A few months ago, I wrote about the music that concludes the film A Quiet Passion, and that brought to mind one of the most frustrating endings, musically speaking, that I’ve experienced in a film score.
It was ten years ago; the film was There Will Be Blood. Justly celebrated as one of the most amazing films of the 21st century, it features an award-winning score by Jonny Greenwood. Much of the music was recycled, to positive effect, from his string composition Popcorn Superhet Receiver. Music that was composed for the film featured string glissandos and clusters in a way that was at once incongruous and refreshing in a film set in the Old West.
The conclusion features a horrifically brutal beating – just as the title promised – after which we are treated to the final movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, which is the part I found frustrating, and even a bit ridiculous. The cheery toe-tappiness of the music undermines what we’ve just witnessed. Of course, that’s ironic, and irony can be a very effective device, but this irony is terribly misplaced. Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance is devoid of irony, his character is increasingly driven by impulsive rages and desires over the course of 2+ hours, and the camera dives right in with him, deeply involving the viewer, even making the viewer complicit. To step away from that involvement into a delightful little dance feels like a cheap trick, a joke with a long build-up and a weak punch line.
The Brahms is used earlier in the film in a way that is also unearned, but it’s the kind of misuse one gets used to in films: a moment of joy and vigor is captured through second-hand means, as opposed to finding a way to capture that joy through the means at hand.
It would have been easy enough, I suppose, and probably effective, to connect directly from the cluster glisses to the Brahms, if the filmmakers had somehow felt the Brahms was necessary. But instead the Brahms slaps us out of nowhere, distancing us from what we’ve witnessed. Definitely one of the great missed opportunities of recent film scoring.
My sense is that the Brahms was used because it was the music of the ruling class of the time (European classical), something that would still appear to be the case in America.
That explanation makes it even worse, in my opinion. That’s using music for its symbolism in conflict with its sound. And if that’s the case, the symbol connects more clearly to the Standard Oil figures the protagonist rejects than to the characters at hand.
Some years back, I was consulting on a theatrical production. There was one suspenseful moment where the director insisted on using “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” I kept telling him I could provide music that would suit the situation perfectly, but he had that tune in his head and couldn’t let go. In performance, there were the expected titters of recognition. That kind of quotation is extremely hard to do without distancing the audience from the action.
Compare the use of Mahler in a pivotal scene of “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Just as incongruous — it’s a film about folk music in the 1960s — but perfectly threaded into the look of the film and the moment in the story. That’s a great example of quotation that works.
Thanks for mentioning the use of Mahler, which I will investigate. For the film in question here, I feel the musical content, sound and expression of the concluding movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto was selected exactly for its celebratory thrust, a perverse usage to be sure, but done deliberately. This was a deeply troubling film, touching upon the rape of the earth to continuing ruinous effect, and the brutality of those whose only real passion is wealth, not to mention the pitfalls of organized supplications to the concept of the Divine. And again, I feel it transcends any particular industry, including historical and current monopolies.
I have no doubt the Brahms was chosen for its celebratory character. And I have no doubt it was meant to be deliberately jarring. That’s what I mean about a joke with a terrific buildup and a weak punch line. It’s akin to cutting from the final, brutal scene of the film to an image of Renoir’s Dance at Bougival, Sure, we get the point, but it’s hamfisted point making. The rest of the film was so rich in meaningful imagery, why borrow? The material that’s needed is already there, ready to be used.
To be fair to you and myself, I would have to watch the movie again. I saw it once nearly ten years ago, and honestly don’t recall my response to the ending, or even much else about the film. What I did here was go to YouTube just to see the ending, which is likely an inadequate way to form an opinion. After watching the movie again, perhaps I will end up being in complete agreement with you! It is an interesting concept, how better to provide music (perhaps) for this operatic descent into pure madness – I’m referring to the film, but is the world’s refusal to stop using fossil fuels any less mad?
All this reminds me of a favorite poem, Oil and Blood by William Butler Yeats, published in 1933, the same year Germany had a new leader.
IN tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour of violet.
But under heavy loads of trampled clay
Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;
Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.