Search - John Zorn :: John Zorn: Filmworks 18 - The Treatment

3 1/2 stars-- Zorn scores a romantic comedy.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 03/27/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Volume XVIII in John Zorn's Filmworks series is the score to a romantic comedy called "The Treatment". Truthfully, I was a bit stunned to consider the notion of Zorn scoring a romantic comedy, and evidentally so was he (in the liner notes, Zorn states that he considered the idea of scoring a romantic comedy "ridiculous"), but evidentally director Oren Rudavsky's persistence resulted in Zorn taking the job, the resulting score, Zorn states, is overtly influenced by tango, although truthfully I hear little of this in the music-- it is a piece that is firmly lodged in the Zorn film scoring vocabularly-- his scores seem to have a unified approach to me, but it is a bit darker and a bit more mellow then usual.



Zorn chose an instrumentation similar to the tango, with violinist Mark Feldman serving as the primary lead voice supported by accordian (Rob Burger), vibraphone (Kenny Wollesen) and bass (Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz), with guitarist Marc Ribot lending his formible talents on two tracks. The result is a highly rhythmic blend, with all instruments but violin often playing rhythmic and implied rhythmic figures and Feldman floating over the top, the net result is surprisingly diverse, whether moody and irritable ("Why Me?", "Anxieties"), lush and delicate ("Romance"-- check out Feldman's counterpoint, it's among the prettiest things Zorn's ever written) or tense and apprehensive ("Rush Hour", a chance for Wollesen to shine). The two tracks with Ribot add an extra layer to mix, filled with intertwining lines that manage to feel both loose and rigid at the same time.



Still, as nice as this one is, there's something about it that didn't quite work for me overall-- it's a pleasant enough piece filled with different themes and ideas, and Zorn gets the most out of his instrumentation, but It just didn't grab me the way Zorn's best soundtracks ("Invitation to a Suicide", "In the Mirror of Maya Deren") have."