Doyle introduces two new themes for
Goblet of Fire,
including the slowly rising series of notes for Voldemort that
eventually turns downward in a heavy minor in most performances. This
theme wastes no time making itself known at the outset of the score,
with Doyle bypassing the opening music box cuteness of the first scores
and getting to business with a harsh brass rhythm immediately. Doyle
hints at the Voldemort theme in "The Dark Mark" and eventually lets it
loose during the final confrontation. The other new theme Doyle clearly
identifies is one for Harry himself, which is something that John
Williams never really accomplished. The most interesting aspect of this
theme is its genuinely sincere English sound, taking veteran film music
ears back to the beautiful innocence of
Sense and Sensibility.
The concert piece for this theme is "Harry in Winter," a cue cut abrupty
short in the film but serving as a magnificent piece on album. Important
to note is that both of these themes are primarily rooted in the upper
ranges of the string section, perhaps due to Doyle's own tendencies in
his thematic writing (there's even similarities here to the great theme
heard during the aerial-shot car ride sequences in
Bridget Jones'
Diary), but it would be far more intriguing if Doyle made a
conscious decision to link the two themes in instrumentation due to the
inherent connections in the story between the Harry Potter and Tom
Riddle characters. But if you're a fan of Doyle's intensely darker side,
with scores such as
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and
Needful
Things at the forefront of your CD racks, don't despair. Doyle's
underscore for the action and suspense sequences in
Goblet of
Fire, whether in fanfare form or in brutally rhythmic progressions,
will blow you away with its intensity. The "Voldemort" cue could, for
example, remind you of Trevor Jones' pounding battle sequences in
Dark City. Aided by sometimes vicious performances by the
resoundingly deep ensemble, Doyle has superbly captured the fright,
anger, and victorious exuberance necessary in each circumstance,
providing not only an effective score, but an immensely interesting one
as well.
The comedy cues in
Goblet of Fire may not be as
overwhelming, but then again they never really were in Williams' scores
either (even with the technical mastery in music such as that for the
Knight Bus, it still can't beat the simple elegance of Buckbeak's theme,
for instance). Doyle's little waltzes and hymns are incorporated
directly into the film as source music, and the music for the wretched
reporter, Rita Skeeter, is an extension of the lightly prancing music of
Calendar Girls. This isn't magnificent material, but it suffices
to the degree that once again, it comes from the appropriate perspective
of an English composer for an English setting. One lighter cue that
stands out is the necessary musical representation of the song that the
mermaids sing when the mysterious egg clue is opened underwater by
Potter. Here, the "Underwater Secrets" cue features the lullaby that the
mermaids perform with their ethereal female voices. The actual songs in
the story's Yule Ball sequence are a somewhat more unfortunate necessity
for the album, but are tastefully moved to the end of the product. All
three of these pieces, written and performed by the odd combination of
Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp, Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway
of Radiohead, and Steve Claydon and Jason Buckle of Relaxed Muscle,
actually appear in the film. Two rather rambunctious 80's rock songs are
followed by a love balled of the same era, and after the efforts of
Danny Elfman this past summer, you have to wonder what kind of fun that
he would have had with an opportunity like this. The ballad, "Magic
Works," is actually an enjoyable throwback to those high school proms
where the fog machines always accentuated the smell of hairspray and the
DJ said such tired things as "This one's going out to all the lovers out
there" --an actual line in this Potter song, too. Pat Doyle's own string
arrangements in this song place it as
Moulin Rouge-worthy
throwback material. The ridiculous song titles are a chuckle; "Do the
Hippogriff" is downright perverse and "Magic Works" would seem to be a
given in the world of Harry Potter.
There is, among all this praise, however, one extremely
difficult criticism that must be leveled against Doyle for his work on
Goblet of Fire. No matter how strong his underscore, no matter
how beautiful his themes, and no matter how effective his comedy, he
stepped onto a moving train and suddenly diverted it onto a new track.
The themes by John Williams for the first three films were firmly
established by the end of
Prisoner of Azkaban, and their powerful
allure still exists in the form of their easy memorability. Doyle only
references the opening bars of the "Hedwig Theme" in two or three cues in
Goblet of Fire, and they seem forced into the equation. No other clear
references are made. Williams' eight-note Voldemort theme, his brassy
extension at the end of Hedwig's theme that had become the identity of
Hogwarts (as well as the default title theme), the gorgeous "family
theme" written for Richard Harvey's woodwind solos, the exciting and
rapid brass-blasting theme for the game of Quidditch, as well as the
several explicitly developed auxiliary themes by Williams... none of
these are even suggested by Doyle in
Goblet of Fire's major cues or album. Therein lies
the debilitating weakness in Doyle's score. Changing the title themes
this late in the game is as awkward as if one of the three main actors
were to be rotated out. This is not to say that Doyle should have simply
regurgitated Williams' work; the underscore in
Goblet of Fire is
exemplary, but without the occasional references to the established
Williams themes, Doyle fails to provide any sense of continuity. When
you take into account the honest fact that Williams' themes are simply
more vibrant and memorable than Doyle's (despite their own superior
characteristics),
Goblet of Fire is likely to be a bittersweet
score for many Potter and Williams listeners. Thus, in the end, Doyle's
music for the film is awkwardly missing the context necessary at this
point in the series, and even his own material here is badly edited and
undermixed in sections of the film. But on album, divorced from all the
visual reminders of the previous Potter films, Doyle's score is among
the very best of 2005. You have to decide, for your own enjoyment, how
strongly you identify the Potter franchise with Williams' themes, and
this will likely be the determining factor in your evaluation of Patrick
Doyle's new direction.
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