Bringing History to Life

By Tony Buchsbaum


If I think back -- way back -- I can sort of remember first hearing the work of composer Mark Isham in his score for Mrs. Soffel, whose soundtrack was released on the Windham Hill label back when Windham Hill released pretty much just New Age music. That was the time of George Winston and his "Autumn" CD...or, rather, LP. Anyway, Mark Isham's score for Mrs. Soffel was a quiet, brooding affair--a far cry from the work of John Williams and John Barry, which I loved--and I loved it just as much.

Since then, Isham has made a career of film scoring, and he's proven again and again just how great he is, in film after film.

To me, though, his pinnacle (so far?) is his music for Bobby, the 2006 film written and directed by Emilio Estevez. If you didn't see it in theaters, see it now. Rent it. Buy it. Just see it. It's a spectacular montage of stories that take place on the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Estevez managed to get permission to film at the hotel just days before its demolition, which makes the movie a fascinating postcard. But even more, it's just a great thing to see. Several stories unfold at the same time, with liberal intercutting from one to another, but somehow Estevez captures just the right moments, the perfect details that bring these characters to life. The husband and wife aching to be happy in their May-December marriage. The Kennedy pollsters who spend the afternoon on an LSD trip. The busboy forced to give up historic Dodgers tickets when he's handed a double shift in the hotel's kitchen. The bored, boozy lounge singer. The aging hotel doorman who can't seem to say gooodbye to the old place. The woman who works in the salon. The hotel manager who's screwing one of the switchboard operators. The young woman who's marrying a classmate just to keep him from having to go to Vietnam.

And the cast? Breathtaking. Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Shia LaBoef, Laurence Fishburn, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Freddy Rodriguez, Elijah Wood. Like their director, each one finds the telltale nuggets that make their characters human, only to see them experience, first-hand, the assassination of RFK.

Just as critical to the actors, the script, and Estevez's deft direction is Mark Isham's score. It's both heroic and heraldic, a deeply moving series of cues that enliven the greater story. Certain characters get their own themes, but the score's primary driver is a grand theme that drapes a musical fabric of shattered dreams, of a lost Americana, over these stories. Blending acoustic and electronic colors, Isham delivers music that works on personal and national levels, if you will, for so many of these short stories are about loss and sacrifice and redemption. They are enduring on this day what the country has been enduring since the murder of JFK, and now, just when the nation has caught its breath after the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., RFK is taken down. National tragedy mirrored by personal betrayal and disappointment. Somehow, Isham captures all of this. It's miraculous.

At the time of the film's release there was a CD of songs for the film, including the spectacular "Never Gonna Break My Faith." (In addition to the score, the movie is a jukebox of period hits.) But in recent weeks the complete score was released--and it's cause for celebration. It's one of the standout compositions of 2006, and it now brings 2007 to a close, into the 40th anniversary year of the assassination itself.

If Estevez's Bobby is an indelible film, the music Mark Isham made for it is unforgettable. Occasionally light-hearted and tinged throughout with a devastating truth, it is always insightful, bringing new layers to an already multi-layered story.

The Summer in Film Music

By Tony Buchsbaum

As a movie music fan from way back, I always find myself salivating for the summer movies -- as much for the film’s scores as for the films themselves. But in recent years, I’ve found my excitement seriously diminishing. Perhaps I’ve just learned not to expect something grand. Or maybe the music’s just not as good.

That said, three of this summer’s scores stand out. The first is for the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Though John Williams composed the music for the first three films, Patrick Doyle, in the fourth, paid only the slightest homage. The omission of Williams’ established themes was such a jarring slight that, to me, Chamber of Secrets didn’t feel like a Harry Potter movie. Nicholas Hooper’s score for Phoenix, on the other hand, is very good. It’s not Williams, but holding him to that standard is hardly fair. His cues are filled with wonder and suspense, and there’s even a hint of Harry’s theme. It may not have the sweetness and youthful exuberance of the earlier films, but this film is much darker, and the music must follow.

John Powell’s work for The Bourne Ultimatum is wonderful. Along with the inevitable action cues -- great for popping into your car’s CD player and driving around -- are highly emotional melodic pieces that ground all the bombast. I haven’t heard Powell’s scores for the first two films in this series, but his work here makes me want to. The CD contains 54 minutes of music, including a version of the film’s theme, “Extreme Ways,” performed by Moby -- and the highlight is a cue called “Waterloo,” which clocks in at more than 10 minutes.

A note about the timing: These days, so many films jump from scene to scene, forcing the music to do the same, with hardly any time to build meaningful melody. This score goes the other way, providing longer cues that give Powell the chance to develop themes and marry points of plot together -- which gives the score (and the film) a genuine coherence.

Michael Giacchino is one of film music’s rising stars. He first caught attention for his work on the TV series Alias. He’s also done spectacular work on Lost and several feature films, among them The Incredibles and the third Mission: Impossible. The Incredibles was directed by Brad Bird, as was this summer’s Ratatouille.

Giacchino’s work for the film is terrific. You expect the score for an animated film to be special; by design, animation gives the composer a lot to work with. On top of this, Ratatouille also gives Giacchino the background of Paris, which has endless musical possibilities. The composer uses them to great effect, lending many of his cues a tinge of the classic French sound, as well as many cues of fast-paced music that follow Remy, the movie’s primary rodent, run around getting into culinary trouble.

Giacchino has said he holds 007 composer John Barry in high regard. Barry certainly inspired the feel of The Incredibles. Perhaps it’s that inspiration that led to Giacchino’s appreciation for melody and his talent for building a score’s momentum, infusing every moment with character. Both Barry and Giacchino are masters at this. Too few new composers understand that what makes a good movie also makes good movie music: character. For Ratatouille, Giacchino has created music that brings every character to life -- and the music’s so good, it’s almost a character itself.