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February 15, 2008
A professional relates: composer Nico Muhly on Golden Compass's score
Composer Nico Muhly (Joshua, Choking Man, Drawing Restraint 9) has an extravagantly amusing website. Here's his take on a recent film score: "Now, the issue with the Golden Compass score is that it is exactly the kind of manipulative, cartoony orthodoxy that the books seek so hard to undermine. There was one vile little turn of phrase that reminded me so much of that song “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail, which works so well in that movie because it’s a cartoon about mice. Here, in this complicated, multi-layered story, having this kind of music just forces the whole film into a tedious urban sprawl of forced emotions. If you want to describe a 
parallel universe musically, why not set up some parallel rules of harmony, or instrumentation? Inasmuch as Pullman has subtle twists in nomenclature, why not perform a similar Clever Act in the music? I did, however, like the throat singing and the natural harmonic series, so, at least there was that."
Posted by Ray Pride at February 15, 2008 01:39 AM
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