Fracture soundtrack
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Fractured Soundtrack
By: Randall LarsonDate: Thursday, April 26, 2007
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Brothers and award-winning film composers Jeff and Mychael Danna reunite to invest Gregory Hoblit’s thriller, Fracture, with a sheen of dark, reflective melody and atmosphere. The soundtrack was released this week by New Line Records as an audio download from iTunes, and it’s a very worthwhile ten-spot purchase.
Fracture is a thriller directed by Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Frequency). In the film, a district attorney (Ryan Gosling) embarks on a crusade for justice after a man (Anthony Hopkins) is found innocent for the attempted murder of his wife. The 15-track Fracture soundtrack is now available from New Line Records only as a music download from iTunes.
The music is intricate – fractured, if you will – and compelling. Opening with a solo piano motif beneath a wash of violins, the tonality is instantly furtive, discomforting (“The Rube”). An oboe enters the vicinity and takes the melody over the piano, the violins peering in from time to time to echo their ominous intonation. The music grows in force and volume, its slow cadence and growing harmonic creating an intriguing atmosphere of unease. This tonality is Fracture’s mainstay, its strident piano melody and vaporous, constant violin suffusion building a psychological mystique that is at once compelling and unnerving, mirroring the dark tonality of the film and its storyline. A cavernous pulse is laden over the top of “You’re Home Early,” which gives the gentle melody and rhythm a booming contrapuntal subterfuge as its shimmering strings oscillate higher, their massed chordal progression echoed by horns until the cadence finally runs out of steam and becomes a solo violin strain, reverberating out. The low electric bass pulse, driven by a harsh snare drum and a repetitive, gurgling synth pad in “Beachum,” beating a harsh tonality below bellows of horns in “I Decide When It Gets Pulled’”), becomes the score’s second recurring motif, a disconsolate and jarring throbbing that plays against the silky smoothness of the sustained violin and piano motif. Both elements build the score’s – and the film’s – growing sense of unease and apprehension, carrying a tonality of unraveling canvass and slowly revealed hidden truths. The Danna’s (Tideland, Green Dragon, and individually Little Miss Sunshine, The Nativity, Surf’s Up [Mychael] and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, O, The Boondock Saints [Jeff]) are known for their gifted melodic writing and – Fracture is a notable exercise in sheer atmospherics, a rumbling sluice of seething musical fog that clears and obscures, clears and obscures, as the storyline develops, occasionally beating a severe dissonance of blaring brass and winds that crescendos boomingly at significantly moments. Like Mychael’s Girl, Interrupted and Shattered Glass, and Jeff’s The Grey Zone, Fracture is a brooding and gloomy collection of ambience, tonality, and slithering textures that sustains a splendidly unsettling atmosphere.
Brazilian composer Antonio Pinto’s score for The Perfect Stranger, released on CD on Lakeshore Records, runs along very similar lines. The film is James Foley’s thriller about a journalist (Halle Berry) who goes undercover to ferret out a businessman (Bruce Willis) suspected as her best friend's killer. The score opens with the gentle voice of singer Cat Power, whose song “Troubled Waters” set the stage for the score’s mysterioso, which also emphasizes sustained violin lines and troubled piano fingering, but also subtle electronic underlying textures that give the score an added depth and layered dimension. Foley (Lord of War, 10 Items or Less) provides music that is brooding and mysterious, underlining the film’s carefully maintained tension and providing a rich emotionality that clings to the characters and moves with them as they proceed to solve the film’s mystery. A Spanish-styled acoustic guitar element added provides an intriguing and likeable texture to the score’s palette, and in “MIA” Pinto provides a dominating bass beat not unlike that found in Fracture. “Meet the Knife” brings a dissonance of recurring synth pads and fast-paced percussive beats to the fore, building a very claustrophobic feeling to this tense scene. It’s a likeable score that builds a smooth sonority punctuated by moments of dissonant severity, but whose overall atmosphere is one of pleasing texture and harmony.
FILM MUSIC NEWS
Elliot Goldenthal's Grendel was a finalist in the Music category in the latest round of Pulitzer Prizes; the award went to Ornette Coleman (best known to film music fans for his contribution to Howard Shore's Naked Lunch score) for his "Sound Grammar." – via filmscoremonthly
Andrew Piddington’s new film, The Killing of John Lennon, is a chilling insight into the mind of one Mark David Chapman, the man who gunned down the superstar outside his New York apartment building in 1980. The film, starring Jonas Ball as Chapman, takes in the events leading up to and after the terrible murder and will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC later this month. British composer Martin Kiszko was brought in to write a new score for the drama, replacing music originally supplied by Hawaiian artist Makana. The composer replaced around 90% of Makana’s music, retaining a little of what was recorded by the guitarist, presumably for the scenes set in Hawaii. The Killing of John Lennon will be released in cinemas in the UK in July. For more information about the film, see: www.thekillingofjohnlennon.com - Michael Beek/musicfromthemovies.com
Film composer Marc Shaiman (Misery, The Addams Family, City Slickers, George of the Jungle, etc) received the Henry Mancini Award last week from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in honor of his efforts in television, motion picture, and show music. In addition to honoring Shaiman, ASCAP also honored the composers and songwriters of the top box office film music and the most performed television music of 2006.
