CD Review: Crossing Over / Crash (Original Series Score: Vol. 1)
Composer: Mark Isham
Labels: Varese Sarabande and Lionsgate
Suggested Retail Prices: $17.98 and $13.99
Grade: B
As a jazz trumpeter turned Jack-of-all-sounds composer, Mark Isham’s styles have ranged from big band (QUIZ SHOW) to the epically bucolic (A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT) and suspensefully pulsating action (KISS THE GIRLS). But perhaps his most remarkable approach is a sample-driven, ethereal film noir vibe that Isham has used in such soundtracks as THE MODERNS, LOVE AT LARGE and WHERE THE MONEY IS. Yet perhaps no two scores in this Isham cool school have the kind of resonance, or popularity of THE COOLER and CRASH, one a brassy tribute to old school Vegas, and the other a hypnotic musical view on LA’s intersecting race warfare.
It’s a sound, and storytelling approach that factor heavily into COOLER maker Wayne Kramer’s new film CROSSING OVER, for which Isham again joins together a plot where characters cause a chain reaction with each other’s fates. But this particular film is about the tsuris that’s caused by immigration policies, with the race stuff essentially on the back burner. And it’s a tip to Isham’s ability to sound different from score to score that CROSSING OVER doesn’t play like CRASH redux (let alone have the dark insanity of his score to Kramer’s RUNNING SCARED). Yet the emotional kick of CRASH is very much here, as Isham once again shows his ability to use mood to capture emotion as haunted wall of sound.
With a grittier filmmaking approach than CRASH, CROSSING OVER is mostly about characters hiding from the INS in sweatshops, desert canyons, and fleabag motels and apartments. Even when the location is somewhat pleasant, murderous darkness is usually brewing over class introspection- all of which cause Isham to take a harsher, less lushly pleasant tone than CRASH’s. Here the dominant instrument is a Spanish guitar to stand in for the Mexican characters that most people think of when it comes to the term “illegal immigration.” Yet the instrument also goes well beyond that label to become the sympathetic, sad voice that ties together those who desperately wish to remain in America. It’s also a jumping off point for Isham to weave an affecting, telltale bed of electronic rhythms, strings, piano and voice that give CROSSING OVER’s score an effortless, cohesive flow that makes it part of the CRASH-COOLER musical universe, while still retaining its own poetic voice.
The melodic speech of CROSSING OVER ranges from the introspective, yearning of “Juan Sanchez” to the devastatingly sad coda of “Max Gets Word,” voices, percussion and orchestra kicking in the ultimate tragedy of illegal immigration. When an Arabic quality enters in with “A Dinnertime Visit,” the vocals lightly ululate against ominous strings and an intense beat, topped off with an electric guitar. In a lethally botched robbery at a “Liquor Store,” Isham amps his tension to the boiling point with violent samples and percussive hits. It’s the kind of aggression that wouldn’t be out of place in KISS THE GIRLS. Then with “Mireya,” the Spanish guitar joins with eerie vibes, tenderly playing a mother’s ironic end. At the “Naturalization,” Isham repeats his voices, building suspense at what’s supposed to be many of the characters’ happiest day. It’s a cool tonal balancing act of threat, realization and gotcha payback. Yet all isn’t hypnotic doom and gloom in CROSSING OVER, as Isham’s best cue “Departures and Beginnings” sums up the interlaced plot resolutions with a steadily rising melody, then finally goes for near-heavenly uplift for a full orchestra. It’s the score, and film’s most moving statement on the human face, and fate of immigrants that’s played out every day in LA’s airports and deserts- music that powerfully sums up who will stay, and who will go.
As for the people still stuck in our multi-class nuthouse, Isham is still there in CRASH-land for the Showtime series. Joining him in its lighter, if no less interesting TV sound is composer Cindy O’Connor, an Isham orchestrator who’s written additional music for him on such films as THE BLACK DAHLIA and THE MIST. As always, their work is singularly seamless in a CRASH album that floats along on intoxicating vibe pads. It’s an approach that’s far more interesting than what one character in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL called “The Drone,” the kind of meaningless, dark ambience that usually afflicts shows that have a crime element to them.
But with CRASH’s racial subtext taking its TV version into a different realm, Isham and O’Connor continue to make their drifting groove just as mesmerizing, even when the music doesn’t seem to be doing much. It’s a sound at once spaced out and dramatically effective, an eerily ethereal mood for people that are on the highway to redemption or ruin. And while some of the recognizable CRASH motifs might be here, this small screen work mostly avoids the kind of big emotional moments that filled Isham’s “score proper.” Yet fans can be thankful that this music isn’t just a haphazard rerun for Isham, or O’Connor. Instead, their new CRASH uses those familiar voices and techno-lite rhythms to subtly probe further into the minds of those who aren’t about to admit their prejudices, and characters that revel in it. But whether the score is this new spin on CRASH or the feature CROSSING OVER, Mark Isham continues to hear our connections with a perceptive ear, one melodic story feeding off the other to create a powerful, musical tapestry of the human condition.
Bump into Mark Isham’s scores for CROSSING OVER and his new Showtime course for CRASH at Amazon.com
