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Here’s an interview with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice A.D. 2024 editor Jay Prychidny, where the use of songs is discussed a little. Elfman is never mentioned otherwise.
https://borisfx.com/blog/aotc/art-of-the-cut-beetlejuice-beetlejuice/
Prychidny: The bike ride has this nice song that’s playing and then during the whole action sequence, the music just keeps going. I guess my thought was to just not try to make it seem like such a big action moment. That was just something that instinctually felt right. Tim never questioned it, but it was something that some people questioned.
The other example is in the Soul Train sequence. After Lydia rescues Astrid off of the train, then they’re pursued by cops and the guards, the Soul Train music just keeps playing. I guess the natural impulse is maybe, “Well we should switch to action music here.”
That didn’t seem right to me. It seemed like it should just be continuing the song that’s playing and edit the song, ’cause it’s not like the song ignores the action on screen. The song is edited to fit to the scene changing and becoming an action sequence, but it’s still just the song. There isn’t score support there.
Hullfisch: I love the fact that the Soul train music kept going. Did you ever consider switching to score?
Prychidny: I never tried it because Tim didn’t have a problem with it. I’m sure if I brought it up to Tim, he wouldn’t have wanted to do that. I never tried it ’cause it just felt like the obvious thing to do, and because I just love how that music kicks in, in the Soul Train sequence when the guards and everyone are coming onto them and it kicks into this higher gear fast-paced moment and it just feels fresh to me. It just feels fresh.
I didn’t even want to try cutting to action music. I felt like I would’ve become so bored by it, so I didn’t even want to try.
Lots of parameters we don’t have to jump to any conclusion really, but I suppose that if some songs were there since the editing room and Burton already considered they were perfect, there’s a chance Elfman indeed probably never worked extensively on these scenes.
There is this quote, though : “Tim never questioned it, but it was something that some people questioned.” I wonder who “some people” is/are… 😀
I am a TV editor myself. There’s always so much to do that composers almost never argue for “more music.” If Elfman was in the spotting session, and they said, “we like this song here.” He probably would have said, “Great!” And they would have gone on to the next scene.
There is cover art for a score album on Elfman’s website.
Maybe, but if they weren’t planning to release anything additional, wouldn’t they have put the hyperlinks to the soundtrack album and been done with it? I think we’re getting more – even if it’s just uploaded to the website a la Woman in the Window.
There ARE some fake covers on his site – “The Woman In The Window” cover for sure – but this looks semi official? Maaaaaaybe?
I hope it happens, of course. Maybe it will be timed with the stream-at-home release? Or maybe a label like LLL will do a limited run for Black Friday? Since it recorded in London AND LA, perhaps it’s an expensive score to put out, which is why it hasn’t happened yet? If LLL had to charge 35 bucks a disc in order to make the economics of doing this work, I might grumble slightly about it, but you KNOW that I’d get it immediately.
Well, finally saw it and I can only agree on how little we have to celebrate for; basically the Main and End Credits. So I guess the soundtrack release is fine after all…
To me, it’s probably a mix of Elfman being put aside due to the allegations and a heavily temp-tracked film, with songs & score cues from the original. It could have been indeed handled by a B-lister composer at this point or even an arranger.
I don’t really get the usage of Donnagio’s Carrie theme at the end for instance. I thought it would make sense because it would refer to De Palma’s film more directly, but I don’t think it did and it would have been a great place for Elfman’s music to shine. But perhaps I’m missing the reference here, I haven’t seen Carrie in quite a while.
The film was ok, Burton bringing a long-lost sincerity to it but I would lie if I’d say it left any kind of impact on me.
Everything about this movie and its music is odd.
There does seem to be a bit more quirk in the samples than made it through the dub.
I posted this on FSM earlier, but I’ll post it here too:
—————–
I listened to the score album yesterday, and again today.
Although I understand the disappointment that some have with it — and I share it on some level — there are a several stand-out cues for me (“Ex-Wife’s Back”, “The Attic”, “You Agreed To Swap Lives” and especially the last two minutes of “End Titles” with those awesome Wurlitzer solos… and I love all the source music stuff at the end too). Overall, I’d rather have this score album than not have it, and I’ll certainly listen to it again.
Really, though, Elfman could only score the movie that was in front of him, and I don’t think the movie gave him a ton of opportunity to really shine, which is maybe what many of us are picking up on.
