Music Composed by Debbie Wiseman
Rating: *****

Debbie Wiseman is not a name many American film music fans are likely to know, but the few of us who have stumbled upon her glorious treasure-trove of vibrant and richly thematic scores have never been less than enamored. Of course, the reason that she’s such an obscure name in an already obscure genre of music is that all of her scores have been for intimate European dramas that rarely see so much of a release in the United States. That’s never put a hold on her music, however, which has always been so melodically exquisite that I’ve always seen her as the heir to throne once occupied by the likes of Georges Delerues and John Barry. But none of these character dramas, however powerful, could prepare me to the heights that Wiseman would ascend to with Arséne Lupin. Apparently, it’s a film based on a series of French novels about a late 19th century gentleman thief in Paris, an adventurer in the tradition of Robin Hood and Indiana Jones but seasoned with the shadowy flair of Batman. I’ve neither read the books nor seen the film, but the premise sounds almost as mouth-watering as the potential musical canvas it could inspire. And Wiseman did just about everything I could have dreamed she’d do with this canvas. I came into film music as a child through the rich gothic majesty and adventure of Danny Elfman’s Batman, and though my love for film music has only grown since, it’s been quite a while since any score struck quite the same magic spark for me. But with Arséne Lupin, I’ve been swept back into that world of gothic (get used to seeing that word in this review) adventure and spectacle (get used to seeing that word too). Wiseman has written the score I’d always wanted to hear but had long since given up on finding. Without lifting anything directly from Elfman’s seminal work, it captures the same lovingly black spirit and triumphs as one of finest adventure scores in quite a long time.

Debbie Wiseman

Wiseman has crafted more great themes in the first 10 years of her career than many of the most well established composers will create in their entire lifetimes, and Arséne Lupin does not disappoint on this front. Introduced from the beginning in grand waltz form, the main theme is sure to swirl straight into the heart of anyone with a soft spot for gothic romance. It triumphs in sending the listener to that imagined world of late 19th-century Paris, a world where heroes and villains alike wore black cloaks and top hats, horse-drawn carriages floated through misty streets, and shadows were every person’s most distinguishing feature. Wiseman strikes that perfect balance in writing a theme that’s distinct enough to make a memorable impact but simple and malleable enough to use in a wide variety of circumstances without wearing thin. Its incarnations can range from light comedic waltzes to pensive reflection, but for my money, the theme is at its best when Wiseman lets it cut loose and lays the gothic extravagance on us without any restraint. Listen to the unabashedly grand and portentous “Needle of Etretat” or the climatic “The Eight Star Will be Divine” (a track that just screams to be titled “Final Confrontation” – it even has Elfman’s signature funeral “gongs”), and just try not to get swept away in the spectacle.

Speaking of spectacle, Arséne Lupin has buckets of it, carried along in a series of first-rate action/adventure cues. What fascinates me is that while this is (to my knowledge) the first time Wiseman’s actually written anything that even resembles action music, her writing in Arséne Lupin is actually significantly better than much of the action writing from the composers most famous for it today. Wiseman creates thrills and a massive level of spectacle, but does so without relying on bombastic layers of dissonance or hyperactive tempos. Wiseman is intent on showing off the bottomless depth of the massive orchestral ensemble she has on her hand, but she does this, not by attempting to make the most noise possible, but by writing music that genuinely takes advantage of the different layers and potential interactions within the orchestra. Wild counterpoint replaces bombastic cacophony, and it’s an enormous breath of fresh air. Just listen to the way she plays the upper and lower sections of the brass ensemble off each other in “Arséne and Beaumagnan.” Or marvel at the clarity in “Theft of the Crucifix,” where she manages to pull out every orchestral force under the sun and still leave space in the ensemble for a crystal-clear duet between cimbalom and anvil. It’s so rare to find a film composer working today who has this firm a grasp on the depth and nuances of writing directly for the individual instruments of the orchestra. The late Michael Kamen is only composer of recent memory I can think of who was quite so adept at making the orchestra his playground, and it warming to know that Wiseman is poised to inherit his mantle.

Of course, no action score is all thrills and chills, but Wiseman’s background in more intimate character dramas proves invaluable to Arséne Lupin’s passages of softer underscore. Her main theme frequently guides us through these passages with all the deft class one could hope for, and keeps us from fidgeting and wishing that the pace would pick up - even when the volume and tempo drop, the mystery and romance remain just as enchanting. There’s also a love theme, and a very restrained one at that. Wiseman has proved multiple times in her (still remarkably young) career that she can write an enormous gushing tragic love theme as well as anyone, but here she wisely turns to understatement to balance out the grand theatrics of the rest of the score. Subtle as it is, the love theme is still highly moving, often reaching heartbreaking poignancy (as in the gracefully melancholy “Arséne Abandoned”) The balance between series pathos and epic giddy thrills is perfect, and makes for a 70-minute plus album that never once outstays its welcome.

And I do apologize if I’ve spent the entire review gushing, but it’s hard to write a mature and focused review when the music succeeds so thoroughly in making you feel the way you first felt when you stumbled into film music as a child. I know I keep saying this, but Arséne Lupin is a triumph in sheer spectacle and whether you fell it was through King Kong, Star Wars, or Batman, if you first fell in love with film music through spectacle, then you cannot afford to miss Wiseman’s new classic. Spectacle, it seems, has fallen almost entirely out of favor in Hollywood, as the unceremonious rejection of Gabriel Yared’s massive cantata for Troy has proven – leave it to an English composer writing for a French film to restore it to us. I’m tempted to say that Wiseman is a composer who deserves to be on the A-list and working on the biggest Hollywood productions, but I’m now beginning to wonder if I’d wish that fate on my worst enemies. When Hollywood does finally wake up to the importance of bold, richly orchestrated film music, then perhaps Wiseman will be waiting and ready to astonish an even larger audience. Until then, we can revel in classics like Arséne Lupin and wait for the rest of the film music world to catch on. Wiseman has given us one of, if not the, finest scores of 2004. More info: debbiewiseman.co.uk

Music Composed, Orchestrated and Conducted by Debbie Wiseman; Performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Recorded and Mixed by Steve Price and Tom Jenkins; Produced by Debbie Wiseman; Availability: In print, available at Amazon France; Label (Catalogue): EMI France, (7243 8636282 7); Release Date: October 5, 2004 (France)

01. Qui Es Tu (3′06)
Lyrics: Marcel Kanche
Music: -M-, Debbie Wiseman, Sebastien Martel, Piers Faccini
02. Arséne Lupin (2′15)
03. Le Grand Café (6′27)
04. Arséne Deserted (3′14)
05. Casino (1′37)
06. The Needle Of Etretat (2′50)
07. Clarisse And Arséne (1′43)
08. Arséne Escapes (2′09)
09. Goodbye Mother (3′08)
10. Countess Cagliostro (3′29)
11. Underwater (3′27)
12. Arséne And Beaumagnan (2′05)
13. The Ballroom (2′07)
14. Theft Of The Crucifix (4′13)
15. Under The Spell (4′18)
16. The Mask Of Prince Sernine (2′34)
17. Field Of Lupins (4′14)
18. The Eight Star Will Be Divine (4′53)
19. The Hollow Needle (1′48)
20. Fooled By A Newcomer (3′08)
21. Clarisse Wakes (3′35)
22. The Blue Lupin (2′38)
23. Secret Passage (4′46)

Total Playing Time: 73′44