The beat goes on: Black Bag

Big-screen jazz scores clearly have become an endangered species, but good grief; I’ve not been able to showcase a new film release since Confess, Fletch came out in October 2022.

Thank goodness for director Steven Soderbergh and Belfast-born DJ-turned-composer/musician David Holmes, who’ve worked together since 1998’s Out of Sight, which was followed by Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels. All four boasted sleek, groove-laden jazz scores that were long on percussion, electronic keyboards, fuzz guitar, sleek vibes, walking bass and plenty of rhythmic four- and eight-bar ostinatos.

 

But Holmes’ approach is a bit different this time out. Black Bag isn’t a larkish adventure like the four films mentioned above; David Koepp’s sleek, sexy and — above all else — smart script is solidly in the chill, back-stabbing spyjinks realm of John Le Carre and The Ipcress File. As a result, many of the cues in Holmes’ score are deliberately unsettling atmospheric synth and tension-laden ostinatos. Even so, true jazz elements are present in sufficient number to warrant mention here.

 

Veteran intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Unit (NCSC), is summoned to an off-site meeting by his boss, Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård). A dangerous top-secret software cyber-worm, code-named Severus, has been leaked: likely to Russian agents. Five of George’s colleagues are suspected, one of whom happens to be his beloved wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), a powerful and trusted NCSC agent.

 

George hosts a dinner party that gathers all the suspects: his longtime friend, Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), whose messy personal life has made him a security risk; ultra-cool upper-echelon agent Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page); staff psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris); and satellite imagery specialist Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela).

The after-dinner chit-chat devolves into psychological warfare, with stakes that continue to raise during George’s week-long investigation.

 

As he explained during an interview with Edith Bowman on her Soundtracking podcast, Soderbergh asked Holmes for a score that often would make viewers “feel the clock.” The composer obliged with a score that evokes memories of Jerry Goldsmith’s work on 1964’s Seven Days in May, and Quincy Jones’ score for 1967’s The Deadly Affair.

 

The album’s 18 cues are arranged chronologically, with titles that match on-screen events. Thus, the first cue — “I’m Here to See Mr. Meacham” — sounds like foreboding footsteps and a heartbeat, as one of Soderbergh’s beloved lengthy tracking shots follows George into the restaurant where he’ll be given this difficult assignment. The subsequent cue, “Black Bag,” is a peppy blend of jazzy percussion and mildly disconcerting synth.

 

“Dark Windows” is a hypnotic drum ostinato, while “Iron Maiden” delivers the desired ticking-clock ambiance with rumbling percussion, snare drum and bass licks.

 

The aforementioned dinner party remains unscored, Soderbergh preferring to let Koepp’s psychologically fraught conversational exchanges emerge like verbal gunfire.

 

Contemplative bass riffs, bongos and a snare drum (“Fishing”) back George’s lake sojourn on his small outboard boat, the following morning, as he mulls over what he learned.

 

But then, an unfortunate twist: Something feels wrong about Kathryn’s brief visit to Switzerland (“Zurich”), and George’s suspicions are backed by propulsive drums and synth effects. Duplicity, double- and triple-crosses subsequently multiply among these six individuals, and the anxiety mounts as the week concludes; George’s apprehension is fueled by the suspensefully energetic “Friday.” The next several atmospheric cues employ unnerving single keyboard notes, drawn-out synth and rumbling percussion with another round of tick-tock elements, as Answers Are Revealed.

In the aftermath, playfully snarky bass riffs, bongos and that snare drum fuel “Feet First” during a telling elevator encounter. The final fleeting cue, “Of Course,” is a triumphant blast of drums, bass and keyboards.

Holmes’ entire score is brief, running just shy of 29 minutes. The two longest cues run 3 minutes, the shortest a mere 28 seconds. The album isn’t available on physical media, but can be obtained digitally from Amazon, Apple Music and numerous other options. Qobuz offers CD quality and Hi-Res 48 kHz tracks. 

The beat goes on: No Sudden Move

Belfast-born David Holmes initially seemed an unlikely candidate for film scoring, having focused his early career on DJing and solo albums devoted to electronica, trip hop, big beat and good ol’ fashioned rock ’n’ roll. That said, his overall music knowledge — and personal collection — have long been impressively extensive, and his career trajectory changed completely when he was hired by director Steven Soderbergh to score 1998’s erotic neo-noir, Out of Sight. It proved an artistic match made in heaven, leading to many more collaborations over the years: most notably (for our purposes) all three Ocean’sheist dramedies. Their newest team-up is the just-released No Sudden Move.

Fans of slow-burn crime thrillers will love it.

 

Scripter Ed Solomon’s noir-ish saga is given precisely the right look and atmosphere by Soderbergh and production designer Hannah Beachler. The post-WWII Detroit setting emphasizes the deplorable racial divide between cozy white neighborhoods and decaying inner-city Black districts, and the wary mistrust this prompts from both sides. But Solomon hasn’t merely written a mordant, attitude-laden crime drama; many of his plot elements — and twists — are drawn from actual historical events.

 

Down-on-their-luck criminals Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) and Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro) are hired by a shady go-between (Brendan Fraser) for a “babysitting” job. (That’s “babysitting,” as in “guard at gunpoint while something goes down elsewhere.”) Their task: to watch the family of low-level General Motors executive Matt Wertz (David Harbour), while he’s escorted to his office by third gunsel Charley Barnes (Kieran Culkin), in order to retrieve a certain document from a certain safe. Curt, Ronald and Charley will remain masked the entire time; if everybody cooperates, everybody lives.

 

Everybody cooperates, but the plan still goes awry. In the aftermath, Curt and Ronald are on the run, having done the one thing both hoped to avoid, by antagonizing rival crime lords Aldrick Watkins (Bill Duke) and Frank Capelli (Ray Liotta). Unless the besieged duo can find and leverage the aforementioned document — a true Hitchcockian MacGuffin, until it suddenly isn’t — their hours are grimly numbered.

Holmes’ working relationship with Soderbergh is quite unusual, if not unique. The composer always delves deeply into a script’s period, setting and atmosphere, in order to “feel” the story, and the characters within it. Holmes then assembles a massive assortment of era-specific songs, cues, riffs and so forth.

 

“I sent him so much music from the era,” Holmes explained, “different moods, instrumentals, songs and soundtracks that had a certain feel.”¹

 

Soderbergh became quite enchanted by one cue: Henry Mancini’s unsettling title theme to 1962’s Experiment in Terror. This became the acorn from which the mighty oak of Holmes’ score developed.

 

“It was a beautiful place to start,” Holmes continued, “to explore a broader meaning, so I studied the instrumentation of it. I could hear the cimbalom, the guitar, drums and upright bass. It had a certain feeling that was exciting.”²