The Elfman parts have a lot of horror stings and things… his assignment seemed to be to make Beetlejuice kind of threatening and scary, and to add momentum and tension to the movie in the back-half when they’re all running around the underworld… which the score certainly DOES, starting with “Ghost Story” (which is the sequence where Lydia races to get to Astrid before Jeremy tricks her).
A lot of the whimsy comes from the song choices, which Elfman had to write around… “Tragedy”, “MacArthur Park” and “Soul Train Theme (Scat Version)” (which isn’t on even the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXMqsy_l8Tk ). Many of the Astrid scenes are covered by songs. She DOES have a theme, and it’s on the score album a couple times, but there’s almost no space for it in the movie, and I didn’t even realize she had one until I heard this release.
I actually think this is a rare case where you could advocate for the songs and the score being checker-boarded, in sequence, on a theoretical album that would have included both (sort of like what the OST for the first movie did). “What’s That?” (score album) is designed to be big shock in the film after we hear Pino Donaggio’s gentle “Main Title From CARRIE” (song album). The cues in the church at the end are designed work around “MacArthur Park”. “Soul Train Theme (Scat Version)” adds a lot of energy to that part of the and sort of plays like score, even though it really isn’t… and so on…
So I don’t know… there’s stuff on here I really like, and I’m generally happy to have this.
Oh wow. D_A_R_T_H posted a cue list on JWFan.net:
CUR603 Main Titles DE
CUR609 Ghost House Theme Part 1 DE
CUR610 Ghost House Theme Part 2 DE
CUR611 Is It Him? DE
CUR612 Pills DE
CUR613 Gallery Source DE
CUR614 Plane Crash DE
CUR616 Janitor Awakens DE
CUR617 Boo DE
CUR618 Mother Daughter Talk DE
CUR619 Going To BJ’s DE
CUR621 BJ’s Office DE
CUR622 Waiting Room #1 (More Of A Dog Person) DE
CUR623 Crime Scene DE
CUR624 Ghost That Matters DE
CUR625 Ex Wife’s Back DE
CUR626 Delores Looks For BJ DE
CUR627 Stapled Sicko DE
CUR628 Little Higher Boys DE
CUR629 Obituary DE
CUR630 The Attic DE
CUR632 Grave Concern DE
CUR634 Therapy Session Sting 1 DE,CB
CUR636 Therapy Session Sting 2 DE,CB
CUR637 Therapy Session Sting 3 DE,CB
CUR638 Driving To Jeremy’s DE
CUR639 You’re A Ghost DE
CUR640 Ghost Story DE
CUR641 Waiting Room #2 (Merry Christmas) DE
CUR643 Cemetery Snake Ceremony DE
CUR644 BJ Returns DE
CUR645 You Never Saw Us DE
CUR646 Shrinkers Escape DE
CUR647 Ghoul Squad DE
CUR648 Waiting Room #3 (Delia) DE
CUR649 You Agreed To Swap Lives DE,CB
CUR650 You Agreed To Swap Lives End Tag DE,CB
CUR651 Saturn DE
CUR652 Out Of Luck Part 1 DE
CUR653 Interrogation DE
CUR654 Waiting Room #4 (You’re Dead OK?) DE
CUR655 Delia Calls BJ DE
CUR656 Out Of Luck Part 2 DE
CUR657 Ladies Escape DE
CUR658 Drug Therapy DE
CUR659 Selfies Gone Wrong DE
CUR660 Delores Interrupts DE
CUR661 Beetlejuice Balloons DE
CUR662 Delia Departs DE
CUR663 What Is That? DE
CUR664 What Is That? (Alt End Tag) DE
CUR665 End Credits Suite Part 1 DE
CUR667 End Credits Suite Part 2 DE
CUR668 End Credits Suite Part 3 DEDE…Danny Elfman
CB…Chris BaconNominated for a Saturn Award and made the Oscar shortlist for Best Original Score…
Between this and winning the Emmy, there doesn’t seem to be much of an industry backlash to the allegations.
Lots of unreleased and alternate (film-version main titles) music here—
https://www.wbawards.com/film/?film=beetlejuicebeetlejuice
You can assemble an extended score album with a little patience and a lot of tape.
The score has made the BAFTA longlist. The longlist is ten scores, but five will be nominated.
I don’t expect it to get nominated there or at the Oscars (that longlist was 15 scores), but I’m really surprised by the apparent support. I can only guess that voters are thinking, “I like the Beetlejuice theme” and ticking the box.
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