Search - Elliot Goldenthal :: Titus: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The score to Titus, Julie Taymor's film version of Shakespeare's bloody play, starts exactly the way one assumes it will: a generous chorus pumps out a foreboding (and relatively unintelligible) chant, supported by tumultuous orchestration. The orchestra will appear again, on occasion, but trust that this is the last moment your ears will experience anything that they are even remotely expecting. Perfectly suited to Taymor's flamboyant, genre-mad interpretation of Shakespeare's script, composer Elliot Goldenthal (Alien 3, Interview with the Vampire, Heat) has fashioned a tapestry that also includes hot-tempered big-band jazz, industrial rock, circus themes, and exotic tone poems. Furthermore, these elements overlap in ways that are more detailed and inventive than the motion picture industry generally allows. Midway through "Tribute & Suffrage," at the height of a hopped-up swing session, the set metamorphoses into kettledrums that usher in a majestic, symphonic sequence. The next time jazz is heard ("Swing Rave"), the band is backed by fuzz-toned guitarists (among them Page Hamilton, of the metal band Helmet) who could frizz Brian Setzer's retro perm. Clearly it is Goldenthal, and not Hollywood mercenary Michael Kamen, who should have conducted Metallica's orchestral S&M project. --Marc Weidenbaum