Published on Mar 6, 2001
Thomas Newman is one of the few soundtrack composers out there
who still view a soundtrack as a musical means to tell a story, not
an attempt to paste together a bunch of musical acts together for
the sake of making a hit album. His score for
American Beauty helped the movie maintain its intoxicating
flow.
Now he’s back again with
Erin Brockovich. And once again, Newman’s score helps the
film as much as the great performances given by Julia Roberts and
Albert Finney. Listening to the movie’s soundtrack onscreen makes
perfect sense: many of the songs use odd instrumentation to create
a watery motif. The lead track, “Useless” has an upbeat piano
cadence that sounds like a rallying cry to the protagonist of the
film.
However, listen to the soundtrack in your car or just on your
stereo and
Erin Brockovich loses a lot of its commercial zest. In fact,
listening to the soundtrack on its own merits sounds every bit as
avant garde as Philip Glass or John Cage. Fortunately, much of the
soundtrack has stirring string sequences to keep its humanism
intact.
The soundtrack has a sewn together feel as some songs are fully
formed and others simply surface for a few seconds and then lead
into one of two Sheryl Crow songs on the soundtrack. Many songs are
titled after the event that the song appears in the movie, such as
“Chicken Fat Lady” and “Lymphocytes.” When my mother asked the
title of a song she liked on this soundtrack, it took all of my
composure to say “No Colon” with a straight face.
Some tracks worked great on the screen, but seem to be a
scatterbrained artistic mess, like “Xerox Copy” and “Holding
Ponds.” However, the soundtrack manages to maintain much of the
heart that is in the film. Part of the reason for this is the
catchy, repeating song variations spread neatly throughout the
soundtrack. The musical cadence of “Useless” pops up throughout and
a playful piano arrangement gives songs like “On The Plume” and
“Classifieds” a great pop edge.
The two Sheryl Crow songs, “Redemption Day” and “Every Day Is A
Winding Road” were inspiration to director Steven Soderbergh.
Because many of Crow’s songs deal with blue-collar characters, her
songs are a perfect compliment to this soundtrack.
If you are not a fan of new-age classical music,
Erin Brockovich may not be the best soundtrack to invest in.
However, the soundtrack serves the ultimate purpose of a good
soundtrack: the music automatically recalls to the listener when
and where they were in the film when they first heard it.