February 5, 2014

  • Doyle's Great "Dead Again" is Revived

    With the success of THOR, Kenneth Branagh has seemingly gained some support again after a series of mildly successful films.  As the 1990s began, Branagh was riding very high after a monumental, and successful, production of HENRY V (1989) that actually led to the opportunity to explore film noir and a sort of migration of souls murder mystery in Scott Frank’s (Get Shorty, The Wolverine) first screenplay.  Having brought his Shakespeare composer into the limelight with a stunning score for his first film, Branagh continued his collaboration with Patrick Doyle for this second outing.  The result was one of Doyle’s equally wonderful film scores further bringing him critical attention, and even a Golden Globe nomination.  Doyle had to navigate the two parallel stories involving a famous composer of mid-century fame and murder, and the seeming coming together of these older “souls” to pull them toward a resolution.  It allowed Branagh, and Emma Thompson, to play duel roles in an often fascinating Hitchcock-ian film.

    Patrick Doyle’s score found that perfect spot of Herrmann-esque swirl and dark film noir romanticism in this score and it hits the listener from the very beginning of “The Headlines.”  The sense of heartbeat is part of the ostinato pattern that underlines the sudden orchestral bursts and which will be echoed later in significant dramatic moments (especially in the superb “Margaret Sees Mike”, and the tense “Take the Gun, Grace”).  The result is one of the better montage scoring moments in Doyle’s career.  Some of the big brass climaxes are similar to dramatic punches he used in Henry V, but they are soon transformed into something more as the score progresses.  The great romantic work that the character Roman is developing also informs some of the earlier flashback pieces and this thematic thread will help provide musical continuity for those moments of the film.   “Winter 1948” is one of the great tracks that allows for the music to make the shift from lighter romance to darker and more poignant underscore.

    One of the bigger pluses of this expanded release is that we get to hear more music related to the contemporary sequences involving the detective Mike.  The music tends to take on a more contemporary open harmonic approach in these sections (heard well in “Mike’s Flat/Mike Says Goodnight”) that is a great contrast to the more period romanticism in the scenes with Roman.  “Grace Hears the Music” is part of an edited track that opens with some fascinating clusters as thematic ideas begin to assert themselves (this is one of the new-to-disc tracks).  Doyle is able to provide some distance for these parallel storylines while also finding thematic ways to begin connecting them as the film progresses towards its big “reveal”.  The previously unreleased tracks manage to fill in the gaps of the original release a bit more making this a fascinating score to hear now on its own again.  Some of the ticking clock music will be among the ideas fans will find striking as well.

    La-La Land’s presentation is stellar.  While the original album managed to present a fair amount of Doyle’s score for the time, the additional tracks and briefer cues are great indicators of how he was very good at moving quickly to set up a scene and to provide some emotional punch as needed.  The score is presented in film order over its first hour and then is followed with a series of alternate cues, source cues, an early sketch and a mockup (which some will recognize would appear as a great tune—but in a different film!).  Tracks are marked to indicate which are from the original Varese Sarabande release and which are new.  There are even tracks which went unused in the film and are included here within the narrative sequence.  For Doyle fans, this is a must have, and for others who enjoy great film noir and orchestral scores, Dead Again is simply one of the best from its period.  The new-to-disc tracks are interesting for what they show of Doyle’s talent and how the original disc was intended to present more of one side of his musical approach here.  So many of the unreleased cues present interesting dramatic punches and orchestral moments that they will make those familiar with the score return to listen with great scrutiny.  Producer Dan Goldwasser admits that this was the first Doyle score he heard and which caused him to further look for other Doyle projects.  Most likely, many 1990s film music fans found themselves doing the same thing at the time and led to adding another of the great film composers from this period to their own personal libraries.