Unbreakable

JAMES NEWTON HOWARD / HOLLYWOOD

Spoiler warning! A funny thing happened at the end of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. Before Bruce Willis’ David Dunn appeared, a naggingly familiar theme teased at the neck hairs. Is that the music from…? Audiences who didn’t immediately recognise the melody could be forgiven, of course.

Ask anyone for the definitive superhero themes and they might give you the romantic, muscular or groovy themes from Superman, Batman, the Avengers or Guardians Of The Galaxy. James Newton Howard’s score for Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (2000) is less celebrated, perhaps due to its reserve, non-franchise attachments, or – shockingly – out-of-circulation status. But if the almost subliminal recognition sparked by Split’s climax is any indication, it ranks among the big-hitters on its own terms.

Shyamalan set those terms weeks before shooting when he asked Howard to “write down your emotion in notes”: he wanted the feelings in play to influence Howard more than the images. Just as Unbreakable centres

on an everyman in crisis who takes his time to grab the cape (don’t even mention spandex), so Howard’s score slow-builds by stealth. He worked with a reduced palette of strings, trumpet and piano, complemented by moody, slouching beats and recorded (partially) in a converted church. Theme-wise, two cues cling tight to character, another to an over-arching sense of their shared ‘destiny’; around them, Howard leaves plenty of almost Hitchcock/Herrmann-esque space to let the film’s mysteries breathe.

The descending strings and rising tread of ‘Visions’ stress a sense of introspective foreboding, before its closing notes hint at David’s slow-emerging theme. The brittleboned delicacy of ‘Reflection Of Elijah’ harbours murkier depths, while ‘Weightlifting’ channels David’s near-disbelief in his strengths into a rich, pillowy but coiled workout of the hero theme, suggesting great strengths held in reserve.

As Howard upholds the emotions percolating in Dunn’s house, these themes flow through each other in the following cues, seeding revelations to come. When the big moments land, the score is primed for impact. ‘The Wreck’ arrives in swells of emotion. ‘Blindsided’ mixes Nightmare On Elm Street-ish terror and David’s theme with suggestive echoes of Elijah’s theme, before its climactic cacophonies arrive fully earned. ‘The Orange Man’ gives Dunn’s hero theme due props, while ‘Carrying Audrey’ offers tender notes of emotion. Between these extremes of scale, Unbreakable matches up to Howard’s work with Hans Zimmer on Chris Nolan’s first two Batman films. Somebody give the man a handshake. Kevin Harley