Nautical Disaster - Day for Night - The Tragically Hip
The Tragically Hip: Nautical Tragedy: Day for Night
January Soundtrack Picks
Expense: $29.98What is it?: Where it seemed that the first two scores in the “Batman” franchise were as crazy as you could get with the Wagnerian approach to superhero scoring, then Elliot Goldenthal’s next two entries made Danny Elfman’s quick-witted, demon circus takes seem positively somnambulant in comparison. If anything, Goldenthal’s “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” scores are like two discomfort clocks, screaming through your senses as they mash together the 60’s jazz kitsch that Neil Hefti gave to the idiot box show, along with the brash, brassy experimentalism of John Corigliano’s concert hall works in the 80’s- modernism that changed the puss of film scoring with his soundtrack to “Altered States.”
Why should you buy it?: It’s no boy wonder that Goldenthal was Corigliano’s Robin, on-going with his master’s dissonant approach to blaze onto the Hollywood scoring scene with his brazen WTF work on “Foreign 3,” “Interview with a Vampire” and “Demolition Man.” But even the latter cult film’s avant-garde zaniness didn’t discover close to the colorful, blasting weirdness that Goldenthal gave to “Batman Forever,” an proposals right in unrestrained tune with director Joel Schumacher’s attempt to return the film franchise to its lighter Adam West indistinguishability. It was a way over the top pop art revamp that paid off handsomely on all counts, or at least the first time out in Schumacher’s case. For despite all the shrieking brass runs and blaring orchestral bluster that relentlessly powers the film, there’s a definite method to Goldenthal’s madness for a “Batman” that relishes in its pseudo-analyzing of split identities. The composer brilliantly makes those characters’ thematic distinctions evident, from a surging, heroic march for Batman and Robin to a piercing, voice-topped Theremin that suits the Riddler’s head-controlling device and discordant rhythms that capture Two-Faces psychotically scarred mood swings. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a non-stop surprise, invention and fun to Goldenthal’s hellzapoppin’ approach as he adds to his well-defined musical characters with a Tango, Gothic eeriness, salutes to Philip Lens and sultry piano romance for Nicole Kidman’s eye candy. It all adds up to a soundtrack that’s as crazy as it is mainstream in its objectives, not to mention one of the most popular examples of musical excessiveness in film scoring history.
