James Newton Howard really knows how to score for a M. Night Shyamalan film.
Just like Shyamalan likes to move the story along at a leisurely pace,
dropping subtle hints until revealing the often startling climax,
Howard is right there with him, scoring the visuals with the same tempo and
dropping thematic hints along the way.
Howard's previous collaboration with Shyamalan on The Sixth Sense
turned out a really interesting score. I haven't listened to it isolated,
but it worked tremendously well in the film (some parts of it never fail to
just totally creep me out), and I did enjoy the De Profundis
track from the Themes
from The Phantom Menace and Other Film Hits compilation album. The
score to Unbreakable is both similar to and distinct from The
Sixth Sense, much the same way the film itself is. Gone are the musical
reflections of supernatural elements, instead replaced by a more
conventional orchestral style that even includes an electronic backbeat in
certain places. The music is
also less atonal than The Sixth Sense and Howard manages to include a
nice amount of themes for this one. He also does a great job in twisting
them around the many turns in the story.
Like The Sixth Sense, the music is really creepy and dark in tone for
the most part. A few of the themes directly conflict with the tone. One in
particular is interesting in that its performance from the brass section
recalls the tradition set with a certain notable theme from one of John
Williams "Golden Age" scores. The music is primarily dominated by
the strings, but, thankfully, it is not an emulation of Psycho
(which some string-heavy scores sometimes bare a resemblance to). Some of
the string passages are really beautiful in a way only Howard can score. The
music really stays put with the creepy/gorgeous string work and great brass
themes, and only in track eleven does the expected orchestral hits and
frenzied terror-driven cues come into play.
I would really like to expound on this score more, but to do so would
contain a lot of spoilers. Let it just suffice to say that Howard did an
excellent job in supporting the film's story. While some people may find the
score rather boring as an isolated listening experience, I found the
terrific use of the themes and some of the beautiful string passages to
really help this score stand on its own. I definitely recommended this to
Howard fans or those of you who loved the score to The Sixth Sense. ****
