Music Composed by Philip Glass
Rating: ****

Whether you find him infuriating or whether you find him mesmerizing, I think it would be fair to say that Philip Glass has emerged as the most prominent concert composer alive today. While the man’s output is diverse, ranging from opera to ballet to world music collaborations to symphonies based on David Bowie albums, I would argue that the composer is at his most accessible and seems to push himself the most when writing for film. And though his scores have traditionally been few and far in between, his occasional diversions into cinema have resulted in some of the finest the medium has ever seen. His work on Koyanisqatsi literally redefined the relationship music can have with film, his music for Candyman would be considered one of the cinema’s five finest and most groundbreaking horror scores if the film weren’t so obscure, and his score for Kundun is a momentous spiritual magnum opus that deserves to be heard in concert halls. If his latest soundtrack album, The Fog of War, does not quite achieve the groundbreaking status of his earlier masterpieces, it is less a reflection on the quality of this most recent work than it is a testament to the brilliance of these earlier scores.

The Fog of War reunites Glass with director Errol Morris, with whom he previously collaborated on The Thin Blue Line and A Brief History of Time. Neither score has registered as a particularly significant achievement in Glass’s filmography, but both are intriguing insights into the director’s ambiguous, dreamlike probing. The same could be said of The Fog of War, a score that may not break much new ground for the composer, but a score that proves to be a fine and substantial work in its own right that provides invaluable insight into Morris’ vision.

Phillip Glass

The film itself is excellent, a quasi-biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara that ultimately becomes a somber reflection on the nature of modern warfare itself. A combination of McNamara’s personal reflections on the role he played in the major conflicts of the second half of the 20th century with Morris’s own interpretive footage, the film ultimately plays, not as a judgment on its subject, but as a sobering acknowledgement of the ambiguities behind human conflict that seem impossible to resolve.

Glass’s music reflects, drives, and ultimately finds the heart of that message. There is moving power in this music, but don’t expect anything to immediately jump out at you. As Glass shares the bulk of the film’s audio with McNamara’s narration, the music is, by necessity, largely understated. This may in fact be his most introverted score to date, and for Glass that’s certainly saying something. But the music is never introverted to the point of being cold. What you will find here, as anyone familiar with the composer could probably guess, is music that conveys emotion, not through singular moments, but through gradually shifting moods. No one line of narration or dramatic piece of footage gets stabbed with any particular musical outburst – rather, Glass supports the overriding tone of each segment with music that gradually flows from one emotion to the next. In essence, this is scoring in perspective to the larger picture, something Hollywood composers rarely attempt and something Glass does better than anyone else writing today. Morris has praised Glass for the “existential dread” the music carries (which makes me wonder what Morris thinks “existential” means), but the score is hardly limited to that. Airs of reserved triumph (”IBM Punch Cards”), hope (”No Second Chance”), regret (”The War to End all Wars”), and sadness (”67 Cities”) occupy the music just as frequently, flowing sometimes with and sometimes against McNamara’s voice-over. For the tone McNamara attempts to set and the tone Glass sets do not always agree with each other, and herein lies the brilliance of this score – it compels the audience to question the presented material without leading the audience to any answers.

As a stand-alone soundtrack album, The Fog of War still holds its own as a thought-provoking work that benefits from repeated listening and contemplation, but the album does largely depend on the listener’s understanding of the context the music plays in the film. Without that context, the album may not have enough blatantly distinguishing features to make it worth the time investment for the casual listener. Stylistically, the score isn’t that far removed from the previous year’s Naqoyquatsi (an even more abstract reflection on 20th century warfare), making it somewhat less than essential if you aren’t a fan of the composer. The only difference that might make The Fog of War a bit more enticing for casual listeners is the more manageable track times. With 34 total tracks, few pieces last more than two minutes, which forms both the album’s greatest asset and greatest downfall. For people who tend to grow infuriated with Glass’s 12-minute set-pieces of seemingly endless cyclical repetitions, this album may be a bit easier to handle as the short track times keep the repetitions in check. However, this also means that Glass is given little time to build and develop his pieces, a crucial element of his layered approach to composing. This isn’t to say that the music is choppy or fragmented, but it does mean that ideas, however interesting, don’t tend to go very far before they’re dropped for new ones. At the same time, the music transitions so smoothly from one idea to the next that the numerous changes in tone never detract from the listening experience, and the variety ultimately works to keep the album consistently engaging.