Lakeshore has released the disturbing soundtrack to Disturbia, featuring music from Nada Surf, Buckcherry, Guster, Afroman and many more. A tense Hitchcockian thriller directed by D. J. Caruso (The Salton Sea, TV’s The Shield), Disturbia tells of a young man who becomes sullen, withdrawn, and troubled after his father's death – so much so that he finds himself under a court-ordered sentence of house arrest. His mother, Julie, works night and day to support herself and her son, only to be met with indifference and lethargy. The walls of his house begin to close in on him; he becomes a voyeur as his interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home towards those of his neighbors, one of which he begins to suspect is a serial killer. But, are his suspicions merely the product of cabin fever and his overactive imagination? The soundtrack features songs from the film but none of Geoff Zanelli’s score (he did co-write one of the songs on the CD). Zanelli, by the way, wrote additional music for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, as well as music for the forthcoming Shrek the Third videogame, along with games music enchantress Winifred Phillips. www.lakeshore-records.com
Composer’s site: www.geoffzanelli.com
Italy’s GDM Music has released the first ever expanded soundtrack to Ennio Morricone’s score for Pasolini’s Uccellacci e uccellini (Hawks and Sparrows), made possible due to the fact that an original album mock-up was found in the RCA Archives. The album was never commercially issued and the score was only available in bits and pieces on various compilation albums. The score’ s most unique element is the spoken Main Title track, provided here in the rare stereo mix, in which, in lieu of simple screen credits, singer Domenico Modugno names each of the film’s cast and crew in tune with Morricone’s quirky music. with the old times storytellers, where the artistic cast and the technical crew are mentioned by name. The album features 12 tracks with two previously unreleased tracks. Also included on the same release, the first time on record anywhere, is Morricone’s music for Cartoni animate, a 1997 film whose score is clearly linked to the Pasolini world through its unusual instrumentation (mandolins, for example) that was so dear to the great director. Cartoni animati features 10 tracks. The CD features mono and stereo sound digitally restored and remastered, a deluxe booklet with eight color pages enriched with rare archive stills. The CD was prepared under the supervision of Ennio Morricone. GDM is also releasing a fistful of other notable soundtracks, including Morricone’s lush romantic drama, Per Amore, and the 1985 crime drama, Il Pentito (The Repenter), Armando Trovaioli’s music for the caper comedy, Operazione San Gennaro (The Treasure of San Gennaro), and a trio of scores by Nico Fidenco, two Westerns: Uno Di Piu' All'inferno (1969, To Hell and Back) and All'ultimo Sangue (1968, Bury Them Deep) and a thriller, Lo Voglio Morto (1968, I Want Him Dead).
Filmmaker Rani Khanna has produced an hour-long DVD, Music By Gabriel Yared (in French with English subtitles), which will be released by DVD Digital Classics at the end of the month. - www.digitalclassicsdvd.co.uk
Yared’s latest score is for a political thriller and human drama about a secret policeman from the Cold War who continues his covert work in the 1991 reunited Germany, called The Lives Of Others. The dramatic, tense and often beautiful score, which features additional music by Stéphane Moucha, will be released by Varese Sarabande on June 12th, just in time for the film’s DVD release. www.varesesarabande.com
Want Western? La-La Land Records has released the first ever official, studio-endorsed CD release of one of the all-time American Western classic scores, Jerome Moross’s magnificent original score to the beloved 1958 MGM/UA epic western, The Big Country, starring Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives and Chuck Connors and directed by William Wyler. Remastered and complemented with exclusive liner notes and official art, this special release of Moross’s original score recording is limited to 3000 units. www.lalalandrecords.com
Two rare soundtracks by, both remastered from mint, stereo copies of the original vinyl LP releases, headline FSM’s May soundtrack releases. Damn the Defiant! (1962) was a seafaring adventure offering a twist on the familiar story of Mutiny on the Bounty: here the sea captain, played by Alec Guinness, is the humanitarian, while the first officer, Lt. Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde) is a ruthless career opportunist – and borderline torturer – whom the captain is at pains to keep at bay. The film featured intriguing character conflicts as well as exciting action scenes. Scoring Damn the Defiant! (known in England as H.M.S. Defiant) was British composer Clifton Parker (Sink the Bismarck!, Night of the Demon), who had a knack for adventure films and particularly those involving maritime subjects. Damn the Defiant! fell squarely in this tradition, and he provided a noble sense of British home and hearth being defended by those at sea. The film features fine, symphonic seafaring music and moments of action as well as warmth. Behold a Pale Horse (1964) was a historical drama dealing with the repercussions of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. Gregory Peck starred as a Spanish exile and guerrilla leader who must decide whether to return to Spain and risk capture by corrupt Spanish police captain Anthony Quinn. Omar Sharif gives a fine performance as a priest of crucial importance to Peck's decision. The film was directed by Fred Zinnemann with an almost European neorealist sensibility. Maurice Jarre provided a score for Behold a Pale Horse as intimate and restrained as Lawrence of Arabia was grand and epic. The orchestration is small, focused on idiomatic Spanish guitar and solo instruments like harp, harpsichord and woodwinds. The music features Jarre's inimitable sense of melody and a praiseworthy, delicate sensibility. Both LPs are presented in complete form, mastered from, with Behold a Pale Horse adding the two unique tracks from the monaural French EP that was released at the time of the film. www.filmscoremonthly.com
FILM MUSIC ON DVD
The 1995 film music documentary from director Joshua Waletzky, Music For The Movies: The Hollywood Sound, has been released this week on DVD by Kulture Video, which also released Waltzky’s previous documentary Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann (1992) earlier this year. The Hollywood Sound covers the music of Hollywood's Golden Age, the 1930s, which saw the rise of such brilliant composers as Erich Korngold, Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, and Franz Waxman, each of whom are profiled in this 86-minute documentary that features interviews and film clips, as well as segments of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales performing selections from The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gone with the Wind, Laura, and others.
Recommended Soundtrack sources:
www.arksquare.com/index_main
www.intermezzomedia.com/ (Italy)
www.moviemusic.com
