Standard Operating Procedure Music
Danny Elfman's Orchestral Film Score for Errol Morris' Documentary
Jun 6, 2008
Danny Elfman has been a favorite composer of many film score collectors for almost 30 years now, and has scored everything from horror films and science fiction epics to light-hearted comedies and children’s films, as well as superhero and fantasy films. One field in which his work has been notably absent, however, is documentaries. Until now, that is. He’s written a compelling and intimate score for Errol Morris’s provocative new film concerning the Abu Graihb atrocities, Standard Operating Procedure, and it’s a score that shows Elfman at his most intelligent and dramatic.
Errol Morris has normally employed the talents of minimalist composer Philip Glass for his documentaries, such as The Thin Blue Line and Fog of War, and thus Elfman’s hiring for the project is somewhat surprising. Elfman is famous for his outlandishly gothic scores for Tim Burton’s fantasy movies, while Glass’ repetitive figures and fluid chord changes are usually the subject of more serious intellectual scrutiny.
But Elfman has come a long way as a composer in 28 years, and Standard Operating Procedure is ample proof of his skill. Perhaps not so surprising is the fact that Elfman’s music for this project, while remaining comfortably within the composer’s stylistic tendencies (i.e. quirky and dark), manages to sound a great deal like music by Philip Glass, or even the more orchestral Wojciech Kilar.
Similarity to Elfman’s Concert Works
The score differs from many typical orchestral soundtracks in that each track on album is a fully-developed piece of music: each idea evolves and grows until it’s fully matured. In this respect, ‘SOP’ resembles a concert work more than a film score, and for this reason it bears a striking resemblance to Elfman’s famous concert work ‘Serenada Schizophrana,’ which itself was used to underscore the IMAX documentary ‘Deep Sea 3D.’
In fact, Elfman even goes so far as to directly lift a few select portions of ‘Serenada’ and tweak them only slightly before incorporating them into the larger portion of the score. The urgent ‘Pianos’ movement from ‘Serenada’ makes an unabashed appearance in the track ‘Main Titles: A Vacation in Iraq,’ and the melancholy strains of ‘Blue Strings’ becomes the haunting ‘Bad Feelings,’ while SOP's ‘Photos’ contains an ominous alto saxophone melody which comes straight out of Serenada’s ‘Improv for Alto Sax’ (which in turn comes from Elfman’s score to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’). But these resurrections of previous material are not lazy in any way: they are an obvious attempt to extend and develop the ideas explored in ‘Serenada Schizophrana’ within a new context.
Forward, Evolving
But Standard Operating Procedure is far more than a compilation of moody quotes from ‘Serenada Schizophrana.’ Many new musical ideas are introduced and explored to their utmost during the course of the album’s runtime, and the album benefits greatly from the variety therein. There’s a calm yet unsettling piano figure introduced in ‘SOP Theme 1’ which is later explored fully by a mournful trumpet in ‘Saddam’s Egg’ and by gorgeous strings in ‘SOP Theme 2: Amnesty,’ and finally a slightly tumultuous build-up with heavy strings and low piano in ‘Birdies.’
There are also some interesting synthetic effects employed in tracks such as ‘Dogs’ and ‘What is Going On Here?’, both of which feature harsh electronic rhythms that rival those heard in Elfman’s scores to Planet of the Apes and The Kingdom. Some unexpected light-hearted moments occur in ‘The Table Breaker’ and ‘Oli’s Lullaby,’ which feature some odd combinations of electronic organ, music box, and light choir.
There’s a healthy minimalist tendency to the music, too. Much more than in Serenada. Elfman uses often-repeated rhythms and staccato figures to give the score a low-key, but always-moving atmosphere, while his slow solo melodies float around above the rest of the ensemble. He repeats his underlying rhythms and harmonies just enough to give them music a fluid, forward motion, sometimes slightly changing certain aspects of the music’s simple construction in order to keep it growing and evolving. Again, in this respect it greatly resembles work by Philip Glass or Wojciech Kilar, but never to a distracting degree.
All in all, Standard Operating Procedure is a worthy extension of Danny Elfman's concert work and a very pleasant surprise for any collector of his music. He exercises plenty of ingenuity and keeps things flowing and changing at an astonishing rate. Fans of modern classical or minimalist music will find a lot to like here.
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