DANNY ELFMAN: The 15 Best Non-Tim Burton Film Scores #10-6

See #15-11 HERE

#10- TULIP FEVER (2017)
Director: Justin Chadwick

After sitting on a shelf for two years, director Justin Chadwick's period drama Tulip Fever finally saw the light of day in 2017.  Sadly it was a complete misfire and in turn buried the recognition Danny Elfman deserved for the gorgeous score he supplied.  

Led by a smalls string ensemble, a collection of electric chimes and a longing but colorfully rolling piano theme, the score is Elfman at perhaps the most romantically lyrical he's ever been.  It has neither a particularly memorable theme or overly showy vigor about it, so it'll most likely get lost in most collector's minds in due time which is a real shame.  With it's forlonging urgency and feverish qualities it's a score that's easy to get lost in a clouded daydream of your own. 

TULIP FEVER Suite

#09- FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (2015)
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson

For director Sam Taylor-Johnson's adaptation of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, Danny Elfman uses far more intellect in his composing than the film actually deserves.  

It could have easily been a phoned-in softcore porn score but Elfman instead assigns a variety of textures, techniques and themes to the characters and their apparent "growth" throughout the film.
Elfman employs a soft-rock ensemble, aided by a stripped-down skittish string section and a soothing choir to balance out it's fluttering of subtle electronic textures.  It's uncomfortably intimate yet cold, constantly threatening to burst with emotion but instead remains unsure of itself, mirroring that of the lead character's feelings to a tee.  It's a lot more musically thoughtful and fascinating than the film itself, and that alone is a great accomplishment that deserves more attention than it's received.  

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Suite

#08- SCROOGED (1988)

Director: Richard Donner

Elfman's score for Richard Donner's Scrooged is about as Tim Burton-ish as you can get without it actually being Tim Burton.
With it's plethora of jingle bells and creepy "la-la" children's choir used to create a humorously morbid tone to the normally happy sounds of Christmas, Elfman was testing out the waters with similar techniques he would perfect in the years to come.   In the film, the score knocks the balance of comedy and darkness off quite a bit, causing Elfman to confess he didn't quite hit the mark with this one.  That may be the case but it's a still a fan favorite, most likely due to it feeling like a blueprint of what would come to be some of Elfman's best work. 

SCROOGED Suite

#07- A SIMPLE PLAN (1998)

Director: Sam Raimi

A Simple Plan is probably one director Sam Rami's least known films to the average movie-goer but I find it might also be his best.  It's like Elfman knew that and instead of opting for an easily accessible score, he went with something so sparsely cold and challenging it'll only reward with multiple visits.  By taking away the large brass sections he's so comfortable with, Elfman leaves himself only with a large chilly woodwind ensemble and icy piano keys & chimes to create something rather unique to his catalogue at the time.   Like the film itself, it's deceivingly simple at first but with multiple listens you'll pick up on all sorts of tricky little techniques and ideas hidden beneath layers of icy soundscape it creates.  

A SIMPLE PLAN Suite

#06- AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (co-composer Brian Tyler)(2015)
Director: Joss Whedon

For the most the Marvel Cinematic Universe's musical voice has been a real dissociated mess, not really making much of impact apart from Alan Silvestri's bold Avengers' theme.  Halfway through post-production of director Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age of Ultron Danny Elfman was brought in to pick up composer Brian Tyler's octane-fueld score and it seemed that the results could have been catastrophic.  However Elfman did a fantastic job at mimicking Tyler's sound, giving it a deeper layer of emotion and, most of all, finding brilliant ways to bring Silvestri's Avengers theme into the mix, thus finally bringing musical continuity to the MCU.  It's a real mish-mash of composers' works but through some miracle it actually works quite well and makes for some of the most entertaining near-disaster albums around. 

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Suite*
*Note: the suite only contains music composed by Danny Elfman and not Brian Tyler

#5-1 Coming Next Monday...

DANNY ELFMAN: The 15 Best Non-Tim Burton Film Scores #15-11

Ever since 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, composer Danny Elfman has been the leading musical voice for director Tim Burton's vast filmography of Gothic goofiness and somber beauty.
From the spooky roller-coaster zaniness of 1988's Beetlejuice to the fairytale elegance of 1990's Edward Scissorhands to frightening old-fashioned grandeur of 1999's Sleepy Hollow and right up to the minimalistic pluckiness of 2014's Big Eyes, Elfman has scored all but a small handful of Burton's films.  Much akin to director/composers Steven Spielberg & John Williams, Alfred Hitchcock & Bernard Herrmann or Christopher Nolan & Hans Zimmer, the duo's working relationship is a match made in heaven.

However Elfman hasn't remained exclusive to just Burton and has worked with a vast array of other directors, including Sam Raimi, Gus Van Sant, Joss Whedon, Clive Barker, Guillermo del Toro and many more.

I've selected fifteen of my favorite non-Tim Burton film scores, and included YouTube links to suites I edited together, so you might get a different taste of what the composer is capable of. 

