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TALENTED MR RIPLEY, THE: SOUNDTRACK

If the lure of a haunting score by The Talented Mr. Gabriel Yared, striking recordings by The Talented Mr. Guy Baker’s International Quintet and an assemblage of jazz gems from The Talented Messrs. Parker, Davis and Gillespie aren’t enough to entice you into procuring this soundtrack, than buy it simply for the wonderful and generous four-page long liner notes of the film’s director, The Talented Mr. Anthony Minghella.

In these, Minghella explains that the soundtrack, rather than merely embellishing the movie’s visual richness, interweaves profoundly with the very fabric of the story. He reveals that he decided to use sound in place of the painting motif of Patricia Highsmith’s novel and how the contrasts of musical style have been employed to reflect the film’s underlying psychological themes.

And what music it is that he has chosen, compiled and produced to this end! From the joyfully chaotic be-bop of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker’s Ko-Ko and Dizzy Gillespie’s The Champ, to Miles Davis’s silky yet strident trumpet on his faithful rendition of Nature Boy, to the tight contemporary arrangements of Guy Baker, to Sinead O’Connor’s deeply lyrical lilt against a sparse ethereal piano in Lullaby for Cain, all punctuated by slices of Yared’s thrillingly unsettling and mesmeric string pulse overlaid with exotic Arabian phrases; this is music of intricacy and subtlety, at once intellectual and emotionally visceral.

If such disparate styles on the one CD suggest a certain schizophrenia, well that’s the point, but it’s also much more than that; as Minghella states: "… this movie’s music is used in the faith that the audience can… extrapolate from what it hears." Buy this soundtrack, rejoice in its complexities and nuances, but also lie back and let your imagination, like Bird’s saxophone, soar beyond boundaries.
Brad Green

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SOUNDTRACK: TALENTED MR RIPLEY, THE

ID: SK51337
Sony/Paramount/Miramax

COMPOSER: Gabriel Yared
PRODUCER: Gabriel Yared, Anthony Minghella, Walter Murch

FEATURED ARTISTS: The Guy Baker International Quintet, Sinead O’Connor, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Marino Marini, Dizzy Gillespie, John Martyn

TRACKS: 19


See INTERVIEW with Cinematographer John Seale.


Also INTERVIEW with Director Anthony Minghella.


Also INTERVIEW with Actress Cate Blanchett.







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