Montrealer Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) has penned the soundtrack for director Duke Johnson’s film The Actor. The film follows a New York actor from the 1950s who wakes up with total amnesia in a mysterious small town in Ohio, where the inhabitants are acting strangely to say the least.
Parry’s score is perfectly in tune with the strangeness of the script. The musician constructs a musical discourse that is at once contemporary, dreamlike, mysterious, nocturnal and intriguing, with pizzicato double bass, ethereal voices (angelic or ghostly choirs, whistling), echoes of jazz, delicate piano, a bit of organ, bland American suburban style kitschy music (the kind you hear in Edward Scissorhands, remember?). The score also seems to be steeped in an atmosphere reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti (echoing the film’s own David Lynch edge), with a touch of Cristobal Tapia de Veer (of White Lotus fame) and 50s B-movie Sci-Fi thrown in for good measure. All this with a very calm, often introspective attitude.
Wow. Certainly one of the most interesting film scores of the year. Should be right up there in the final top selection for the next Oscars