Let's start with #15-11:

#15- CHARLOTTE'S WEB (2006)
Director: Gary Winick

Known for light-fare comedic films like Letters to Juliet and 13 Going on 30, director Gary Winick chose Elfman to compose his 2006 adaptation of E.B. White's classic children's novel Charlotte's Web.
A delightful mixture of childlike innocence and playful Americana, Charlotte's Web relies mostly on light strings and plucky pianos, with a soft layer of choir and highlights of a guitar & fiddle.  Fans of Elfman's lush early 90's work, such as Sommersby and Black Beauty will find this a wonderful companion, only here we get a style that's less dramatic and brimming more with joyful friskiness  It's not the sort of score to stir one's emotions with memorable themes but more so with constant inoffensive charm and confidence to never overwhelm with unnecessary flair.

CHARLOTTE'S WEB Suite

#14- THE WOLFMAN  (2010)
Director: Joe Johnston

The story behind Danny Elfman's score for director Joe Johnston's 2010 adaptation the 1941 horror classic The Wolfman is just as messy as the actual film itself.
Fortunately the composer's morbidly melodramatic oeuvre as a standalone listen is a delightfully vicious experience.  Elfman made it no secret that his primary influence on this assignment was Wojciech Kilar's deeply heavy operatic score for Bram Stoker's Dracula.  This is lush Gothic romanticism as some of it's best with it's bold bass-heavy strings almost overpowering the pounding brass and percussion.  While most film scores would assign individual themes for each character, setting and emotion, Elfman opts to cleverly reconstruct the leading theme into whatever sentiment it's coinciding moment in the film calls for.  Search no more for good ol' fashioned cinematic horror music at the top of it's game.

THE WOLFMAN Suite

#13- WANTED (2008)
Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Being a big fan of Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov's dark fantasy Night Watch duology, Danny Elfman jumped at the chance to work on the stylish comic book action-thriller Wanted.  

The composer brought a unique voice to the action scoring genre with a dense, bass-heavy, Eastern European flavored thrill-ride.  It's grungy electronic accents mesh so well with the adrenaline-fueled orchestra it never distracts from the actual compositions, unlike a few other modern composers who can't seem to get the balance right. Even though it's not your stereotypical action music, this cleverly textured score still manages to get the heart racing in all the right places.

WANTED Suite

#12- THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (2013)

Director: Errol Morris

Being the openly liberal minded composer that he is, Danny Elfman couldn't pass up scoring Errol Morris' scathing documentary on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known.  

Utilizing the a string section, a piano and the occasional choir & marimba, Elfman juggles a dramatically solemn and playfully ominous score that reflects the shady yet chipper former Cabinet member to a tee.  A great deal of the score echoes that of Philp Glass' minimalistic rhythmic approach to scoring and that comes as no surprise, considering director Morris' number of collaborations with Glass in the past.  At first listen the music is sparse and overly serious but upon closer inspection you'll find a fascinating array of textures and techniques all done with a subtle scathing smirk.

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN Suite

#11- JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017)

Director: Zack Snyder & Joss Whedon

After taking over for director Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon promptly let composer Junkie XL go from composing duties on Justice League.  In turn, he recruited his Avengers: Age of Ultron collaborator, Danny Elfman, who was no stranger to olde tyme orchestrated super-hero music.  Sadly none of this helped the quality of the film and still ended up being a complete stinker but fortunately we got a pretty damned fun score out of the bum deal.
It's your pretty standard superhero composing with bold brass, string ostinatos and muscular fanfares a plenty, however it's solid writing with good old orchestral power merging with a clever use of modern textures and rhythmic techniques.  What got me squealing like a child in a candy store was Elfman making use of John Williams' Superman theme, Hans Zimmer's Wonder Woman theme and of course his own 1989 Batman theme.  Whether or not it truly works for this incarnation of the characters is debatable but it sure makes for a highly entertaining stand alone listen.

JUSTICE LEAGUE Suite

See #10-6 HERE

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: THE SCORE music composed by Christophe Beck

