June 11, 2009

  • Review: Year One (Shapiro)

    Theodore Shapiro continues to be the go-to composer for comedy these days and such scoring is often quite underappreciated.  His scores for Blades of Glory and Tropic Thunder both took the material seriously even while parodying the traditional scoring of such films, always with a touch of real class.  Year One, the Jack Black/Michael Cera summer comedy, finds Harold Ramis at the helm of a film that at least looks humorous in previews.  It will hopefully have more of a brain than Meet the Spartans!  Lakeshore will release a hard copy of the score on CD and digital downloads will also be available.

    The “Main Title” has an appropriately visceral ancient sound a la Stravinsky via Jurassic Park or Planet of the Apes.  It moves quickly into a percussion laden vocal chanting.  This punctuated sound will recur in the score cast along brief thematic ideas that often barely get to hint at much before receding.  “The Forbidden Fruit” has more chance to add a little more orchestral underscore between ethnic percussion and flutes that wavers between what might be mickey-mouse comedic underscore and light musical fare before getting quite serious.  Shapiro is not adverse to tossing in a little contemporary hip hop rhythm here and there (“Bazaar” is a good example with its Arabic sound and urban beats) but moves stealthily from the humorous anachronistic sound back to a faux period implication in the music.  That it even makes sense as you listen is of course part of the fun even if much of the score is laden with ethnic drumming sounds.  As is sometimes the case, the music here is cast in short tracks with just hints at thematic ideas.  The urban rhythms take up the central portion of the score presented here with klezmer clarinets, Arabic flutes, serious epic music, and ethnic guitar sounds all entering into an intriguing blend of styles that tries to create a bridge between the ancient world storyline and our own.  Some will find this interesting and it no doubt functions well in the film.  On its own, Shapiro has created enough variety to make the music somewhat engaging thematically, though one tends to want to hear the music flow into longer more coherent segments.  “The Holy of Holies” does allow for Shapiro to craft a more extensive and Prince of Egypt-like thematic sound with electric guitar cast against orchestra.  The final tracks are given more room to breathe and thus help make the final moments of the score as it is presented quite satisfying as thematic ideas finally play out longer.

    Throughout the score the tendency is to feel the electronic and urban percussion sounds as anachronistic, but in reality all the music is essentially not “period” specific apart from the ethnic melodic contours, themselves not necessarily period pieces.  Shapiro’s score easily maneuvers from these urban styles to orchestral and ethnic outbursts that sometimes would feel more in place for a Bond film, therein perhaps lies some of the humor as well as music we would expect to hear in a modern story appears cast against a scene from Year One.