This is a strange film. For those who know, only three words are needed to explain quite how so: Being John Malkovich. This is the follow-up to that film. Well, follow-up in the sense it comes after it, and even overlaps, but isn’t a sequel. But is in the sense that it’s a similarly unique product of a creative explosion between the colliding minds of screenplay writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze (yep, him of Beastie Boys, Weezer, Fatboy Slim vid fame). If this film has a more straightforward premise than BJM (though that wouldn’t be difficult) then it offsets that with a myriad of top-to-tail about turns, sideways takes and inwardly collapsing perspectives. And on top of that, like BJM, some truly great performances. Don’t even get us started on a summary explanation, we wouldn’t dare try.
And such a film should no doubt be supported by a similarly fidgety soundtrack, yes? Of course. Carter Burwell has created an expanse of slightly nervous soundscapes – a rightful mirror of Nicholas Cage’s brilliantly delivered lead character (or at least one of the two). There are the timid, cautious orchestral washes of ‘Whittle the World Down’ and ‘Approaching the Object of Desire’ set against a gradually jabbing paranoia on ‘The Screenwriter’s Nightmare’ and the more colourful, delicate paeans to nature (the film centres around an attempted film adaptation of the book ‘The Orchid Thief’) in ‘Shinier Than Any Ant’ and ‘An Unashamed Passion’. Each mood meticulously and artfully etched.
Alright, so this is hardly driving music (there was a Sebadoh track playing in the background at a party in the film, though no appearance here), but it is a wonderfully expressive and subtle weave of instrumental musical colours that paint their own pictures. And beneath and on top of the watermark orchestration that tiptoes all the way through, there are regimented plucked strings that impose in a way evocative of DJ Shadow or the UNKLE project (‘The Writer and the Crazy White Man’). ‘Evolution of a Screenwriter’ opens like a malevolent Orbital with doomy chimes and sparing percussion. There is a Fatboy Slim mix opening the album, which is a mark darker than what we’re used to from him, almost jazzy in its evilness and really rather good. If you’ve seen the film and fall asleep listening to this soundtrack however you could wake up thinking backwards or something. You have been warned.