Soundtrack reviews can be tricky. You’re often taking
an ambient element from a film and making a case for its worth as a
stand-alone work. This often fails because the music usually wasn’t
created with the intention of bearing repeated listening outside
the framework of the film.
Some soundtracks reply on singles and works of
various artists, so they are essentially compilations. Take the
Pulp Fiction soundtrack, for example. It was a huge success
not because of the hype surrounding the film, but because it’s a
highly eclectic collection of great songs.
A true cinematic score is a different proposition.
They are generally symphonic in nature, and therefore lose a huge
audience because symphonic music doesn’t appeal to a lot of
mainstream listeners. Looking at sales figures, many of the more
successful soundtracks — Williams’ Star Wars soundtracks,
or Howard Shore’s scores for the Lord Of The Rings films,
for example — are popular because of the pop-culture frenzy that
follows something as iconic as thoser franchises, not necessarily
because they’re great albums.
The film Munich tells the story of the aftermath of the
terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic village in
1972. The film is a somber, brooding and often tense affair, and
Williams’ score reflects that perfectly. The tracks are melancholy
and often impart a sense of grief. At other times, they invoke the
gripping suspense of the intrigue and drama of the film’s story, as
on the skittering and urgent “Letter Bomb,” for example. You don’t
have to see the scene to know that this is a white-knuckle moment
in the film.
The use of ethnic musical themes and styles from the
Middle East adds levels of depth to the score. Besides adding an
appropriate cultural texture, the haunting voice of Lisbeth Scott
chanting in Arabic on the opening theme “Munich, 1972” and
“Remembrance” echo the dramatic and mournful nature of the film.
Unlike much of Williams’ work, Munich lacks the thunderous and
bombastic nature of, for instance, his Star Wars scores.
This doesn’t take any of the power from the music. The rich depth
of feeling in these mostly quiet and somber pieces imparts their
own strong feelings and emotions.
It’s sometimes difficult to listen to, however, if
only for the bizarre nature of film score music. On “Bearing The
Burden” for example, the quiet theme is broken by shattering
crescendos that match the dramatic nuances of the scene it was
written for. They only make sense within the framework of the
scene. On its own, it’s an uneven listen
The compositions are, of course, flawless. This is
John Williams were talking about, after all. Thick, swelling
strings and evocative percussion are two of Williams’ hallmarks and
he uses them generously here. Some of the tracks stand out as very
listenable, while others are so obviously just incidental scene
music they seem flat outside of their place in the film. This isn’t
something I would pop in the CD player for a Sunday drive, but it’s
good albeit somewhat somber background music.
