The Walk (Alan Silvestri)

In Brief:

Alan Silvestri, who has scored every Robert Zemeckis film since Romancing the Stone in 1984, provides his most faithful collaborator with a warmhearted score. The film, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (best known for his critically-acclamied role as Cobra Commander in the first GI Joe movie), chronicles Phillipe Petit's leisurely stroll between the two towers of the World Trade Center. From a wire stretched between the towers' roofs. I'm guessing the film's about more than just the walk, especially as the film's 123 minutes long and the walk itself took about 45 minutes in real life. Or who knows; maybe the credits are 78 minutes long.

The most welcome feature of this score, at a time when most film scores are percussive, synth-based walls of sound, is the varied orchestration. Solo instruments, especially woodwinds, get their time to shine, the players pouring their hearts and carbon dioxide into simple yet gorgeous melodies that enrich the score. Lending variety to the soundtrack are passages of blues/jazz, lush French-flavored waltzes, and brief snatches of brassy, rhythmic action in the best Silvestri tradition (a la Back to the Future and The Avengers). However, the bulk of the score emphasizes warm string writing; an intriguing echoing-piano effect recurs throughout, with eerie (or cheap, depending on your tastes) female synth choir coming to the fore in the last half of the score. While not as thematically rich and stirring as the composer's Forrest Gump, The Polar Express, or even Stuart Little and Lilo & Stitch, it is nowhere near as subdued as Flight, Cast Away, or The Bodyguard. Although there are some recognizable motifs, there's no single strong theme. Yet the stylistic variety, delicacy and clarity of the orchestrations, and sincerity of the melodies add up to a decent achievement from this veteran composer.

Playlist-Worthy Tracks:
Young Phillipe
The Towers of Notre Dame
"We Have a Problem"
"I Feel Thankful"
"They Want to Kill You"
"Perhaps You Brought Them to Life--Gave Them a Soul"

Analysis Begins with Anal:

Pouquoi?: Waves of strings, reminiscent of Cast Away, are what really lie beneath an echoing piano motif. The cue transitions to cool jazz (or maybe that's the wrong term; I don't know all the sub genres of blues/jazz) in the same mold as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with plucked string bass, sax, drum kit, and muted trumpet.

Young Phillipe: Piano and almost ethereal strings lead into a playful brass waltz, which blossoms gloriously into full orchestra. This delightfully lyrical waltz theme, presumably for some romantic aspect of the story, is the strongest melody of the score.

Two Loves: An accordion serves as the rhythmic spine for a melancholy tune in 3/4 time. Pizzicato strings back flute, clarinet, and piano before the string section takes up the sighing melody.

Towers of Notre Dame: Accordion, clarinet and a plucked instrument I ashamedly can't name lend a distinctly French (but not stuck-up) flavor to the proceedings. The mood changes to jazz again with ballsy brass outbursts and a flute trill before the lovely waltz theme returns in full orchestra; clarinet and celeste gracefully round out the piece.

"It's Something Beautiful": A churning string motor leads to a synth crash. Synth beats pulse under an expectant bassoon tune. Later in the cue, sparse piano hovers above a sustained string line, finishing with the orchestral waltz theme.

Spy Work: Silvestri provides his take on 1960s spy music, complete with bongos, muted brass, and a fat low (tenor? baritone?) sax bass line.

Full of Doubt: Portentous chimes lead to the return of the expectant bassoon tune from "It's Something Beautiful."

Time Passes: Churning strings and brass outbursts find Silvestri in his comfortable action mode. At 0:37, we're treated to a trademark Silvestri brass fanfare and response from strings. The next section with tick-tocking percussion and synth recalls his some of his work on the TV show Cosmos. The strings crescendo against counterpoint from French horns and then trumpets. Frenzied strings build to a final brass stinger.

The Arrow: A cello playing a gypsy-like melody opens the track. Celeste (or maybe it's glockenspiel) play a mischievous, Elfman-like line, charmingly repeated by brass. Strings continue to churn before dying down to meditative piano, celeste, and oboe. A string ostinato returns below menacing low brass.

"We Have a Problem": The ostinato from last track returns, but in pizzicato with a couple of statement from celeste. Silvestri enters his familiar militaristic action mode again before an explosion of synth percussion precedes a continuance of the ostinato. A fatalistic line from trumpets, then strings enters as the synths intensify. A dramatic melody (whose opening sounds just a little like Davy Jones's theme from Hans Zimmer's Pirated of the Caribbean score) provides some neat structural symmetry; as with the previous fatalistic line, it's played by trumpets and repeated in the string section.

The Walk: The Cast Away tone of first track, complete with echoing piano over strings, is reprised. Female synth voices make their first entrance in the score at  2:45 (bringing to mind Titanic, of all things). Strings and horns eventually enter, swelling with a sense of relief.

"I Feel Thankful": The track opens with Fur Elise on piano before the full orchestra--strings then brass--take it up. The bulk of the cue consists of a quasi-march, interrupted twice. The first time, flute, clarinet, and oboe take up waltz theme over the synth choir before launching into an exquisite melody. In the second "interruption," the orchestra busts into a bittersweet theme with male synth choir (the only time we hear male synth voices on the entire soundtrack).

"They Want to Kill You": Synth and percussion punctuate skittering strings, over which an inexorable brass melody plays. The Davy Jones melody returns, then cathartic strings and female voices enter, an inspirational brass melody soaring above. A variation of the melody subsequently repeats in low strings.

"There Is No Why": A brief heavenly string statement, similar to Silvestri's score for James Cameron's The Abyss (the melodic shape recalls the opening of "Bud on the Ledge") opens the cue. The Cast Away swells and echoing piano return briefly before giving way to a  tender, deliberately paced melody for strings with scattered woodwind solos. Echoing piano returns to close the cue.

"Perhaps You Brought Them to Life--Given Them a Soul": Perhaps this cue's lengthy, vaguely pretentious title is an homage to James Horner (who recently passed away in June).  English horn (or very low oboe) starts things off before clarinet, oboe, and flute successfully play fragments of the waltz melody. However, Silvestri alters the tune here, the final note lifting instead of falling. Rich strings and gorgeously cascading piano follow, after which the echoing piano enters for the final time, eventually joined by the orchestra and subtle female synth choir. After a final swell of strings, the echoing piano and a low string tone close out the score on a tranquil note.