Danny Elfman - Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Pee Wee. Here comes the tale of a happy man-child (Paul Reubens) stuck in a sad and conventional world. Tim Burton’s first feature film is also the story of a marvelous encounter, that of a filmmaker with his composer. After Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy, Federico Fellini and Nino Rota… history will remember another duet: Danny Elfman and Tim Burton. For this soundtrack, Elfman found inspiration in the work of Nino Rota. We can hear the maestro’s influence in the film’s delirious main theme (Overture/The Big Race), as well as in the clown-like and frenetic track Breakfast Machine. Used in the movie’s most famous scene where Pee Wee operates various bizarre machines to cook his breakfast, the score shows how Burton relies on music to enhance the natural poetry and frenzy of his visual world. Apart from Rota, Elfman’s soundtrack hints at inspiration from many other composers. Stolen Bike is an accomplished pastiche of Psycho and Dinosaur Dream, a take on monster movies’ typical scores. Throughout the film, Danny Elfman blends childlike sounds created using synthesizers with weird noises and a classical orchestra, managing to create a musical mirror to Burton’s shots. In their next films together, Elfman composed mostly for Hollywood symphonic orchestra. Nevertheless, he kept his unique approach and always found a way to complement Burton’s gorgeous images.
Prince – Batman (1989)
Such a complex Hollywood story. After Beetlejuice (1988), Tim Burton decided to work on an adaption of Batman. Michael Keaton was to be the superhero and Jack Nicholson, the Joker. The director had initially expected Danny Elfman to compose the soundtrack, but it was the producers’ idea to replace Elfman with Prince. Warner was behind both the film and Prince’s career, and blending the two together seemed a lucrative marketing operation. Burton, however, fought for Elfman. A collaboration between the two musicians was considered, but Elfman decided to quit instead. Finally, producer Jon Peters made an unprecedented decision: Warner would release two soundtracks. Prince’s score became a major hit, selling 11 million copies, and Elfman’s emblematic composition won a Grammy in 1990. Batman is Prince’s eleventh studio album. It features a duet with Sheena Easton (The Arms of Orion) and the funky and chaotic hit Batdance. The album’s lyrics are associated with each character of the film, and Prince wrote three songs for the Joker, with whom he liked to identify.
Danny Elfman - Batman Returns (1992)
Throughout the 1990’s, Danny Elfman came up with an interesting method, a kind of mirror to the craziness of the duet he formed with Burton. When he watched Burton’s films for the first time, he used a tape recorder to record his emotions through a set of screams and onomatopoeias. This technique explains why Elfman’s style can be so raw and uncontrolled, especially on Batman Returns. For the film, Danny Elfman touched many genres, from funeral marches to circus music to musical box sounds, alongside, of course, various frenetic tracks for the film’s action scenes. Through it all, Catwoman’s theme shines as the soundtrack’s major accomplishment. For the character brought to life by Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Elfman created a real musical identity, beginning with dissonant tones made of high pitch and squeaky string, and ending in a beautiful romantic score à la Bernard Herrmann (Selina Transforms, Cat suite). The soundtrack also includes a track by Siouxsie and the Banshees (Face to Face), composed with the help of Danny Elfman. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Siouxsie was a member of the rock/new wave band Oingo Boingo.
Danny Elfman - Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Remember Johnny Depp’s frightening attire? Remember also the sadness of his look, the despair of his porcelain-doll glance? With Edward Scissorhands, it took Tim Burton only one image to sum up his entire universe, a mix of horror and poetry. The spectator is captured. “Working on Edward Scissorhands was fun because no one interfered,” explained Danny Elfman. “Nobody was checking on us, no one was even really interested in the fact that we were working on the film score. We were just two weird guys on our own.” Seconds into the music, Edward Scissorhands’ soundtrack screams Danny Elfman’s name. Everything that makes his style unique is here: the children’s choirs and bells; the particular tones; the Tchaikovsky-inspired compositions, both strange and dreamlike. Elfman’s music and Tim Burton’s images become one and the marvel of an Ice Dance is here to remind us the emotional power of Danny Elfman’s music in Tim Burton’s universe. All that seems dark and gothic is really protective and liberating. This is what Edward Scissorhands tells us. It is also the message of Danny Elfman’s enchanting music.
Danny Elfman - The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The Nightmare before Christmas was written and imagined by Tim Burton after one of his poems. It was then directed in stop motion by Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach). The film is a surprising and original take on musicals. It is neither Broadway nor Disney (even if the studio is producing here) but a real jewel of humor and sophistication transcending all styles and grounded in references to Edgar Allan Poe and German expressionism. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, wants to bring the spirit of Christmas to his town of Halloween. The film’s songs go from macabre and funny delirium (This is Halloween) to pure emotion (Poor Jack, Sally’s song) and even get jazzy (Oogie Boogie’s Song, sung by a particularly inspired Ken Page). Danny Elfman’s music finds inspiration in Kurt Weil and his lyrics are full of puns. The Nightmare Before Christmas was thought of as an opera, in which the music, the lyrics, and the script were created together. Elfman’s role in the film’s inception was huge and his voice was even used for Jack. The Nightmare Before Christmas is Elfman’s absolute masterpiece.
