Disquiet

There are few directors as attentive to scores as is Steven Sodebergh. He is one of the premiere under-scoring directors — that is to say, he is certainly the most prominent filmmaker to emphasize that holy-grail photo-realist juncture where the aural components of the silver screen (i.e., the live sound that accompanied what is seen, the foley sound added later, and the musical score layered though) combine into one. His two most frequent composers are the ambient figure Cliff Martinez (whose work on Soderbergh’s Solaris may be better loved than the director’s) and DJ David Holmes (whose retro, big-beat electronica has served Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels well). Martinez’s subtle compositions take on the texture of thought in Soderbergh’s more contemplative works, as early as the director’s first feature, sex, lies, and videotape, and Holmes’s clockwork funk suggests the musical equivalent to a heist blueprint. (Holmes is capable of Martinez’s caliber of quietude — check out the near-future drama Code 46.)

I just saw Soderbergh’s most recent feature, The Girlfriend Experience, about a Manhattan call girl, and it may have less music than any film he’s done previously. There’s an opening chord (likely played on guitar), which also closes the film. And otherwise, much of what is heard throughout could very well be the in-scene sound: music in a car, at a restaurant, in an apartment. But there is a credited score, and the credit goes to Morcheeba‘s Ross Godfrey, so perhaps all those anonymous cues are Godfrey’s.

And there is one particular instant, one well-timed moment, that cements the sound in Girlfriend Experience as no less conscious — no less considered, plotted, and executed — than that in any other Soderbergh film. If the initial score cue is that guitar chord, the second is a heavy drum solo, a hard-driving bit of acoustic funk. Like the guitar chord, it has nothing immediate to do with the onscreen images. (The heavy beat is reminiscent of Holmes’s work, one more reason Soderbergh fans might think it a proper cue.)

Only later do we realize that the drum solo is, in fact, a live recording of a street musician, when we see him plying his trade on a street corner (and yes, he’s banging away — this metaphor can be stretched quite a bit before it breaks). This re-use parallels the structure of Girlfriend Experience, which chops up the story into little chunks that are then parceled out in a manner that reveals additional meaning. The movie tells the story of a week in the life of a Manhattan escort named Chelsea (shown in the screen shot above), played by porn star Sasha Grey, and Soderbergh’s intent throughout is to use that real-life parallel to add frisson to the proceedings — a method that reinforces Chelsea’s practice, which is to fulfill the fantasy of her clients that she isn’t just a hooker, but their temporary (and, for regulars, even their on-again/off-again) girlfriend.

That drummer, by the way, is not Godfrey. It’s apparently a popular Manhattan street musician who goes by the name Shakerleg (shown in the screen shot below). More info at shakerleg.com.

Next up for Soderbergh is The Informant, which may prove to be the director’s first venture into over-scoring. It reportedly features an original soundtrack by 65-year-old composer Marvin Hamlisch (The Entertainer, The Spy Who Loved Me, Ordinary People). According at least to the details at imdb.com, it will be the first full-length, non-documentary Hamlisch has scored since he did Barbra Streisand‘s The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996. The Informant is due out in October.