The Matrix: The Deluxe Edition

by Justin Bielawa   ·    October 22, 2008

Film score is a fickle mistress. She goes through phases much like the films she’s attached to, but with so many cooks in the kitchen and hands in the deal its a rare moment when something really new or inventive happens. Don Davis’s The Matrix is such a special thing, and is in hind sight the last great – or even important, if you will – film score from the twentieth century.

Musically, Davis’s material is modern, bold and heavily based on serialism. Basing the entire score on a sense of forward movement, Davis pens an exceedingly simple dichotomy – a breathing see-saw measure, which has since become the movie’s musical signature. This very basic idea forms what is one of the more metaphysical aspects of the movie its self: duology. As the film is about the real world and the Matrix, there is a plethora of shots involving mirrors, reflections and similar slight of hand. Davis keys into this contrapuntal idea with the up/down motif, as if to say that one note is the answer to the other.

The idea is stretched to its limit with Davis’s action material, which is orchestrated like a shuffled deck of cards. Huge brass fixtures overlap against sustained strings, strained woodwinds, anvils and some absolutely vicious changes in rhythm. Davis writes his material with great detail and power, built on his years of orchestrating for James Horner, Michael Kamen and other composers in the field. Important examples of the score include “That’s Gotta Hurt” with its swelling chromatic brass measures or “Threat Mix” with its percussion based drive - disarmingly simple in its sound but primitive in its effectiveness.

The material is almost exclusively written in twelve-tone but the fact that motifs (of all things) are written in this style denotes a certain Wagnerian flare. Look no further than the delightful on the nose mention of Strauss’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” during “He’s The One Alright”, literally taking Nietzsche’s Übermensch, classical music, philosophy and film score and tying them together in a neat bow. Has there ever been such a brilliant multi-layered marriage of film music and its assignment before this film?

Somehow strangely, this is what makes The Matrix share a great deal in common with its spiritual cousin of sorts: John Williams’s original Star Wars score. Where Williams went back to capture romanticism from the Golden Age of film and Richard Wagner, Davis dipped his pen in the modern concert hall and the music of John Adams. The results are dissimilar but very related – both involve a use of what was (and still is) seemingly outdated musical language to a largely unheard extent. Certainly, the film world hasn’t heard the likes of The Matrix often – Goldsmith played with the idiom (Alien, Planet Of The Apes, even parts of The Omen) as did John Corigliano (Altered States) and Elliot Goldenthal (Alien3, Final Fantasy), but it is a strange, rare breed when the entire material is at once wholly alien and still be totally accessible to the audience.

The original Varese disc was serviceable but left most of the meat on the dinner table. Important material like the subway fight and the material between Neo’s rescue and the hotel ambush was left off for reasons unknown and unstated. This new Varese Club album fixes that, with improved sound and a new interview with the composer in the sleeve notes. Hopefully, the astounding quality of this release will make Varese realize that theres a market for expanding the other two Matrix scores (though originally released through other labels – there has to be a lot of red tape involved in that)

Davis’s material is nothing short of extraordinary and his risky move of using very cerebral music for a very self-aware movie makes it all the more exciting. Its like being reinserted back into the Matrix all over again. Whoa.

TRACKS

1. Main Title / Trinity Infinity (3:49)
2. Neo On The Edge (3:23)
3. Unable To Speak (1:13)
4. Bait And Switch (3:15)
5. Switched For Life (3:35)
6. Switched At Birth (2:40)
7. Switch's Brew (2:26)
8. Cold Hearted Switch (1:38)
9. Nascent Nauseous Neo (2:05)
10. A Morpheus Moment (1:30)
11. Bow Whisk Orchestra (1:03)
12. Domo Showdown (1:14)
13. Switch Or Break Show (1:04)
14. Shake, Borrow, Switch (:33)
15. Freeze Face (1:48)
16. Switch Woks Her Boa (2:03)
17. Switch Out (2:56)
18. Boon Spoy (1:06)
19. Oracle Cookies (1:26)
20. Threat Mix (5:24)
21. Exit Mr. Hat (1:16)
22. On Your Knees, Switch (4:45)
23. Mix The Art (1:27)
24. Whoa, Switch Brokers (4:01)
25. No More Spoons (1:00)
26. Dodge This (1:06)
27. Ontological Shock (3:29)
28. That's Gotta Hurt (5:16)
29. Surprise! (4:04)
30. He's The One Alright (6:47)