The Hours

by

Philip Glass

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I must admit to not being very familiar with Philip Glass' music, although being a movie fan I'm sure that I've heard him before. Sitting through the monumental film, "The Hours", you realize that this music is a flawless marriage of screen and soundtrack, and immediately, after the film ended, I found myself in the nearest music store, soundtrack in hand.

"The Hours" weaves a complex tale of the seemingly intermingled lives of three complex women, all dealing with various internal crises at significant points of their lives. Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughn, and Laura Brown lives orbit around each other, as each feels their lives are insignificant, yet their significance reigns supreme around the lives of the other, hidden, deep, penetrating.

A film of this calibar requires an equally complex, moving score, and Glass not only provides it, but inspires the movie. Each piece illuminates and frames each scene without imperfection. In the theater, you sit in awe at the methodical action on the screen as your ears hear the fluid, grand movements and it's as if Glass is reading the mind of the audience scoring the movie as you think it should be. It is impossible to imagine this movie without the music, and the music without the movie.

While it is impossible for me to select a favorite piece among all of them, for this is a soundtrack which each pieces lends autheticity to the next, I must profess a love for the second track, "Morning Passage". There is a section towards the end of that piece when I was listening to it, I literally stopped what I was doing and listened intently, and then replayed it several times before continuing, a very strange act indeed.

I highly recommend this work: the emotional depth and honesty, the sadness and enlightment it provides is truly revolutionary.

I saw the film and all I could think was . . . Get rid of the Phil Glass music!! Obviously, I did not buy the CD -- the music almost ruined the movie for me. The music of Glass was great in Koyaanisqatsi, where its constant rhythm and driving force carried the viewer away to amazing locales. In the case of the intimate (and sometimes suffocating) film The Hours, however, that same urgency seemed out of place.

Now as a music CD to enjoy at home or in the car, the soundtrack may be a better fit. I hope that the DVD of the film will have a "no soundtrack" option, so that we can enjoy the wonderful acting without the constant "Da-da-da-da, Da-da-da-da" of Philip Glass.