Danny Elfman - Planet of the Apes (2001)
The end of the 1990’s was a complicated time for Tim Burton and Danny Elfman. After The Nightmare Before Christmas, they drifted apart, and Danny Elfman ended up not working on Ed Wood. Eventually, though, they shared the success of Mars Attacks! and Sleepy Hollow and followed their common path throughout the beginning of the twenty-first century. Planet of Apes is the percussive and powerful next step in their collaborative work. In the 1970’s, Danny Elfman spent a little over a year in West Africa. He loved the percussions he heard there and began a collection of instruments. The powerful rhythms of such tracks as Main Titles and The Hunt use percussions to show the brutality of Pierre Boulle’s monkeys, with a novel already adapted to the silver screen in 1968 with a dissonant soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. Danny Elfman’s soundtrack contains no ironic humor. It relies only on the musician’s understanding of oppression. Elfman’s and Goldsmith’s scores are very different, but they share a musical harshness and a precise attention to percussion.
Danny Elfman - Alice in Wonderland (2010)
For Burton and Elfman, 2010 represented the 25-year anniversary of their professional relationship. 25 years is a long time for any artist, but Burton and Elfman managed to preserve the freshness of their obsessive themes and sense of poetry. An adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s novel and a take on Walt Disney’s psychedelic cartoon (1951), Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, is both a feature-length and an animated film. Within seconds into the Alice theme, Danny Elfman’s favorite arrangements can be heard: a choir of children and a lyrical and upbeat orchestra. For the first time, however, the choir sings with words: “Alice, please Alice”, as a litany. The rest of the soundtrack features tracks of epic (Alice And Bayard's Journey), troublesome (Doors), and tender (Proposal/Down the hole) nature.
Danny Elfman - Frankenweenie (2012)
“We loved old time horror movies,” says Danny Elfman about his connection with Tim Burton. “His idol was Vincent Price. Mine was Peter Lorre. This passion defined us for the next thirty years. Our souls were misunderstood and tortured by evil spirits.” Frankenweenie is not a horror movie per se, but the main reference of this stop-motion film is a classic of the genre, Frankenstein. Young Victor refuses to accept the death of his dog Sparky, and in his secret lab, Victor manages to revive his beloved pet. But Sparky’s appearance is dreadful and he terrifies the neighborhood. Elfman’s score is sad at first, describing Victor’s dull life with a short waltz (Main Titles). But the music soon becomes worrisome if not simply horrific. Making Monsters and Getting Ready, with their powerful organ and horns, are two of the soundtracks’ highlights. Elfman is mixing first- and second-degree and often quotes two of his favorite composers, Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. He approaches the whole thing with seriousness, a little like Ed Wood did (but with talent!). Frankenweenie is a new version of a short film that Tim Burton directed in 1984 with a musical score by David Newman.
Danny Elfman - Big Eyes (2015)
Big Eyes tells the story of painter Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) whose husband (Christoph Waltz) pretends to be the original creator of her work. Keane’s paintings depict sad children with disproportionated eyes. Tim Burton’s take on her story is a feminist biopic, both classic and realistic, and is a far cry from the style of his previous films. Following Burton’s understanding of the story, Danny Elfman changed his techniques as well. No crazy rhythm parts here, no marvelous bells, no dreamlike choirs, only a series of tender and enigmatic themes played primarily on the piano (Who’s the Artist?, Margaret). In the background, Elfman included a string orchestra, a discrete rhythm section and a marimba. The sticks used to play this African xylophone are bulging, like the eyes on Margaret Keane’s paintings. Maybe that’s the reason why Elfman chose it. Regardless, the instrument perfectly suits Margaret’s changing moods, from being shy and naïve to fighting for her freedom as a woman and an artist. The soundtrack also features two songs by Lana del Rey (Big Eyes and I Can Fly), as well as a few jazzy tunes by Cal Djader and the Red Garland trio used in the club scenes where Keane tries to promote “his” paintings.
Danny Elfman - Dumbo (2019)
To compose the soundtrack of this adaptation of a Walt Disney cartoon from 1941, Danny Elfman was able to start long in advance, even before he read one line of the script. Perhaps that explains why his score for Dumbo is so sophisticated. Three feelings are intertwined here: sadness, airiness, and heroism. These three characteristics define the personality of the big-eared elephant who was violently separated from his mother (Dumbo’s Theme). The other songs on the soundtrack mix lyricism (Soaring Suite, Colette’s Theme) and action (Nightmare Action). As Dumbo’s story is set in a circus, the music also includes reference to that world, with a study of the genre pushed ever further than usual. The soundtrack features shining fanfare themes as well as discrete waltz played on the organ-grinder (Clowns, Carnival Music…). It also contains a new version of Baby Mine, a song included in Disney’s 1941 film, performed here by Sharon Rooney and by Arcade Fire during the end credits.
