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Review
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| Written
by Joep de Bruijn |
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The
score is fairly short, but that isn’t a big issue, since
Elfman does a tremendous job in underlying emotions for the
film musically. Elfman also wrote the score for another Robin
Williams vehicle called Flubber, but that one was pretty much
different in style and length. The overall score isn’t
very character based, except on Will, the main character. The
atmosphere is most of the times pretty low-key and dream-like
and doesn’t seem to go anywhere, like Elfman lost direction.
But Will is a person who does not have a goal set, a road he
wants to take with his life; he’s a cleaner at a Boston
university and can get very aggressive.
Let’s
focus on the Main Titles for a moment. This opening cue is
fascinating from the start with mostly a very gentle whistle,
acoustic guitar, oboe, wordless choir and nice strings parts.
This kind of sets the mood for the whole score. The whistles
motif, that’s heard throughout the score, is presented
in an Irish arrangement, thus alluding to the location the
film takes place, namely Boston. Think closer and see the
connection between Boston and Celtic, that’s off course
something Irish flavoured. The whistles and acoustic guitar
create both the most calm and simplistic tone to the score
than all the other instruments that are less important in
that way. Even things like brass and strings seem to have
any troubles. The contrast simple music and the intelligence
of Will Hunting is excellent. Now Elfman’s trademark
of wordless choir also gets involved, not standing in harms
way but contributing a great deal. On many occasions throughout
the composers score this wordless choir depicts something
innocent, something child-like and provokes some that on a
far distance. In GWH it serves as a reference to the childhood
of the character Will Hunting, that places the score on higher
grounds. As simply as it all sounds, there’s quite some
psychological development. Elfman serves as the not-seen-on-the-screen-shrink-that-provides-perfect-therapy,
that’s musically on the sideline besides the imaginary
therapy between Will and psychiatrist Sean Maguire. Even Will’s
characteristics manner of a withdrawing attitude is symbolized
in the score.
Before
moving on with the psychic showcases that are used for sequence
between Sean and Will, just notice the development in the
beginning of the score pointing to the math. You get to meet
Will, who’s working as a janitor on this Boston university,
cleaning the hallways and such. The whole discovery of his
skills evolve and develop from the cue ‘’Genie
Mopper’’ until ‘’Mystery Math’’.
First of all I found ‘’Genie Mopper’’
quite funnily as chosen title by Elfman, he put a prank in
here. That cue doesn’t veer to much from the much anticipated
style of the score. But with the following cue ‘’First
Calculation’’ the mystery unsolved, or more or
less Will unravels this difficult mathematic formula. There
are a few instruments that could be used in order to create
the unfolding mystery, from who the piano fits in the best,
so that one is used. Rarely to you hear the piano in front
of anything else, but here it was really necessarily. Than
two other cues continue with the same atmosphere, but it is
‘’Mystery Math’’ that a typical Elfman
climax is withheld. Lambeau is the teacher that finds out
about his gift. So when the two meet Will gets some formulas
served to be solved, that’s when this cue plays. The
cue starts off with small sounds from oboes, piano and various
tingling sounds, like some chimes. Will does solve these in
a rapid pace, that offered the chance for the composer to
work it way up, moving into a crescendo movement leading to
a lovely triumph moment.
Back to
the psychological stuff. The reason for taking these sessions
with Sean is that Lambeau wants Will to recover and lead him
to a great paying job where he could use his skills. That’s
the agreement they made, he goes to session and so he does
not have to spend time in prison for something crazy he did.
Now you’ve got their very first session, followed by
a second one where ‘’Oliver Twist’ is used.
In the first one Will looks at some things Sean painted and
immediately jumps to conclusions. So on their next appointment
Sean begins with a good statement that he can know of it is
to be an orphan like Will by reading Oliver Twist. The cue
is a rendition of the main theme of GWH. Little by little
Will begins to listen to Sean and that’s when therapy
really seems to be fruitful. The most important break through
is scored with the cue ‘’Whose Fault’’,
whose title will be clear in a few further into this review.
Previously was the notation of Will’s childhood that’s
referred to by the use of wordless choir. That choir becomes
highly important at this time. His father has abused the kid
in his childhood and Sean is trying to dismiss those nightmares
from his mind. This is kind of like a trance session, so the
piano does bring up that trance atmosphere. He wants to block
these memories out of his mind and when his thinks of the
most horrifying thing there’s a small crescendo state.
He blames his own person for being abused, but Sean thinks
otherwise and keeps repeating it isn’t his fault. The
childhood choir strengthens that bit at the end of the cue
and works quite the opposite way as used in the Main Titles.
Yes these choir parts sound the same, but with a whole different
situation in the sequences for both, the choir is here less
distanced.
The
very last cue ‘‘Weepy Donuts’’ is
the most memorable, separately seen from the rest. This happens
to be the case for a couple of reason; it’s a on- duration-
based rather long cue and isn’t like the subtle style
as heard in most of the score. It is quite like the Main Titles
and Mystery Maths bond together. It’s when Will has
found his purpose, he’s not going to choose for the
boring work on mathematics at his company Lambeau wants him
to be, but he wants to be with his girlfriend Skylar. He sends
a card to Sean saying that he had to see this girl and Sean
feels happy for him. So off course the cue sounds really hopeful
and tearful, emotional with a climax. The character has now
found the piece he never could find and alludes to a better
future for him. While still being quite subtle, most of the
times that approach is thrown right out of the window, but
still in the Elfman manner that everyone is so attached and
used to. You may notice that the cue does end with a climax
but may still feel a bit unfinished. That’s right, completely
true, because the film does not tell you what is going to
happen to Will after he drove off with Skylar (leaving his
brothers), just that there might be a good future for him
ahead. The fun part about the title Weepy Donuts is something
that withholds quite some history. Think about back to the
year when he scored To Die For, which was his first score
for a feature by Gus van Sant, the same one who worked with
for GWH. He named this one piece Weepy Donuts and according
to the composer himself he used that cue title in pretty much
each score since. So it started out as a joke and became another
of his trademarks. Though not that much in public, because
imagine yourself introducing people to his score and just
the same cue title in each score who not simply indicate where
it’s exactly used. So most of the times one of his cues
on each score he wrote since To Die For, was changed back
into something more understandable. Besides To Die For and
here for GWH it’s made kind of public through the promotional
release of The Family Man.
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