers, though the slightly lurid woodwind performances over wavy rhythms in "Rushes" may be curiously reminiscent of Goldsmith's Basic Instinct for some listeners. A touch of John Barry can be heard in the very slight sensuality of other romantic cues, though the Golden Age sensibilities of the orchestration and the duality of the main piano theme will more recently remind of Philippe Rombi's remarkable 2007 score for Angel, especially in the grand opening of "Paparazzi." Pope's usually understated but graceful melodic material culminates in "Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," his most poignant symphonic expression of his own ideas for the film. The album presentation will require you to manually assemble or program this and equivalent cues to yield a smooth listening experience. Pope's two explosions of vintage jazz, "Colin Joins the Circus/Mr Jacobs" and "Eton Schoolyard," are very competent but are better matched with the Dean Martin and Nat King Cole songs. The songs performed by Michelle Williams' herself are sufficiently believable but not particularly remarkable; a bit better matched is the performance of "That Old Black Magic" at the end of the product. Just like Desplat's The King's Speech, the source material for My Week With Marilyn was recorded using authentic microphones of the era, restricting the vibrancy of the soundscape by design. Overall, Desplat's main theme, Pope's own enthusiastic and melodramatic music, and Lang Lang's performances make for a solid and effective treatment of the topic. The integration with source material is also commendable, though the album will present challenges for listeners not interested in the narrative of the film (and therefore the songs). You have to extend kudos to Desplat for recommending Pope for this job, because hearing the orchestrator's own voice, even if it is adjoined with several influences in parts of this score, is always a treat.  ****

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 58:39

• 1. Marilyn's Theme* - includes performances by Lang Lang (1:48) • 2. "When Love Goes Wrong, Nothin' Goes Right" & "Heat Wave" - performed by Michelle Williams (2:10) • 3. Colin Runs Off to the Circus** (3:02) • 4. Colin Joins the Circus/Mr Jacobs** (2:06) • 5. Driving Through Pinewood** - includes performances by Lang Lang (0:48) • 6. Paparazzi*/** - includes performances by Lang Lang (2:55) • 7. Colin and Vivian*/** (1:28) • 8. "Memories Are Made of This" - performed by Dean Martin (2:19) • 9. Rushes*/** (1:28) • 10. Lucy** (0:47) • 11. Uno, Dos, Tres - performed by La Tropicana Orchestra (2:46) • 12. Arthur and Marilyn*/** (2:12) • 13. Marilyn Alone* - includes performances by Lang Lang (1:41) • 14. Arthur's Notebook** (2:17) • 15. Vivian Screens Marilyn** (1:38) • 16. The Getaway*/** (1:46) • 17. "You Stepped Out of a Dream" - performed by Nat King Cole (2:39) • 18. Eton Schoolyard** (1:20) • 19. "Autumn Leaves" - performed by Nat King Cole (2:44) • 20. Overdose** (3:31) • 21. Colin's Heartbreak* (1:49) • 22. Colin and Marilyn*/** (3:08) • 23. It's a Wrap**/"I Found a Dream" - includes performances by Michelle Williams and Lang Lang (2:38) • 24. Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of** (3:37) • 25. Remembering Marilyn* - includes performances by Lang Lang (3:19) • 26. "That Old Black Magic" - performed by Michelle Williams (2:44)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a short note about the film.

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