Because the tracks are so numerous I’m not going to bother with much in the way of a track-by-track analysis, but a few standouts bear mentioning. The opening “100,000 People” is a great signature piece that sets a nervous question-and-answer between flute and strings over a driving cello line (vaguely reminiscent in structure to Goldsmith’s opening to Basic Instinct, oddly enough). The cue immediately sets the aforementioned feelings of “existential dread,” but it isn’t a cold or detached dread – it’s a very human dread that comes from contemplating what are ultimately the most frightening questions the human race faces. This cue then directly leaps into “Target Destruction,” revealing a new for Philip Glass – an action cue. Okay, so it’s nowhere near as bombastic as anything heard from John Williams or the Media Ventures crowd, but for Glass the aggression is a refreshingly shocking surprise. The bulk of the score is much more subdued, but one cue in particular stands out above all others.

“67 Cities” is a lyrical and deeply moving piece of music that will linger the longest in memory. Underscoring McNamara’s reflections on the aftermath of the bombing of Tokyo, it plays as an elegy to the thousands of civilian lives destroyed and juxtaposes an almost unbearable sadness against McNamara’s attempted neutral analysis of the situation. It’s a refusal on Glass’s part to allow statistics to overshadow the human tragedy of the massacre, an approach that is characteristic of the composer. The album concludes with a chilling reprise of the opening theme for solo piano, a somber and sobering close that reflects despair, not for war itself, but for the fact that we seem to be incapable of preventing it.

And it’s due to such moving insight that I get so aggravated when people complain that Glass’s music is cold and devoid of emotion. While his writing isn’t the most immediately accessible, Philip Glass is one of the few composers writing today with a consistent humanitarian message in his music. From his opera inspired by the life and struggles of Gandhi, Satyagraha, to his solo piano commemoration for the Dalai Lama, “Mad Rush,” to his continued efforts to respectfully merge his music African, South American, and Eastern music forms, his projects resonate with compassion and a plea for an open-minded approach to the world. The Fog of War is a continued extension of this message, a reminder that humanity needs to give serious consideration to the reasons our mistakes keep repeating themselves if we’re ever going to stop making them. It may not be a soundtrack for everyone, and those unfamiliar with Glass would do much better to start with something like Kundun or Naqoyqatsi, but for those willing to invest the time and contemplation this score requires, the effort is well worth it. (Originally posted March 22, 2004).

Music Composed by Philip Glass; Conducted by Michael Riesman; Add’tl Music Composed and Produced by John Kusiak; Recorded by Hector Castillo / Mixed by Michael Riesman; Produced by Kurt Munckacsi; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Orange Mountain Music, (omm0010); Release Date: December 9, 2003

01. 100,000 People (2′58)
02. Target Destruction (1′57)
03. Revolution In The Pentagon (0′43)
04. Low Evil (1′43)
Composed by John Kusiak
05. Blind Moles (3′12)
06. Behind The Moon (2′27)
07. November 1, 1967 (2′21)
08. IBM Punch Cards (2′33)
09. The War To End All Wars (1′44)
10. Statistical Control (2′23)
11. A New Weapon (2′43)
12. Damned If I Don’t (3′03)
13. The Family (1′48)
Composed by John Kusiak
14. Chengtu (1′39)
15. Dominoes (1′43)
16. 67 Cities (3′34)
17. Rolling Thunder (3′00)
18. Invitation (1′57)
19. Success (1′33)
20. Data (2′11)
21. Across The World (0′43)
22. 5 Weeks (0′43)
23. Norman Morrison (1′34)
24. Snowing (0′58)
25. Gulf of Tonkin (2′27)
26. Return From Vietnam (1′10)
27. Private and Public (1′27)
28. Unilateralism (2′35)
29. Why Are We Here? (2′25)
30. Evil Grade (3′16)
Composed by John Kusiak
31. Body Count (2′25)
32. The Light That Failed (2′03)
33. No Second Chance (1′33)
34. The Fog of War (3′31)

Total Playing Time: 73′20