Review by Paul Cote

Rating: **** 1/2

So I was walking down the street, carrying some Danny Elfman, and not looking where I was going. Coming at me from the opposite direction, another man was carrying some minimalism, also not looking where he was going. Of course we bumped into each other and, wouldn’t you know it, we got everything all smooshed together. “Hey,” I cried, “You got minimalism all over my Danny Elfman!” “Yeah buddy, well you got Danny Elfman all over my minimalism,” he snapped back. Then we locked eyes as we realized what we had just done – one quick dissolve and copyright lawsuit with Hershey’s later, and we had the soundtrack Standard Operating Procedure. Danny Elfman. Minimalism. Two of our favorite things. Together at last.

Standard Operating Procedure, for those of you not in the know, is Errol Morris’s documentary about the torture scandal in Abu Grahib. It opened to rave reviews a few months ago (er, May of 08, dear readers of the future) and then vanished from theaters before most of us had a chance to see it. I’m sorry I missed it, but I doubt it’s less than brilliant – Morris is one of the few documentary makers who actually deserves serious respect as a filmmaker, in no small part because he pays so much attention to the cinematic details that so many other documentary makers neglect, details like competent camerawork, editing, and of course, music. Morris’s most famous musical collaborations, of course, have been with Philip Glass, whose melancholy and compassionate minimalism has both accentuated and challenged Morris’s subjects. With this in mind, it should not be too surprising that Morris’s collaboration with Elfman has resulted in a score that seems saturated in Glass’s influence. In fact, at first you may start to wonder why Morris bothered to hire Elfman if he just wanted a Philip Glass score. Listen just a little more carefully, however, and you realize that the score is much more than that. For the first time since Mission: Impossible, Elfman’s managed to absorb another composer’s stylistic mannerisms into his own voice so thoroughly that it’s nearly impossible to tell where one ends and one begins. Elfman takes everything that works so beautifully in Glass’s music for Morris – the “existential dread” (Morris’s phrase) that comes from repeating the same melancholy phrases over and over again, the gradual accumulation of thick layers over simple foundations – and adapts it to his own distinct musical vernacular. And while I can’t speak for the music in context, as an independent listening experience, I’d say the result is profoundly moving – by turns melancholy, playful, violent, and tender, Standard Operating Procedure stands firmly on its own as a compassionate tone poem, however horrific the context of that tone poem may be.

Danny Elfman

Indeed, on some level the music is as close to an independent concert work like Serenada Schizophrana as an Elfman score has ever come, and not only because portions of the score are direct adaptations of Serenada. Apparently, Elfman only composed a small portion of the music to picture, and in the ensuing freedom to follow ideas to their natural musical conclusions, he’s created pieces of music that develop in ways that tradition film score cues usually can’t. The music never feels like it’s hitting specific points, but rather that it’s exploring ideas in a broader, more long-winded fashion. This doesn’t necessarily make it better or worse than a more traditional Elfman score, but it does make for an intriguing change of pace for the composer. The melodic grace of the material, however, is less of a change of pace than a return to form (not that he’s ever been far out of form). The overriding tone has a surprisingly wide range, but it tends to sit somewhere between serious works like Dolores Claiborne and the more somber movements from Serenada Schizophrana. But if this sounds unbearably depressing, keep in mind that the harmonies tend to be much smoother and gentler than anything in Dolores Claiborne, which makes the music go down much easier. Even the segments taken directly from Serenada get their edges smoothed over so that everything flows gracefully. Most of it’s built off of a fairly simple minor chord progression, but Elfman spins some surprisingly long-lined melodies from this brief motif , particularly in “SOP Theme #1,” “SOP Theme #2″ and “SOP Theme #3″ (actually all the same theme – but don’t tell anyone I told you that). Oddly enough, the motif is strikingly similar to the motif that Zimmer and Howard used to build their Batman scores, though Elfman manipulates the idea with such an astounding breadth of imagination and variety that puts Zimmer and Howard’s monotonous dicking-around to shame. You hear the motif most prominently in pieces that have “Theme” in the title, but you’ll also find twisted versions of it buried in more violent cues like “The Dogs” and other places that I’m still discovering. Elfman’s long had a penchant for hiding his themes and motifs under thick and constantly-shifting harmonic layers, and here he has the chance play with both obvious and deceptive melodic material.

I admit that I have a heavy bias in favor of Elfman, but this is really something special even for him. I can’t help but feel that we need to hear the music in context to really discover just how special it is, but much like Glass’s Morris scores, Elfman’s score for Standard Operating Procedure makes for a beautiful, graceful, and thought-provoking minimalist composition in its own right. If this is the direction that Elfman is headed in now, I can’t wait to see where he takes us next year.

Music Composed and Produced by Danny Elfman; Orchestrations by Steve Bartek, Edgardo Simone; Conducted by Pete Anthony; Recorded and Mixed by Dennis Sands; Label: Varese Sarabande; Availability: In-print; U.S. Release Date: May 6, 2008.

01. S.O.P. Theme #1: Standard Operating Procedure (5:56)
02. The Infamous Pyramid (3:48)
03. Photos (2:56)
04. The Shooter (3:26)
05. Dogs (3:42)
06. The Wolf (1:11)
07. Saddam’s Egg (3:30)
08. Main Titles: Vacation in Iraq* (2:07)
09. S.O.P. Theme #2: Amnesty (1:33)
10. What Is Going On Here? (2:32)
11. Gilligan (3:02)
12. Story of the Ants (3:36)
13. The Table Breaker (1:01)
14. S.O.P. Theme #3: Feelings & Facts (5:26)
15. Unusual, Weird & Wrong (2:32)
16. A Bad Feeling* (2:22)
17. Birdies (1:38)
18. S.O.P. End Credits (1:26)
19. Oli’s Lullaby (2:00)

* – Adapted from “Serenada Schizophrana” Composed by Danny Elfman

Total Playing Time: 53:40