Mona Lisa Smile (Academy Promo)
Mona Lisa Smile (Academy Promo)
又名: 蒙娜丽莎的微笑
表演者: Rachel Portman
专辑类型: Promotional
介质: CD
发行时间: 2003
唱片数: 1
出版者: Columbia Tristar Marketing Group
专辑简介
电影《蒙娜丽莎的微笑》纯配乐宣传版原声
Mona Lisa Smile: (Rachel Portman) If the story of 2003's Mona Lisa Smile seems like an all too familiar feminine adaptation of the "outsider teacher breaking conservative school norms to enlighten and progressively guide stifled, young, rich students" mould, then you'd agree with many of the critics who generally brushed the film aside. The project is, in many ways, a gender-reversed version of Dead Poets Society and half a dozen other similar films about conservative boarding schools, and director Mike Newell (who was set to tackle a more famous school in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) worked to exceed audience expectations by inserting several Academy Award caliber actresses into the cast. As a result, the film was finely crafted, but ultimately left audiences with the "why bother?" question, and Mona Lisa Smile slipped through theatres without much of a struggle. Part of the overwhelming representation of sappy, conservative 1950's life in the film is established by the music used to confidently paint that often majestic picture. In between songs of the era, ranging from traditional to a more defiant collection of "modern" cover versions, is an equally all too familiar, pleasant score by Rachel Portman. To see Portman's name attached to this film warranted an immediate "well, of course" kind of reaction, and her talents are indeed perfectly suited for the lush campus and proper sensibilities of a 1950's female boarding school. While the film does have its emotional ups and downs, it maintains a steady course of guarded optimism, and if Portman addresses any kind of emotion better than all others, it is optimism. After spending a few years finally branching out into genres of films not present in her typecast career up to 2000, Portman fell very comfortably right back into the realm of fluffy chick flick scores in 2003. Given the similarities between all of these projects, one perhaps got the impression that she was simply collecting paychecks in a state of artistic autopilot. In the most basic sense, if Mona Lisa Smile sounds like the variety of chick flick that would bore you to death, then be prepared for a score equal to that task. In every way possible, Portman's music for the film is appropriate and heartening, flowing with ease in between steady statements of an uncomplicated and familiar theme. Unless you are a sucker for every slight variation on that light and occasionally exuberant thematic non-diversity from Portman, then Mona Lisa Smile will drive you nuts.
This time around, Portman shapes a theme that mostly resembles that of The Cider House Rules (for which her sound was still fresh enough to garner an Academy Award nomination), aided by a few slight swings of rhythm from The Legend of Bagger Vance. Like Nicholas Nickleby and countless other innocent Portman ideas, this theme predictably starts with a single extended note on key. At this point, most score collectors know to either run or keep reading, because it needs to be said once again: if you have any problems with a repetition of the same tender theme over and over again, then Mona Lisa Smile will indeed drive you nuts. Strings and woodwinds are accompanied by the usual piano, with no depth this time from percussion or brass. As per formula, the strings perform the delicately sweeping main theme, the woodwinds offer their renditions of that theme during the majority of the underscore, and the piano wanders in and out of a handful of secondary ideas during moments of heavy dialogue. The few troubled moments in the film are scored with very simple dissonant passages for the strings, and the entire project is supported in the lower regions by occasional bass strings, and, keeping in character, the lower woodwind instruments. The lack of emotional range in Mona Lisa Smile will reduce your opinion of the score even if you survive the repetitive nature of the whole construct; the most disturbing moments in the score (heard late on the album in "Betty Challenges Katherine" and "Why Couldn't You Let Me Be Happy?") usually succumb to a lofty, major key performance of theme after a minute or two. Then again, despite all this criticism, it's important to remember that Portman wrote a pretty and effective theme and supporting score for this film, and you need to accept the faults of the film when hearing its equally sappy music. For Portman fans, cues such as "Bike Ride" and "We Will Never Forget You" feature lush high string performances strong enough to stand among her best, and these cues are a relief from a commercial album for Mona Lisa Smile that only featured a suite from her score (after the obligatory cover songs from the period). An unsuccessful bid for an Oscar nomination led to a 30+ minute score-only promo from the several studios involved, offering more than enough simple beauty from the score to refresh any Portman collector and bore everyone else to death. If you have to ask yourself if you're the target demographic for this score, then don't bother wasting your time looking for the promo; it will, in case you didn't catch it the first two times, drive you nuts.
曲目
1. Opening Titles (02:01)
2. Betty goes to Joan at Night (02:21)
3. Amanda is dismissed (01:36)
4. Jackson Pollock (03:21)
5. Bike Ride (03:52)
6. Giselle waits for Bill (02:21)
7. The Roles you were born to fill (01:36)
8. Betty challenges Katherine (03:57)
9. We will never forget you (02:20)
10. Why couldn't you let me be happy? (01:56)
11. Katherine's first Lecture (01:41)
12. Paul leaves (02:09)
13. End Credits (02:37)
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Total Duration: 00:31:48