Nine, A Soundtrack Review
Published on January 30th, 2010 in: Current Faves, Movies, Music, Music Reviews, Soundtracks and Scores |By Danny R. Phillips
I’m not much for musicals. People walking down the street, spontaneously breaking into song. . . it’s all very hokey and unrealistic to me. Generally, I think it’s a stupid genre. . . wait, does Walk The Line count as a musical? If so, I liked that one. Anyway, soundtrack albums to musicals are often more painful than the actual film, but there is something about the soundtrack of Nine that makes me let my guard down and dial down the hate just a bit.
The songs rock back and forth between fiery and up-tempo (“Be Italian,” “Cinema Italiano”) to softer and more longing (“My Husband Makes Movies,” “Guarda La Luna”) making the soundtrack a perfect balance of emotion and action.
The surprising part of this soundtrack is that the only professional singer in the cast, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, has probably the weakest voice of all, as shown with the song “Be Italian.” In the hands of someone who was not trying to fake intensity or a European accent, “Be Italian” could’ve been a centerpiece composition. Instead it falls flat.
Next comes the equally marginal “Cinema Italiano” sung (I use the term loosely) by Kate Hudson. The song opens with conga drums that sound like the bastard son of “Sympathy for the Devil” and Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” and it goes downhill from there. The music is fine but how shall I put this? For a singer, Kate Hudson is a good actor.
Just as I thought all was lost with Nine, I hear the beautiful voice of Marion Cotillard singing the lament “My Husband Makes Movies.” It is the story of a woman who long ago lost her love to his art, a sad trip back to a time when she was the only love or lover in his life. She thinks back to a time when she was an actress, when she had a life, when she was young and full of promise.
The emotion in Ms. Collitard’s voice is heartbreaking and proves to me that she is a great actress and portrayer of life who should be treasured, watched, and listened to for years to come. She is a throwback to a time when actresses were glamorous and untouchable.
The other song that brought this soundtrack back from the edge was “Guarda La Luna,” a song more spoken than sung by the always beautiful Sophia Loren. Her Italian smolders as she speaks of the moon and its power over us. And again, it’s Sophia Loren. How can I say anything bad?
The long and short of it is: this soundtrack makes good use of mood and emotion, power and weakness, energy and longing defeat.
Nine is a good soundtrack to an above average movie. At least no one was singing in the rain.
To purchase a copy of the Nine soundtrack, please visit the movie’s Official Site.
3 Responses to “Nine, A Soundtrack Review”
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I don’t think it’s completely fair to divorce the soundtrack from its musical. Taken out of context, the songs from a musical don’t always work that well. Take “The Pajama Game”: “Hey There” or “Steam Heat” work well as stand-alone numbers, but “Seven and a half cents” or “Hurry Up” would make little sence outside of the show. Likewise, some songs are just naturally more dramatic or meaningful than others. Take “South Pacific”: “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” is a pretty serious, dramatic number. “Some Enchanted Evening”: pretty passionate. “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” or “Honey Bun”? Just plain silly comic relief.
Likewise here in “Nine,” especially when you factor in Rob Marshall’s (trademark?) way of putting the musical numbers in a fantasy space, where they’re not a part of the main narritive, but rather what a character is imagining the scene like in his/her head, and as such are subject to that character’s subjectivity: Fergie is playing Saraghina, Guido’s memory of a low-rent prostitute down by the shore. As such, her over-done passion and courseness of speech are in line with what the character of Guido would remember about such a woman. Also, this is largly a dance number, and doesn’t translate to just audio (like “Sweet Charity”‘s “There’s Gotta Be Someting Better Than This” or “Chicago”‘s “I Can’t Do It Alone”). “Cinema Italiano” is sung by a very shallow, over-enthusiastic American fan of the Guido’s, who is obviously enamored with him in almost a teenage way; as such, I think the song carries this through fine with its Italian 60’s pre-fab pop feel.
Cotillard, as long-suffering wife Louisa, can only have tear-jerking numbers. Moreso than “My Husband Makes Movies,” take “Take It All”: the way her voice chokes up towards the end is as heart-wrenching as “Cinema Italiano” is pop-lite bop. It’s unfair to treat Cotillard’s numbers as “better” when in their own contexts, most songs work well.
I was surprised you didn’t call out who I thought was the worst singer with the flattest number on the album: Nicole Kidman’s “In A Very Unusal Way.” While I don’t recall her being terrible in “Moulin Rouge!”, here her voice (and wondering accent) dissapoint. But then that is also the main gripe I have about this film and the soundtrack: the accents. Kidman plays an… American? Italian? actress who speaks in a semi-OK American accent, with some Aussie slipping. Judi Dench’s character seems to be French and is accented so during her number, but the rest of the movie features the actor’s regular British accent. Cotiallard’s character is mentioned as being French-Italian, but she speaks (again) in a flat American accent (mostly, with some French lilts). Daniel Day-Lewis’ Italian accent is good and consistent, if not a bit cartoonish. Perhaps ironically, the only character whose accent really works all-around well is Penelope Cruz, whose character could well be from Spain.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Hey there AJ, would you like to write for us?
Yours is a very well-written comment from someone who is obviously a fan of musicals!
I haven’t seen Nine myself, but I really hate wandering accents (as you call them), so I can only imagine how grating they must be coming from actors and actresses who are usually good.
LLM
PS Seriously, you wanna write for us?
February 4th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
very good, aj.
I think you may have just taken my gig.
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