Based upon the 1992 box office bomb, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, was a television series that would grow into a pop culture phenonmenon during it's seven year run, beginning in 1997. Oscar-nominated Buffy creator, Joss Whedon, all ready had quite the resume under his belt, as a co-writer on Toy Story & Titan A.E. (with Tim Burton regular, John August & Firefly/Angel scribe Ben Edlund), the unfortunate writer on Alien Resurrection, script-doctor on Speed, Twister & Waterworld and writer on the TV sitcom Roseanne. Unhappy with the way his scripts turned out on film, due to the directors, Whedon decided to turn to television. From there he resurrected the idea of a highschool girl turned superhero and developed it into a critically acclaimed televsion series.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer mixed horror, humour and human drama into it's stories unusually well. It's characters were given the gift of witty dialogue and even greater character arcs. However it was the music that brought a cinematic feel to the series, when it went into it's second season.
In the first season, Walter Murphy scored the show, with mixed results. His music felt overly synthesized and low budget, which really stood out (and not in a good way). Murphy left the show and went on to score Family Guy, which better suited him. In stepped Canadian composer, Christophe Beck, who really hadn't done much, other than collaborated with then unknown composer Marco Beltrami on the forgotten series, Land's End.
Christophe Beck, brought the cinematic feeling to Buffy, that it needed and it almost immedietely took the series to a brand new height.
Beck, used a mixture of synthesizers and real instruments to create a sound that could very well belong in a feature film. Pouring everything in the mixture that he could, Beck's music was at times touching, horrific, exciting and humorous.
He ended up scoring 58 episodes in total, during the years of 1997 and 2001 and picked up an Emmy Award for his work on the season two episode, Becoming Part 1. During that time, his music was rarely ever released on album, besides a single track on the first official soundtrack album and one on the 2nd UK edition soundtrack. Followed by that, a few suites were released on the Buffy musical episode soundtrack album. Fans didn't think that was enough and wanted a whole score album. It wasn't until 2008 (five years after the show went off the air), that an official score album was released to the rabid fans of the show.
Clocking in at nearly sixty minutes worth of music, the album is what anybody who was a fan of show's score would want. It's score follows through with cues starting from the pivotal season two episode, Innocence, all the way to season five finale, The Gift, which was Beck's run through the series, if you don't count the single musical season six episode, Once More With Feeling.
The album begins with a bang, with "Massacre" from the season 2 episode, Becoming Part 1. An exciting cue, with it's sweeping strings and violent brass section that match Beltrami's horror cues from his Scream scores. It slows down at the end to interpolate with the Buffy/Angel love theme, that fans will immedietely recognize and cherish. Coincidentally, Beck would reuse the action theme from this cue, in Becoming Part 2 and the season one Angel episodes, I Will Remember You & War Zone. Followed by "Angel Waits" from the Season two's Passion. Quite possibly my favorite episode from the entire series and the music has alot to do with it. "Angel Waits" is a stalking soundscape, which creaks back and forth with pure evil. "Remembering Jenny" is another track from Passion, which is the Giles/Jenny Calender love theme. A theme I could listen to forever and wish so badly there were more variations on the theme itself. With it's deeply moving piano and Anthony (Giles) Head's vocals, it puts a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Followed by "Twice The Fool" from the season two Xander-centric episode, Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered. A playful little ditty, with strings that could quite possibly pop out of Elfman's Beetlejuice score.
"Kralik's House", from the season three episode, Helpless is an uber-creepy track that layers synthesized strings and an ominous droning sound, that sends chills up and down the spine, then suddenly jumps out at you, just like the Kralik character relished in doing so much. Things get emotional with "Magic Snow Music" from the season three Christmas episode, Amends. You get the feeling, Whedon wanted something straight out of Edward Scissorhands and Beck delivers. A funny little tidbit on this track, if you put the cd in your computer, it reads as "Magic Snow Missile", possibly thrown in there by some D & D fan.
"Slayer's Elegy" from the Season 3 episode The Wish, is a beautiful gloomy track that focuses mainly on a female soloist vocal performance, which mirrors Beltrami's Scream cue, "Sidney's Lament".
The action really picks up again, with "Faith's End" from the season three episode, Graduation Day Pt. 1. This cue is like the bigger, meaner brother to the "Massacre" track. It makes you want to jump up and kick some ass...you could almost imagine the internet child star "Star Wars Nerd" filming himself again, only this time he's a vampire slayer and...well...it just gets weird.
"From The Grave" from Season Four's This Year's Girl, is a somber cue, which plays along with Faith's dream/nightmare before she wakes from her coma.
We are then treated to several unreleased cues from the Season Four episodes, the Emmy-nominated Hush & Restless. Even though the Once More With Feeling soundtrack included some extended suites from these episodes, it is nice to hear even more score from Beck's masterpieces. I'm particulary fond of the cues from Hush, as it is probably my second favorite episode. The Gentlemen's theme is just so damned creepy, it's like something out of a classic horror movie from the Golden Age. Restless being my third favorite episode, musically, was a real treat. I loved the vocals that were used in this, they remind me of the Hans Zimmer/Lisa Gerrard score for Gladiator.
The album ends with a handful of tracks from Season Five, which I find somewhat forgettable, other than the final track "The Gift", from the season finale of the same name. This track is labelled as an alternate version, from the version that was heard on the OMWF soundtrack. Personally, the original version stands up better, than this alternate version, as it ends more dramatically.
In the end, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Score" is a pretty decent stand alone album compiling some of the best cues spanning over Christophe Beck's work on the series. However several of the tracks are edited down from the season two and three era, which really makes me wonder why, as they could still easily fit on the album in their complete running time. Personally, I don't mind too much, as all these tracks can be found on the Season Two & Three score promotional albums in their entirety. Unfortunally the promo albums were never released to the public, so the only way to get them is to hunt them down online and get the MP3's. Another annoyance is the way the album was released. By purchasing the album online, you would recieve several bonus tracks, all of them differing depending on where you bought them from, whether it was iTunes, Amazon or Rhapsody.
I highly recommend this album and the two promo discs (if you can find them), whether your a fan of the series or just a score collector, it stands on it's own feet either way. So here's hoping a volume two is on it's way, right?

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